TromboneChat

Trombone 1 part from "American Guernica." Anybody know what the circled directions mean?

I’d assume it’s clock time (6 seconds, 8 seconds etc).

Um .. ask the MD (unless you’re the MD)???

Any chance you have access to the score and can post shots of the measures?

I’m not familiar with the piece, and the youtube vids aren’t all that helpful, so this is a complete guess: " is sometimes used to denote a measurement of length (12" = 12 inches; 19°11'27" = 19 degrees, 2 minutes,7 seconds) or duration (10.2" = 10.2 seconds). Assuming that meas 17-18 are free time (inference based on the printed time sig in m 19), it may indicate that the notes between 6" and 8" in m 17 start 6 sec (or “beats”/figures the notes are marked “conducted”?)* into the measure, and the figure in m 18 repeats for 6 sec/beats.

* Alternatively, the apparent bar line before the first note may indicate that the conducted notes are played between “beat” 6 and beat 8.

This is like the piece "All the Lonely People" by Folke Rabe and one section of the Rouse concerto. You play those sections out of conducted time, lining up with the approximate time in seconds. I imagine that the conductor is just cueing the start of each section.

OT:

The figure in "18" has 33 notes. Would you perform that by mentally subdividing it into triplets or would you purposely avoid that?

robcat2075 wrote: Tue Aug 26, 2025 7:31 am OT:

The figure in "18" has 33 notes. Would you perform that by mentally subdividing it into triplets or would you purposely avoid that?

It's a free time section so no need to try and make it fit any duple or triple pattern.

I've played some other things Hailstork has written where he uses similar notation. Kris is correct, it's elapsed time. The previous mallet pattern continues for 6 seconds. The conductor cues the musicians who play the Gs, which continue for 8 seconds,until the sequence at rehearsal 18 is cued.

This is pretty common notation in new music.