Well, Scotch, you`ve done it. I think there may be a person in the world who knows more about music theory than I do.

JUST KIDDING!!

But seriously - I don`t like nitpickers (or whatever), but your nitpicking seems to be exceptionally intelligent and well-researched. You should be a journalist. Assuming you`re "fair and balanced".

I`m just kidding. "Subjective reporting" is an oximoron in the sense that "benevolent dictator" is.

But this IS a viola forum... so...

Scotch: "I have to say you took this better than I expected. The last viola partisan to whom I presented this arguments screamed obscenities and then refused ever to speak to me again."

Viola partisan? I like that!

S/he screamed obscenities... alas, we violists can be tempermental sometimes. - Not that whatever instrument you play seriously affects one`s pyschological, mental state, such as temper.

Wait, what arguments did you present to the obscenity-flinging viola partisan?

Pretty much those I presented here. I called him a "viola partisan" because he doesn`t actually play the viola at all, oddly enough. I`m not sure what his attachment to the instrument is. He teaches composition at a small private college in Chicago and seems to pride himself on his idiomatic viola writing. Maybe he felt threatened at the prospect of having to re-notate all his music, a fanciful worry at this point, it seems to me.

hmm

interesting...

"Scotch"... are you Scottish? or do you just like scotch?

Did you try to convince him not to write viola music in "viola clef"? (I can never remember the name of the damn clef!) Because if someone did that to me - though not to the point of obscenity-screaming - I would get kind of irritated.

Maybe he`s just mad because he thinks you`re insulting the viola. Which would be odd if he doesn`t even play it...

Fight the man!

...as in "fight the oppresive communist/fascist/monarchist government! Down with the comrade/dictator/king!"

Re: "`Scotch`... are you Scottish? or do you just like scotch?

I`m mostly a warring mixture of Saxon and Celt, thank you, but that has nothing to do with the moniker, which seemed to me at the time compact and punchy. The only hard liquors I can tolerate are gin (because it has virtually no taste at all--in a Tom Collins), coconut rum, and Bailey`s Irish Cream, and I drink any of these extremely rarely. How about yourself?

Re: "Did you try to convince him not to write viola music in `viola clef`?

Not I. My point is that the viola`s modern use of the alto clef is an historical fortuity rather than a match made in heaven. I don`t propose to do anything about it other than remark on it--a safe non-virtual distance from viola partisans.

>Because if someone did that to me - though not to the point of obscenity-screaming - I would get kind of irritated.

Since presumably you are most fluent in the alto clef it`s a bit different for you. If I were to propose that we do away with the alto clef, I should first have to achieve a consensus among a reasonably sized group of knowledgeable musicians. A strong argument against such a campaign is a of course the great quantity of viola music written in it, pretty much every orchestral score. Were such a consensus nevertheless achieved, we should need to conceive a some reasonable way to affect a transition.

>Maybe he`s just mad because he thinks you`re insulting the viola. Which would be odd if he doesn`t even play it...

Yes, well this is odd too. It would be difficult to insult any other modern instrument analogously.

For a forum post you have a remarkably small amount of typos!

"The only hard liquors I can tolerate are gin" - you ARE over 21, aren`t you?

I hope...?

What does "Re" stand for anyway? I know Scotch will know

Re: "For a forum post you have a remarkably small amount of typos!"

There are those two superfluous "a"`s in the penultimate paragraph of my previous posting. I can`t explain them.

Re: "you ARE over 21, aren`t you?"

Quite.

"I hope...?"

You hope I`m not drinking illicitly? (I drink so little it would scarcely matter.)

Re: "What does "Re" stand for anyway?"

"Regarding"--at least it had better.

You did know!

In that forum post alone, I read "superfluous", "penultimate", "previous", and "illicitly". Thankfully I know what all those words mean but still... this is a forum, dude! Lowir ur eye kyoo a littel!

Wow! I don’t think some people realize that doing away with the alto clef would be very impractical. Why would anyone want to do that anyways? It really does not make sense. Viola music is written in alto clef. It always has been and always will be. This idea really actually sounds quite perverse to me. I’m don’t ever think this could happen. That’s like making cellos read from alto clef (transposing).

I refer you to my previous statement: Dis is a forum, dude! Lowir ur eye kyoo a littel!

Re: "Wow! I don’t think some people realize that doing away with the alto clef would be very impractical. Why would anyone want to do that anyways? It really does not make sense."

I don`t know that anyone is advocating that--at least anyone here.

Re: "Viola music is written in alto clef. It always has been and always will be."

Famous last words.

Re: "This idea really actually sounds quite perverse to me. I’m don’t ever think this could happen. That’s like making cellos read from alto clef (transposing)."

It`s not at all like making cellos read from alto clef--which, by the bye, would not be transposing. Violists have to read treble clef anyway because their upper range requires it, and all reasonably literate violists should read bass clef as well. Aside from violists and musical antiquarians, knowledge of the alto clef is only required of composers and conductors, whose lives would be much simpler if violists had joined the rest of the musical world.

Re: "I refer you to my previous statement: Dis is a forum, dude! Lowir ur eye kyoo a littel!"

Without recourse to scotch?