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"It must be left to students of musical semasiology to account for the psychological association that exists between the spiritual concept of goodness and saintliness and the notational accident of the absence of sharps and flats in the key signature, which results in the 'whiteness' of the music."
There are two factors that can make music notation look whiter: one is the absence of sharps and flats, the other is the use of longer note-values (whole notes and half notes).
The first was the subject of an edict from the Council of Trent in the 16th century: the church authorities wanted to clean up the (to them, unnecessarily) complications of church music, including sharps and flats. The product of this reform was . . . Palestrina.
A composition teacher I attended once told me that in his choir-boy days he would judge the interest of a piece of music by how white it looked. Black meant later, therefore interesting, while white (all semibreves and minims) meant earlier (Palestrina etc.) and boring.
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Thank you Andrew Robinson for at least casting some light upon the word-context of this day. I hadn't the faintest what this was all about and didn't dare ask. I was wondering about the "whiteness" of music, but I don't want to openly be the dummy all the time. Thank you for your post. Interesting . Never knew that the Council of Trente kept itself also busy with things like this.  Palestrina... See the connection with pale?
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Not sure I'd want to pay much attention to someone who found Palestrina boring. I hope he came to his senses in later life.
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Welcome, Andrew.
the psychological association that exists between the spiritual concept of goodness and saintliness and the notational accident of the absence of sharps and flats in the key signature
Good heavens--it never occurred to me that there might be such an association. I've played a lot of music, and none of it ever looked spiritually good or otherwise to me. Sound, now--sound can certainly evoke images. Night on the Bald Mountain, for ex.
I'll PM eta about this.
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Not sure I'd want to pay much attention to someone who found Palestrina boring. I hope he came to his senses in later life. Grumble. No need to pay attention to an anonymous composition teacher's childhood opinions. I'm glad Andrew enlightened to some degree the meaning of this rather totally rare word semasiology. I have no particular opinion on Palestrina, but his name in this context reminded me of the old hit " Whiter Shade of Pale". Words, just words. Maybe etaoin will have more to add. The music expert.
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Does this have any relevance to that other thread concerning the expression "that's mighty white of you"? I suppose not. 
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I suppose neither. But to stay on the musical side of the track, I made a disturbing discovery just now. Copying a Handel CD + an Alan Hovhaness CD to my media library files, Vista, taking categorizing out of my hands, did not let Hovhaness pass the "classical " test and categorized him "new age". I don't agree. I'm in shock. Did I give Vista 'carte blanche' to label my CD's? I suppose not. 
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Did I give Vista 'carte blanche' to label my CD's?I'm pretty sure that Vista just downloads the data from the CDDB ( link).
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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heh well, Catholic decrees aren't my usual thing, but I have had an interesting and enjoyable time learning about the Counter-Reformation and all that... it sounds like Palestrina did the best he could considering the restrictions (disclaimer-I very much like Palestrina), but then the best composers always do well with restrictions, e.g. J.S.Bach. (interesting stuff here) as for kids and Palestrina, I'm not surprised at the young choirboy not being thrilled with slower, "beautiful" music, I have the same trouble with my students. fast means better. (too bad for them, we still sing slow, beautiful songs.) as for "white" notes and psychological stuff, I think it's all blowing in the wind.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Thank you etaoin, for adding some more information about the Counter-Reformation. I never knew much about Palestrina but this furthermore instructive YouTube-je is really quite enjoyable, beautiful singing. And the "whiteness" is clearly present. Palestrina
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I'm in shock. Did I give Vista 'carte blanche' to label my CD's? From Microsoft's perspective, yes. They think we are a bunch of morons whose whole aim and purpose in life is to gratefully and gleefully accept with adulation the limited series of so-called 'choices' their inferior operating system gives us. Another example of where MS knows what's best for you: Stupid Vista when importing photos from an Olympus camera I owned, chose to overwrite the Olympus data markers at the start of the files that identified them as panorama photos to be stitched together in the Olympus software, with Vista's information telling Vista where it had imported them to on the Hard Drive. It also corrupted a whole lot of photos when moving them from one USB device to another. I hate Vista. "What's best for M&M enterprises is best for the Army" - Milo Minderbinder, Catch 22.
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Perhaps it's time to drag out the old Vista installation tutorial again. Probably any of you who are having problems didn't install it correctly.
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Ohhhhhhh, thank you for that link, Branshea!! [heart e]
EDIT: I love the internet!!! I found that I could print out the sheet music--free, and legally! I'm really hoping our choir director will let us do it. And may I ask if someone could verify that this translation I found is correct, please?
Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus. ( As the deer longs for running water, so longs my soul for you, O Lord.
Last edited by Jackie; 10/18/08 05:08 AM.
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Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus. ( As the deer longs for running water, so longs my soul for you, O Lord.)
Yes. It is an accurate translation.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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!! > > > I found that I could print out the sheet music--free, and legally! I'm really hoping our choir director will let us do it.
Oh!? Good! Could you tell me how you did that printing, Jackie? It might fit in with my limited piano skills. I couldn't find out how to print this.
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This is Psalm 42:1, Jackie. Here's the King James: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." Our director prefers the Howells version, which I have to say I do like. We sing Howells quite a bit. :0)
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Yes, I knew from research that it was Psalm 42; part of it, rather. But Psalm 42 has many more words than that one sentence, and the only Latin I recognized was Deus.
Thanks, zmjezhd. One more question, please? Is it a hard c or a soft c, in cervus? I'm guessing hard; if so, is it care-voos or curve-oos? Er, p'raps I'd better ask which one is closer to correct?
Branny, I googled Sicut cervus sheet music. I got lots of sites where you could print it out, but if you can't find one, holler and I'll get you one. Sounds like our piano-playing skills might be about on a par with each other. (About the same.)
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One more question, please? Is it a hard c or a soft c, in cervus? I'm guessing hard; if so, is it care-voos or curve-oos?
It'd be hard /k/ if it were Classical Latin (round about Cicero's time), but this is Palestrina in the 16th century, and you're in Kentucky, IIRC. I'd go with Ecclesiastical pronunciation. Treat it like Italian. SEEKoot CHERvoos, etc. (For the record, Classical would be /'kerwus/.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Now I have a question, zmjezhd! I never took any Latin, but we sing in Latin quite frequently, and the "linguists" there always say that "church Latin" is different from Classical Latin. If we were singing "cervus", I think it would be pronounced "sair voos". Is that incorrect? Is there a website that explains the different Latin pronunciations? Who really knows for sure, since it's a dead language? Oops, that's more than "a question", but I hope you don't mind... :0)
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enthusiast
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Who really knows for sure, since it's a dead language? moribund maybe but not dead. how many truly dead languages do you know of that have newspapers and ATM displays written in them? Latin revival
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[smacking palm to my forehead e] It finally occurred to me that I might get it from listening to the song! Unfortunately for me, I can't quite tell. Sometimes I hear it as chair-, and sometimes sair. Ah well; we may not do it anyway.
Edit: First, thank you! Then, [minor outrage e]: it doesn't matter where a person is from; if it's supposed to be care, then we should pronounce it care; chair, then chair; sair, then sair.
(I only get to do pronunciation variations on English!)
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Y'all speak English?? 
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Sometimes I hear it as chair-, and sometimes sair.
The /ʧɛr/ pronunciation would be Church or Italian Latin and the /sɛr/ could be French or English (or maybe if it's /tsɛr/ German. Most of the major languages in Europe have developed their own modes of pronouncing Latin.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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My choir (I am a BWTSTP*) goes overboard about pronouncing Latin; for French composers we use French Latin, for German ones German Latin . . . if it were up to me I would stick with Italian Latin, since they are at least on the spot, even if they have demonstrably altered their pronunciation over the centuries.
But it's all for the fun of it in the end. Nobody knows how it sounded 2000 years ago.
_______________________
*Baritone Willing To Sing Tenor Parts
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*Baritone Willing To Sing Tenor Parts 
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Of course, I found the list too, but the sight of it all made me take a silly direction. The following is silly too and I hope it will not be taken as serious sacrilege: Pachelbel rant Rob Paravonian
Last edited by BranShea; 10/20/08 05:49 PM.
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free choral musicand Howells is great.
formerly known as etaoin...
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If I only liked white notes, would it make me anti-semantic?
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White answer: No,but if you would also only like to read books with blank pages and look at paintings that are just white canvas and murals that are only whitewashed walls, I would say you would be heading towards the anti-semantic. I mean, can white coffee still be called coffee?
Last edited by BranShea; 10/21/08 03:32 PM. Reason: add some creamer
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Only with liberal amounts of creamer! And "white chocolate" is an oxymoron. It may but white, but it sure ain't chocolate!!! :0)
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The hymnbook version of Psalm 42 goes "As pants the hart for cooling streams/When heated in the chase,/So longs my soul, O God, for Thee/And Thy refreshing grace." That dates from 1696, Tate & Brady were responsible. An earlier seventeenth century poet, George Sandys, published a version in 1638 that begins:
Lord, as the Hart imbost with heat
Brayes after the coole Rivolet,
So sighes my soule for thee;
My soule thirsts for the living God:
When shall I enter his abode
And there his beauties see? . . .
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I talked to our choir director last night. She loves the piece but doesn't want us to sing it in Latin. She hadn't been able, either, to find where anyone has substituted English. So today I began, trying not only to keep true to the meaning but true to the sound; that is, keeping the long drawn-out notes and not substituting several short syllables, which I think would ruin the whole impact. Y'all wish me luck, please; I've not tried anything like this before.
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Musical translations are probably among the most difficult ones to achieve. To me, that's one of the strongest arguments for singing a piece in the original language.
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I talked to our choir director last night. She loves the piece but doesn't want us to sing it in Latin. did she say why?
formerly known as etaoin...
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I think mainly because she doesn't know how to pronounce it. But there's also the fact that our little church choir has only twice in the past forty years sung in other languages (Hospodi Pomilwi {sp?} and one short Kyrie), and thus the congregation also isn't used to it. Though I expect our Congolese would love it if we sang in French.
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I think mainly because she doesn't know how to pronounce it. oh pooh, who gives a care? read up a bit on it and just do it. if it's wrong, so what? just claim that it's an accent. you have those down there, I think.  But there's also the fact that our little church choir has only twice in the past forty years sung in other languages (Hospodi Pomilwi {sp?} and one short Kyrie), and thus the congregation also isn't used to it. and that excuse is much worse than the other one. comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
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We have sung in many languages, and our children's choir regularly sings in swahili and other african languages, as well as hebrew and latin. The congregation doesn't usually complain, but it helps that the full translation is always put in the bulletin. We have hymns in the hymnal in a bunch of different languages, too, all phonetically notated. But as etaoin says, it doesn't really matter if it's sung correctly; it's the meaning that counts. As a choir we are much more picky about the pronunciation, but fortunately have "experts" for most. I love latin because it's a similar pronunciation to spanish, and therefore easy for me. But make me sing in french and you might hear a little grousing... ;0)
PS Here's one from our anthem this week that I had to look up: overdight (yes, that's English...)
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