Comments on: Blue Rondo a la Turk

By: Christian Page

Christian Page — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:36:30 +0000

In Ken Burn’s “Jazz”, Dave Brubeck says that the inspiration for BRALT came from a trip to Turkey and talking with Turkish musicians….
So much for Wikipedia…

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:53:14 +0000

THANK YOU! I am just a guy who has always loved Brubeck’s music and recently got Blue Rondo for a ring tone! The title has always mystified me and I finally found your commentary and link to Mozart’s Rondo alla Turka. Isn’t the web wonderful… small pleasures in learning. Thank you again.

By: John

John — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:02:36 +0000

Zac, yes, LilyPond goes make you specify that B's are flat in the key of F even though it doesn't add an explicit flat sign. See my update to the LilyPond post. I agree it's strange.

By: Zac

Zac — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:39:03 +0000

I also love Dave Brubeck’s stuff – it can be exhausting to listen to (especially if you analyze all the beats, which you almost HAVE to), but must have been a buzz to play.

Thanks also for the music in LaTeX article (that was a new application of LaTeX for me). Do you really have to tell it that B is flat or can you just put B by itself? It seems that the resulting manuscript doesn’t have an extra flat symbol anyway.

By: Richard Elwes

Richard Elwes — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:35:51 +0000

Similarly music in 'even time' (such as 8/8), can be divided 'oddly' (e.g as 3+3+2/8). I've tried to play Bartok's Bulgarian dances, not very successfully. (Bartok studied eastern European music as well as being a composer in his own right.) See also Cuban Clave rhythms. And then samba, bossa, etc - all get their individual feels from the way they divide up the bars.