Notes inégales
In music, notes inégales is a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. The practice was especially prevalent in France in the 17th and 18th centuries, with appearances in other European countries at the same time. It reappeared as the standard performance practice in the 20th century in jazz. The phrase notes inégales means "unequal notes" in French.
History[edit]
Pre-modern era[edit]
The practice of notating pairs of unequal note lengths as pairs with equal notated value may go as far back as the earliest music of the Middle Ages; indeed some scholars believe that some plainchant of the Roman Catholic Church, including Ambrosian hymns, may have been performed as alternating long and short notes. This interpretation is based on a passage in Saint Augustine where he refers to the Ambrosian hymns as being in tria temporum (in three beats); e.g. a passage rendered on the page (by a later transcriber) as a string of notes of equal note value would be performed as half note, quarter note, half note, quarter note, and so on, in groups of three beats.
The rhythmic modes, with their application of various long–short patterns to equal written notes, may also have been a precursor to notes inégales, especially as they were practiced in France, specifically by the Notre Dame School. However the gap between the late 13th century ars antiqua use of the rhythmic modes and the middle of the 16th century, when Loys Bourgeois first mentioned notes inégales, is a large one, and little trace of the practice can be found in the fluid polyphony of the intervening period.
French origins[edit]
It was in France, beginning in the late 16th century, that notes inégales began to take on a critical role in performance practice. The earliest treatises that mention inequality of notes in performance indicate that the reason for this practice is to add beauty or interest to a passage which otherwise would be plain. Over 85 music theory and performance treatises from France alone mention the topic between 1550 and 1810, with the large majority written between 1690 and 1780. Within this body of writing there is considerable inconsistency, but by the late 17th century a consensus practice began to emerge.
The typical rule, from the late 17th century until the French Revolution, is that notes inégales applies to all notes moving stepwise which have a duration of one quarter the denominator of the meter, for instance, eighth notes in a meter of 2
2, or sixteenth notes in a meter of 4
4; and one half the denominator of the meter in cases of triple or compound meter, for instance, eighth notes in 3
4, sixteenth notes in 3
8, 6
8 and 9
8. In addition, the inégales could only function on one metrical level; for example, if sixteenths are to be played long–short, long–short, an even eighth-note pulse must be carefully maintained for the music to retain its shape.[2]
In Georg Muffat's codification of notes inégales in the Lullist tradition, he says it is the first level of diminution that is subject to inequality procedure.
Sometimes the notes inégales are notated as unequal, for example in some of the keyboard works of François Couperin, where he uses a dot to indicate the lengthened note. This and similar passages by Rameau (in his first Gavotte) clearly show that this means to apply an even greater amount of inequality to dotted eighth–sixteenth note pairs than to eighth–eighth pairs, which are already understood to be played unequally. The exact amount of inequality required is also unspecified, and most of the treatises leave this detail to the taste of the performer. It may have varied from double-dotted to minimally perceptible, depending on the context. Some recent papers and books include a full analysis of this topic as well as practical guides for the performer. Also, musical clocks have been discovered from the period that show the dotting very clearly[3][4] as such devices have "preserved performances of notes inégales that are often as subtle as a 3:2 ratio (i.e. three fifths of a beat for the first note, two fifths for the second in the pair), as well as the more obvious 2:1 ratio (triplets), and 3:1 (dotted eighth–sixteenth pairs and their multiples).[5][6][7][8]
Present day[edit]
Jazz[edit]
A similar practice to notes inégales occurs from the 20th century to the present day, in jazz, although the term "swung note" is used by jazz musicians and listeners. Indeed, it is so universally understood that a stream of eighth notes is to be rendered unequally that the phrase "straight eighths" is used whenever a jazz arranger wants a performer to play eighth notes evenly. In jazz practice, in addition, it is common for the notes not only to differ in duration but in intensity. Swung eighths written on the beat are generally read as a pair of triplet eighth-notes tied together, while notes written on off-beats are played as single triplet eighth notes. Therefore, the underlying rhythmic grid to most jazz music is an eighth note triplet pattern. Most musicians don't do the math involved in playing notes, instead simply feeling an uneven subdivision. Occasionally, sixteenth notes are swung and played fitting into a thirtysecond-note triplet grid.
The similarity to the rule of 17th-century France is striking, in that jazz is organized in rhythmic layers, with chord changes often at the level of the bar or half-bar, followed by a quarter-note beat, and an eighth-note level in which notes are played freely, and almost always unevenly. Some scholars (2) have speculated a connection by way of the influence of French music in New Orleans on early jazz styles.
Sacred Harp[edit]
Traditional Sacred Harp singers often sing in the rhythm of notes inégales, thus deviating from the printed notes; for details see Performance practice of Sacred Harp music.