Thomas Young's INSANE 1800 Tempo Table re-assessed (and finally put to use)

[@EdmundoPFN]

Amazing work, Wim! Thank you!

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

Impressed that you address the problems with this paper head on and then go on to find what must be the only realistic solution to it, though you are honest in presenting alternative interpretations. The alternatives that claim that these many great people of the past were too stupid to see that their claims were impossible are a lot more problematic. Especially the composers.

[@reflechant]

With current education system where people are divided between STEM and humanities it's difficult for us to understand people like Young

[@music_appreciation]

An all-purpose table of tempo marks for 18th century music? I'm in! Let's start playing symphonies by Haydn and Mozart according to Young! (By the way, notice that for "Prestissimo" he writes "As fast as you can"--I guess that meant as fast as you can play on period instruments, NOT on a Steinway or Yamaha.)

[@davidgonzalez-herrera2980]

We gotta create a database or social interaction place where musicians could try to meet and practice playing at these tempi together. We need whole beat ensemble training grounds

[@roberacevedo8232]

Great idea

[@soundhill1]

The lowest frequency on a piano is 27.5 Hz, which is almost at the start of the human hearing range. The pitch of the notes would not be heard for a tempo of some 15 notes per second as it takes a few cycles to hear a note. In the Eroica Symphony the finale is marked 76 minims. That would be about 10 semiqyavers per second. There the lowest double bass note is E flat which would have a frequency of under 40 cycles per second (some double basses get their E string tuned down to play the note) So for that length of note pitch would just be coming out of the imaginary category to the really heard: about 4 cycles of note. The presto at the end is marked quaver = 116 which would be 3.87 semiquavers per second. So there culd be a convention when you write the metronome marking in terms of a minum that it means the full cycle metronome but not if a a quaver or other note is timed.

[@christianiacuzzi1572]

Hope I am not late, but I want to add this: in the Pesic article it is said that Young, in his lectures, said that "a circular pendulum complete a Revolution in the time of two vibrations of a Linear Pendulum". If that's true wouldn't that go against your argument? I am very interested in the topic and my teacher (M. Miani Who you probably know) often Tells me about this kind of things so I really want to learn more

[@awfulgoodmovies]

The Round Swing: This swing hangs from a long rope and goes in circles. The Regular Swing: This is the normal swing that goes back and forth. The sentence is saying: The round swing takes the same amount of time to go in one big circle as it takes the regular swing to go back and forth TWO times. So, the round swing is a bit slower than the regular swing!

[@klausjens2427]

I cannot stress enough how thankful I am that you make your knowlegde available for the public. It is good to know that my lifelong gut-feeling about tempi is right, but terrible to realize how many people just do not care. Your quest is worthy, important and good.

[@picksalot1]

It was said long ago "For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This seems particularly true in tempo reconstruction. Keep up the good work Wim.

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

I happened across a thesis online that astonished me. I think if you don't know it yet you should read it, it proves that there is considerable evidence from his contemporaries that Franck certainly indicated metronome speeds at whole-beat, as well as Reger, etc. CÉSAR FRANCK'S METRONOME MARKINGS FOR HIS ORGAN WORKS BEc LLB A Mus A (Piano Performing) WENSLEYDALE PRESS

[@saracubarsi]

Great. Thanks again! I hope one day I find the musicians that take this issue seriously and want to try it with me...

[@saracubarsi]

We are so used to playing fast and flashy, it's hard to slow down specially to find other people that are willing to try experimenting with reordering our musical priorities. So many other things become more important if you slow down, the fragilities of the different temperaments, modulations, articulation, etc... Like tuning, it might be one of these things that are difficult to 'relearn' in some contexts

[@saracubarsi]

If you ever need a keen violinist let me know ! [e-mail]

[@blacklisted4885]

This is all hilarious, I love these re-descoveries of things we're told by experts are impossible

[@lerippletoe6893]

This reminds me of how the instructions for Roman concrete were lost right before our very eyes because what was literally written did not work. It turned out when they called for water, they really meant seawater, and that aspect was so obvious they did not specify. Then the written instructions worked. Quite obviously Thomas Young was not a fool, and people were not playing at physically impossible tempi, so this apparent discrepancy had to be built within the cultural context of the words in the situation he was describing. I don't yet know anything about all of that pendulum writing stuff you mention but it makes sense that there is a language discrepancy going on because you have to reason one or the other, not drawing something arbitrarily in the middle. Since the measurements can be confirmed and the correspondence to the geological day remains accurate, you're left with those options you gave for sure. The only aspect I have no idea for is how people gave tempos for triple meters. Did they give double beat tempos knowing it would produce a hemiola? Did pianists get used to coordinating this, or did they just get an idea of the tempo and not bother with the metronome in those instances? Did people look at markings which with a subdivision would go beyond the physical capability of metronomes, so just convert it to single beat? People often talk about records of certain performance durations for making a case against your ideas, but that is only evidence if the composer approved of the tempi, and there was no political or public relations twist behind that approval. And it's easier to err a bit faster for a long symphony. I certainly cannot imagine CPE Bach's statement that his father played fast making any sense if it were the case transitively that galant music in CPE's lifetime was already blazing fast by our modern standards.

[@gmallada]

I think that one of the problems is finding instruments (pianos) that can respond to perfection. For years I studied Chopin's study of thirds on an upright piano, and the result was always a disaster. One good day I tried a steinway and all the problems were gone. Sadly, not all pianists can have a quality instrument at their disposal, especially for the virtuoso repertoire. Tempo is an election for each player for me. Regards from Argentina!

[@roberacevedo8232]

Pero cuando te aprendes algo, tratas de seguir la partitura lo más posible. No cambias notas, ni dinámicas. Entonces si el compositor dio un tempo específico, porque cambiar eso? Claro está, que verdaderamente no todos tienen que seguir el tempo indicado. Pero es algo que debe ser por lo menos chequeado.

[@gmallada]

@@roberacevedo8232 Hola!, bueno principalmente por que si bien no todos pueden tocar a tempos muy rapidos, no es motivo para no tocar dichas obras.... Por ejemplo, si tuviera que elegir entre no tocar una obra... y tocarla un poco mas lenta para asi poder ejecutarla.... claramente optaria por lo segundo. Aunque debo admitir que ciertas obras son exclusivamente para ser ejecutadas y "Estudiadas" en pianos livianos y de mucha precision. Muchas veces me paso estudiar obras complejas en pianos verticales... y verdaderamente es imposible.... perdida de tiempo esfuerzo y sobre todo terminas con una sensacion de fracaso.... Hasta que despues pasas a un piano de verdad y ahi te das cuenta de por que el piano original es de cola. Es triste saber que el 80% de los estudiantes fracasan muchas veces por el instrumento que tienen a su disposicion.... Es como un violinista que utilice toda su formacion un violin de 100 dolares chino.... claramente solo sirve para iniciarse... En los pianistas es aun mas grave por que un piano de cola bueno sale mas de 10.000 dolares

[@roberacevedo8232]

Tú historia si que es relacionable. Y también entiendo lo que estás diciendo. Has escuchado en este canal el etude de terceras? Siguiendo la teoría es más lento. Pero personalmente más hermoso no pudiera ser.

[@VRnamek]

well, sadly Chopin didn't have a Steinway available, let alone his students

[@gmallada]

@@VRnamek yes, but antique pleyel was light pianos. The actual pianos are very heavy and much more louder sonority.

[@AC-uy4fl]

Hi Wim, I would be interested in understanding how the great misunderstanding about the tempi is happened. Until now, I have saw a lot of your videos in which you explain that until the early 1800s musicians adopted the "double beat theory", and in the early 1900s (the so-called "early recordings") we observe that musicians yet adopted the "single beat theory" , which has become the current one. I wanted to ask you if you could link me the video where you explain how it happened that the musicians abandoned the old theory with the new one, I haven't been able to find it, yet. I'm curious to understand who were the first "heretics", why they started to not respecting the times indicated, why no one of the old tradition masters was indignant listening to them, and, above all, why they started to consider the times indicated in a single beat. I can't understand how the "transition" is happened. It's like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. If you could link me to the video in which you better explain this passage, I would be infinitely grateful. Thank you for your job!

[@roberacevedo8232]

Im not going to answer your question. I just want to correct you on something. Old recordings still do not reach SB. They are slower than what was written. That is in the case of the old composers not the new ones. However, you still hear pieces being played in DB, or very close to it.

[@AuthenticSound]

Never. both readings existed, Novello is one of the first SB editors (1821), heavily critized by Maelzel for using his metronome as an ordinary clock. I'll come back on that in the future - as it will be described in the new book)

[@AC-uy4fl]

@@AuthenticSound Thanks Wim!

[@classicgameplay10]

@@AuthenticSound where do we see maelzel criticize Novello ?

[@r0d3r1cvs]

I watched this video two weeks ago when I was struggling with Dolmetsch's book about Interpretation in the 17th and 18th centuries. What you've showed gave me some breath. Arnold quotes exactly what Quantz developed as a way of measuring the tempo. This flautist currently wrote a rate of 80 per minute, what in nowadays rates is normal and if it were the half (40) it would be still proper as a flute player such as athletes do. Then I came across with John Floyer's physician pulse watch (ca. 1707) describing the outcomes he got from the subjects of his study (basically himself and some children). Those are also like the currents rates depending on the circumstances: Floyer's own pulse oscillated between 76-95, and those regarding the children up to 106 (varying ages but he quotes one boy of 3 and girls of 5 and 6), nevertheless if it were the half it would be too low for a child (normally 75-115 for these kids). This is something hard to explain. May there be disagreement in the method they used. Another issue is what Dolmetsch's says about Dom Bedos mechanical organ cylinder. It's not entirely exact, anyways what I've got is that the roll wouldn't be so uniform thus the cylinder hadn't be filled [fully]. 'It may be that they would not be so even, had not the "cylinder" to be filled. Still they cannot have been much out, and they indicate a standard of speed wich effectually disposes of the notion that the old music was played slower than that of the present time' p. 52 of his book. Nothing about how he came to that statement. In fact, Dom Bedos wrote in his work "L'art du facteur d'orgues", starting from his indications, that the cylinder is entirely filled. Both in Bedos and in Dolmetsch's quote of the Benedictine Monk there is consistency. So what's the matter with Arnold? 🤔 Bedos may be right. Hence I can't explain totally: how to bring those measurements to its actual use considering these two questions. There may be a source wich can solve this. It's important to remember that the definitive time standardization was in 1967 (cesium second). Seconds and minutes were just divisions of the time: The first division, partes minutae primae, known simply as the "minute" and partes minutae secundae, known as the second. Some of the first clocks had a minute hand counterclockwise and a second hand that made a cycle every 5 minutes.

[@thomashughes4859]

Dr. Thomas Young's suggestion of a simple number at the beginning of a piece of music should have been adopted. All of this would have been absolute. Wait, it still is as he recorded it in 1800. Some choose to ignore him. Too bad; wrong side of history.

[@simonagonistes8844]

It's hard to believe that Young's concept 'minute' should mean 'metrical minute' or some other term. Surely he would have specified that as a scientific thinker? Having said that there are old traditions of 'hours' being subdivided in different ways: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_hour

[@pentirah5282]

It makes complete sense to me. If that is not the solution, then what is?

[@weltsauerstoff]

What you call the Mersenne paradox is indeed very paradox. In his Essay on Music, from which you quoted, Young gives also a table for the "number of vibrations in a minute, corresponding to pendulums of different lengths". According to this table a pendulum of 40 inches (somewhat more than 100 centimeters) makes 59 vibrations per minute. A vibration is of course a complete swing back and forth. But a complete swing back and forth of a pendulum of ca. 39 inches has the duration of *two* seconds and therefore 60 vibrations have a duration of *two* minutes. All very strange.

[@weltsauerstoff]

@@dorette-hi4j Please, try to keep the different sources apart.

[@weltsauerstoff]

@@dorette-hi4j Nice found. :)

[@Aalii6]

interesting source, thank you for sharing it!

[@classicgameplay10]

Can I find this quanz source anywhere online ? Which other sources should I read ?

[@sshawnuff]

I don't really get the problem with Young's numbers given at about 2:10 in the video. Allegro assai, for instance, has 40 4/4 bars in 1 minute, which means 160 quarter notes per minute. Or, ok, Haydn's allegro molto in the 2/4 column: 100 2/4 bars, which is 200 bpm. On the other hand: "A seconds pendulum is a pendulum whose period is precisely two seconds; one second for a swing in one direction and one second for the return swing, a frequency of 0.5 Hz". Or in german: "Als Sekundenpendel bezeichnet man ein Pendel, das für eine Halbschwingung (in der Uhrmacherei „Schlag“ genannt) genau eine Sekunde benötigt."

[@MatthieuStepec]

>Tries to demonstrate that oscillations were always measured in full, in order to apply the same to the metronomes and justify double beat theory > Accidentally proves the opposite, because a minute isn't simply defined as 60 seconds, but as a subdivision of a day. 1 minute couldn't have been counted as 2 minutes. The "only variable" left for interpretation of Young's table isn't the minute (that's actually the constant!) But possibly the bar, if anything.

[@MatthieuStepec]

@@JérémyPresle his explanation is simply erroneous. As was said in other comments on this video, Young asks the reader to use a stopwatch to measure the minute, if available. Since the minute is not defined as "60 seconds" but rather as "1/60 of an hour", which in turn is 1/24th of a day, there is little doubt as a to the length of a minute as understood by Young.

[@MatthieuStepec]

@@JérémyPresle I don't explain them. I'm just saying that Wim's attempt at explaining it is demonstrably not the right one.

[@MatthieuStepec]

@@JérémyPresle I'm not saying there is nothing to explain. I'm saying that this explanation is demonstrably false (and quite easily so).

[@dougr.2398]

Mezen? Spelling & references please, Wim?

[@tomhase7007]

So in other words, the solution is that one of the smartest people of his time did not know how to measure a minute. I am sorry, but "bars per minute" is "bars per minute".

[@AuthenticSound]

exactly. Question is how the minute was defined. And that was made clear by Mersenne, talking on what we call today the Time Period of one second. If Young would not have measured the tempi in this way, he indeed would have been out of his mind.

[@tomhase7007]

@@AuthenticSound So, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the minute was twice as long as nowadays in previous times? Does this mean that also the hours were twice as long? What about the days? I am just trying to understand the consequences of all this.

[@TheDescendre]

Thank you so much, as usual

[@fergusbyett8088]

Sooo now it's our seconds that are twice as fast as they used to be? Sorry Wim I'm trying to understand your arguments but I'm struggling

[@thomashughes4859]

Fergus, the pendulum with a length of just short of a metre will "beat" 60 per minute; however, its time period is exactly 2 seconds, and that "seconds pendulum" with the time period of 2 seconds was called the "second". That's it. :D

[@johncoleman7122]

"...like the pendulum is still used today by physicians,..." I think you mean "physicists", don't you?

[@AuthenticSound]

yes!

[@123Joack]

watching this while playing 16 notes a second on my 1000BC pipe organ ahahha. Go practice!

[@surgeeo1406]

But which second... 🤔🤭

[@johnb6723]

LOL

[@kevingilchrist1684]

1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi... Speeding up a recording of a fortepiano doesn’t show that the action wouldn’t be able to keep up?? How fast could a new and well regulated fortepiano really be played and still sound like a musical instrument?

[@roberacevedo8232]

As a pianist I find this ridiculous. The piano isn’t the one that plays itself, it’s the pianist. Hearing the sped up recordings, you realize that that is no acceptable speed.

[@thomashughes4859]

Kevin, in my experience playing football in the neighbourhood in New York, the rusher used to say that for a three or five-second rush. Notice the stress on the "íppi" in Mississippi. If you take a pendulum of 9 & 3/4", and get it swinging, you'll be able see the 1-Mississippi, etc., and find the "íppi" on the second beat (the return swing), now you're in business! 🏈⏳

[@donaldherson795]

Why do you have to use other great pianists names ? Just to make more audience ?

[@surgeeo1406]

If yes... so what? Is it bad to make more audience?

[@surgeeo1406]

Oh wait, you're another person who made an account just to complain, aren't you... Nevermind then, ignore me.

[@roberacevedo8232]

I’m sorry but who doesn’t? I hope you go and post the same in Two set videos. Or are you just here to whine because you don’t like what Wim is doing?

[@willemeret2398]

@@roberacevedo8232 hahahahaha 😂😂😂ummm Valentina didn’t and now she’s killin it with 600k plus subs and a worldwide following! 🤦‍♂️

[@roberacevedo8232]

I can’t believe that it’s necessary to mention that Who doesn’t is not literal. Plus 600k is nothing compared to the nearly 3M from two set. A channel that literally takes other musicians and talk about them ALL THE TIME. Other Chanel’s that are not necessarily in English do it as well to compare and contrast. It’s fair game

[@johannpetersen3637]

So basically you are saying that days lasted twice as long up until the turn of the century, and all off a sudden they became half as short, and no one recorded that change? Seriously?

[@baronmeduse]

More quackery. I suppose once you've dug this deep you just have to hope that if you keep on digging you'll come out the other end and hit sunlight. It's painful to watch though.

[@AuthenticSound]

If it's painful, it probably struck a string.

[@baronmeduse]

@@AuthenticSound It did and the note was completely out of tune.

[@AuthenticSound]

Then please show me a recording in the tempi suggested by Young. And then we can talk further. I know it gets tricky when intstruments are pulled in to the discussion (without irony), but if you can't stand the heat, ... be wisely with spreading words you might not realize the full scope of. Someone who truly knows the problem, more in detail than in slogans, will realize there is something not right in our current position

[@baronmeduse]

​@@AuthenticSound You're asking for something that doesn't exist because you are taking a completely mistaken approach to Young's essay. And for what reason? This entire 'new theory' is not even new. It has been a discussion in musicology for 200+ years. A pretty good paper (from 2014) by Peter Pesic explains how Young's analysis is perfectly reasonable (also addressing the fallacy of 'whole beat' with regard to pendulums, which Young - with a solid understanding of mechanics - refers to as two 'vibrations' or half-'swings' constituting a full 'revolution', but that the 59 counts per minute are 'swings' or 'vibrations' therefore half of a revolution. Pesic also describes how Young's tempi descriptions are specified as describing compositions "without semiquavers" so that indeed the tempi slow down (though not every time half or more) when semiquavers are present. The question of tempi being slower for certain works under certain conditions and time signatures (as clearly explained by Young) is correct, the suggestion that it is because one beat is two swings of a pendulum is false and unscientific nonsense. Here's Pesic: "As an example, consider Mozart’s first published piano sonata, KV 189d (279), which has sixteenth-note subdivisions throughout its common time. According to Young’s table interpreted literally, there should be forty-five measures per minute, hence quarter note = MM 180, which would be absurdly fast-in fact, roughly twice too fast. If we reinterpret Young as giving the next-to-smallest subdivision (i.e., eighth notes in this case), we get quarter note = MM 90, which is quite comfortable and in fact much less hurried than the tempi one often hears for this movement, which tend to be around quarter note = MM 120, tending to make the short trills (as in mm. 2, 4, etc.) sound rushed and graceless." There's also a discussion of William Crotch (same era) giving faster tempo for Bach performances than 'contemporary' Mozart performances. In light of this I find your 'theory' limited and simplistic and in mechanics terms, just wrong. scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1276&context=ppr

[@AuthenticSound]

Your point being: it is no problem to play in tempo with constant speeds of +15, 20 even 25 notes per second. And if so, live in peace man, you have a great career ahead of you, since you will overpower even the Lang Lang's of this planet by more than doubling their maximum speed. Carnegy hall is waiting! and what is more: you would be the first to play all the 19th century works in the metronome marks in the reading you seem to believe they were supposed to be read. That urge for authenticity drives you, I can feel it, so I'll be your biggest fan. On a more serious note: what exactly is your solution you want to propose? BTW: I am a big fan of Bordewijk, no kidding, though it has been years since I read him