Well spotted - he’s written a slash chord (diagonal line) where he seems to intend to write what I was trained to call a polychord fraction (horizontal line). Still cool stuff though
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Double Bass "Hexachord"
- Thread starter Steve Freides
- Start date
Well spotted - he’s written a slash chord (diagonal line) where he seems to intend to write what I was trained to call a polychord fraction (horizontal line). Still cool stuff though
“To avoid misunderstandings” was the reason I was taught (and apparently Jerry Bergonzi too) that you delineate a chord over a bass note like this: B/C bass.
That way, when someone hands you a hand written chart with a slash that is somewhere between horizontal and 45 degrees, you don’t have to pull out a protractor to discern the composer’s intent.
“To avoid misunderstandings” was the reason I was taught (and apparently Jerry Bergonzi too) that you delineate a chord over a bass note like this: B/C bass.
That way, when someone hands you a hand written chart with a slash that is somewhere between horizontal and 45 degrees, you don’t have to pull out a protractor to discern the composer’s intent.
Although realistically you’re about 100 times more likely to run into a slash chord than a polychord fraction on any sort of bandstand where it would make a difference
Honesty compels me to admit I’ve been on a few gigs that could be more accurately transcribed using polychord fractions.
Maybe, but writing “bass” next to an intended bass note removes any ambiguity.Although realistically you’re about 100 times more likely to run into a slash chord than a polychord fraction on any sort of bandstand where it would make a difference
I reckon that’s why it’s kind of the standard nomenclature in much of the jazz world.
Latin precursor of “do”.
- Monks at the end of the first millennia were struggling with the need to remember some 80 consecutive hours of liturgy
- in the 11ct a Benedictine choirmaster named Guido (more properly Guido Monaco - Guido the monk - since Arezzo’s claim of him having been born there is disputed) invents solfege as one of several tools to teach/memorize, writes hymn “Ut Queant Laxis” (a hymn to Saint John) to teach it
- each of the six successive phrases starts on next degree of scale; successive initial syllables are ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la
- hundreds of years later, theoreticians address the gap by signing it by adding the gap note to represent “si” (sanctus iohannes) at the end
- it’s now become a very widespread tool, so theoreticians tweak it for greater “singability” so each syllable starts on a different consonant and ends with a nice sustainable vowel
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sorry for the ambiguity, but it seemed like you were saying it was standard terminology to write “B/C bass” instead of simply B/C. That’s undeniably accepted and unambiguous terminology, but in actual practice I rarely see it, and I never write it. It’d be too verbose.
Now that this thread has strayed, I thought I'd post an update. After giving the matter some thought, my son opted to take the theory program at his new school from the very beginning and not try to play catch-up on all this.
Thanks, folks.
-S-
Thanks, folks.
-S-
