[nesfa-reading-group] Friday's Reading Group

[cjhi newcastle2.com]

wrt pitch:

ISTR that the two-way tone in Mandarin is down-up, not up-down. But I learned 25 years ago, so.... (Note that this is specific to Mandarin; IIUC, Cantonese has more tones.)

And pitch in English corresponds to stress (cf the beats in poetry) rather than distinguishing one word from another; I don't think there's any analogy with Mandarin. Some people singing English pay no attention to stress, others try to sing with appropriate stress, and conductors commonly encourage the latter. Unlike Mandarin, this is a field I'm ... familiar ... with.

Returning to the latest topic: AFAIK there's still a copy of Davy in my "mailbox" at the NESFA clubhouse, which is open Wednesdays and Saturdays; this is in addition to the library's copy

/CHip
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From: reading-group <reading-group-bounces at lists.nesfa.org> on behalf of David G. Grubbs <dggrubbs at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 8, 2024 2:57 PM
To: NESFA Reading Group <reading-group at lists.nesfa.org>
Subject: Re: [nesfa-reading-group] Friday's Reading Group

At least two months ago, Ihad a copy of Davy shipped to my local library from the Massachusetts Commonwealth catalogue. I am done with it and will return in the next couple of days.

On Sun, Dec 8, 2024 at 14:12 Wesley Brodsky <wesbrodsky at alum.mit.edu<mailto:wesbrodsky at alum.mit.edu>> wrote:
Hello Everybody;

During Friday's Reading Group, we decided to go ahead with Davy by Edgar Pangborn for the Friday, January 3, 2025 discussion. I have ordered a copy which I intend to give to my local library when I finish.

It was also suggested that I (Wes) send out an email to the group asking about who has access to "Davy"; I think now this is just to get an idea of how hard it is to access. People who have found access easy or difficult are requested to reply. Since this novel is a World Fantasy Award winner, and Hugo and Nebula Award nominee; is seemed odd that is seemed difficult to find.

On a totally unrelated topic, the subject of the Chinese Mandarin language came up. This language has "4 tones" which specify pitch modulation as continuous, up, up-down, and down. Someone with a better ear for music than me wondered how this is reconciled with pitch in sung music. After some discussion about what singing, pitch, and rhyming in music was with a native Chinese Mandarin speaker, we came to the conclusion that the 4 tones take secondary importance to the pitch as composed for the music. This is also done in English singing, where the pitch used is ofter very different from that used in ordinary speech. This could lead to some confusion in cases like the Chinese Mandarin words for "where" and "there" which differ only in which tone is used. Anyway, that is my answer.

-Wes
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