7 lines to a stave instead of 5.

[goldtopia]

Years ago when we joined the EEC The government changed British imperial weights from pounds to European kilos and the liquid measure from gallons to litres. Since then I have never been able to see exactly what I'm getting. If I really want to know I have to use a calculator to find out. They even messed up our currency. It used to 250 pennies to the pound, now it is 100 pennies to the pound, which means quicker inflation. The kids of today are now all educated in the new EEC system so for them it would be confusing if we were to convert back to the imperial system. Most of these kids are now in their 40's. Us pensioners who still think in the way of the old British imperial systems are now the minority, so we don't matter any more. Though Im very pleased and surprised Brussels have not messed about with the rudiments of music and left it as it is., but I bet someone in Brussels is thinking about it. Instead of 4/4 we will get 5/4 crochets to the bar, and 7 lines to a stave instead of 5. So you don't think they would do it. Don't you bet on it. its about all there is left for them to mess about with.

 

[welsh]

250 pennies to a pound? Must be the welsh were under valued then, as we were only allowed 240 pennies to the pound. Let me see... 12p per shilling, 20 shillings per pound... yup 240!

Just be thankful that the pennies are lighter now, they simply float out of your pocket!

What is the matter with using the 'Grand Staff' anyway, get the most with 11 lines. With a lot of music read on computer and pads of some sort, is there a reason we can''t use it (not many trees will be chopped down when you read on a screen)? You get the full view of the music both bass and treble, if you have problems counting the lines, have the D, C & B lines in bold (counting from the bottom to top).

Trev

 

[Soulsaver]

y 240 pennies to £1

 

[simonking]

Oh dear. Sadly, none of this is true - Britain made the decision to use the much more sensible metric system long before the EU or EEC got involved. Unfortunately, the attempt was only half-arsed so now we still have many people using the illogical and confusing imperial system!

 

[Soulsaver]

It's true there were 240 pennies to the pound...

 

[goldtopia]

Yes, sorry. My mistake 240 pennies to the pound. It so long ago I'm starting to lost my marbles. And there are still 4 crochets to the bar instead of 5 for common time, and 5 lines to the stave instead of 7. Though Brussels could change that.

 

[dunlustin]

I'm not sure the Imp system was illogical - it just became a problem when someone invented Physics.

By the way what could be more unlikely than a cent = 1/100 of a semitone? Try using that without a machine to help you.

And while we're at it, try working out a the cost of a newspaper @ seventeen shillings and sixpence a quire (26) bought with a 12 and a half percent discount.

 

[goldtopia]

I use to be a printer before I retired and I must admit, changing to A5, A4, A3, etc is a lot easier than quires and foolscap.

 

[Anyanka]

I grew up with metric, but on moving to England sometime in the last century, adapted very quickly to the use of the pint.

 

[Glenn]

What's wrong Bill? What has got you onto this subject?
Five staves is already metric (5 stave lines and 5 spaces equals 10).
Imperial is a fine old system but nothing more than that.
It brings nothing extra to the table and in fact misses a lot of the beauty and ingenuity that metric system displays in the ability to move between measures in a harmonised manner.

 

[donn]

Oh dear. Sadly, none of this is true - Britain made the decision to use the much more sensible metric system long before the EU or EEC got involved. Unfortunately, the attempt was only half-arsed so now we still have many people using the illogical and confusing imperial system!

We even dip our toe into the metric waters on occasion over here in the US, but it isnt well liked. For me, the measures are often awkward - for example, not particularly suited to measuring ones height, or the weight of potatoes in a sack, or indeed a serving size of beer. The advantages were attractive to me when I was younger, but as the years go by I dont find that I really do the computations so much anyway, that would have been facilitated by the metric system. Kind of like the obvious advantage of a chromatic button 5th row, which supports transposition of a 3 row pattern to any key -- obvious until I ask myself how often I transpose tunes, and how willing I am to constrain myself to 3 rows for a given tune.

Anyway, I take it that we may weigh our accordions in pounds and be perfectly understood across the Atlantic? though I guess not so much in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe where Napoleon imposed the metric system.

 

[skyboltone]

I grew up with metric, but on moving to England sometime in the last century, adapted very quickly to the use of the pint.

:lol: :lol:

 

[barkis]

not particularly suited to measuring ones height, or the weight of potatoes in a sack

Not suited?

 

[donn]

A measure is well suited to the thing it measures, when the common values express useful distinctions without getting into unnecessarily large, or fractional, values.

It's really no use to know whether someone's height is approximately 1 meter vs. 2, and it's sort of excessive to have to remember that it's 188 cm. For person height, we'll always use feet and inches, when we could use just inches - and often do, for dimensions of furniture for example. It's clearly better to know people heights in terms of number like 5'8'', 6'2'' etc., than 68'', 74'' -- why? Ask a young person who's enamored of metric elegance, why are you always 5'8'' and never 68''?

Kilos and pounds are closer, but the pound is closer to home in the kitchen. Not so much for people weights - I'd mark the scales in stone for that. Who cares if it's hard to multiply by 14?

 

[Anyanka]

re more lines to a stave... as usual, the Germans got there before everyone else. See attached picture of tango notation for melodeon, ca 1940. And don't say it's bass and treble combined, because it isn't. The bass is notated underneath the stave!

 

[skyboltone]

For building cabinetry and airplanes I much prefer metric. It allows me to dispense with such measurements such as: "34 and 7/8" minus a little one" and just cut the thing 885 millimeters and be done with it. Those little marks get progressively less interesting as they go up in denominator you know? I have a ruler with 1/128th marks on it. When it gets down to that bit I get out the dial micrometer and work in thousandths of an inch or millimeter. I used to know a laborer who just ignored all of it. He would make a pen mark on his flexible ruler when looking to fill a space, then transfer that mark to the lumber. Clever boy.

 

[barkis]

its sort of excessive to have to remember that its 188 cm.

excessive

 

[Glenn]

I know most people will answer "88" to a question about hight. When using a metric measure of thelength of a human adult. The "1" is self evident because "0" and "2" are not likely.
With feet and inches the feet have to be mentioned as the margin of error is much smaller.
Not sure why I am getting sucked into this discussion

 

[donn]

That's interesting, though, I wouldn't have guessed. Of course we don't report weight in pounds modulo 100. I wondered if hand would serve better as a unit of height - that's pretty obscure, 4 inches, used only for height of horses - but since we care a lot about differences in height less than 4 inches, it wouldn't help much.