 sj |
||
|
||
Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is?
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 17 Feb 14 - 05:02 PM it was a mourqui night in old London town....... |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST Date: 17 Feb 14 - 11:41 AM Thanks, Jeeneia, I was wondering whether ever anybody would still drop by this "ancient" thread?? Yet no date of expiry, old but no mould ... Wonder also whether you have checked at YOUTUBE. Under 'Mourqui' and 'Leopold Mozart' you find a little piece showing exactly that bass line of broken octaves. Perhaps it is the one that made you start this thread .... Whatever .... The prime motto remains "sing and dance" (s.a.) |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 16 Feb 14 - 11:03 PM Danke, sehr, Lyroy. Your writing is clear. I play two mourquis by Leopold Mozart, but I don't use simple octave jumps in the bass. Perhaps I will, just to see how it sounds. Thank you for the information about deutsche words with the element 'murk' in them. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,Lyroy Date: 16 Feb 14 - 04:53 PM I just happen to come across this link while searching for references to "Murkys" / "Mourquis". So with respect to the start of this page more than 11 years ago I am aware of the likelihood that everybody having contributed to this thread has solved the question for her/himself long since. So, please forgive me being smart when just sharing my own clarifications, which to some extent may appear repetitive (e.g. Gitta, e.g. Grishka). I came across the term when reading in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's "Versuch über die wahre Art Klavier zu spielen" (Essay on The Correct Way of Playing The Piano/clavicord). In §5 of his introduction he criticizes >... the torturing of students with tasteless Murkys, where the left hand is solely used for a noisy play thus being made forever unfit for its true use ..... < The term "Murkys" then is commented on by a remark of the editor which translates as follows: >Accompaniment consisting of continuously broken oktaves or likewise whole pieces on such unartistic bass (pl.) - in earlier piano music had been called Murkys (Murkybasses) or "Mourquis".< An example of notes is given with this remark: it is a sequence of sixteenth notes continuously jumping from the bass G (lowest line of the bass clef) to the G one octave up (between the upper 2 lines of the bass clef). "broken octave" here (differing from its use with regard to intervals) refers to subsequent striking (=appregio) as opposed to simultaneous playing of a chord. The result is a very primitive accompaniment like "hwoomb-da-hwoom-da" as it is well known from all sorts of traditional folk music, namely todays German folk music. Well, I believe many of us have memories of their own little attempts of accompaniment with their first fun-approaches to the piano. And father Leopold Mozart may have composed that "Mouqui" for little Wolferl for the same reason. Like Grishka I had to think of the German word "Murks" (engl. 'botch'), although I took it the other way around: could it possibly be that "Murks" derives from "Murkys", expressing that something has been carried out pretty unprofessionally. The verb is "vermurksen". Then there is also "abmurksen", meaning 'to kill sb' or sth, e.g. a car's engine. According to some ethymological sources there was also "murken" (extinct) = 'murdering', and its supposed iterative "murksen". But such tracings appear to be poorly founded and for that matter arguable to me. Sorry, I hope I was able to make myself understood, as I am just another German speaker, plus I am not a musician. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 26 Sep 12 - 06:08 PM Broken octaves seems to mean that each bass note is repeated one octave higher, so that you get a bass of eighth notes but only have to compose newly every other of them. Gitta seems to say that Murki is actually the name of that technique. If so, I wonder whether the word originally had a pejorative meaning aimed at the composer, possibly akin to Murks. Well, the trick does suit beginners at the piano (unless their hands are too small), whereas it gives 'cellists a hard time. (BTW, Leeneia, Michael has been with us in many threads about German stuff, so I am surprised that he had news for you. He wrote that he lives in the USA now. Guest Gitta, however, seems to be a newcomer, so impatient that she could not wait for another couple of months to make the decade full. But many of us enjoy reading "random" old threads, in particular if they bring back memories of piano lessons, when music was still waiting to be discovered by our young hands, ears, and brains.) |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 26 Sep 12 - 04:02 PM You are? Wilkommen to our little circle of German speakers, then. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: michaelr Date: 26 Sep 12 - 01:23 AM Thank you, leeneia. I am German myself, but that sentence did not reveal itself to me. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 25 Sep 12 - 09:38 AM Michael, simply bear in mind that in German as in Latin, the verb of a subordinate clause is moved to the end. Change "the bass in general in continuous broken octaves moves" to "the bass, in general, moves in continuous broken octaves." (I think 'broken octaves' means you move your left hand up and down your instrument, you don't just play the very same chord over and over.) Gitta, murky is an English word meaning dark and dirty. We English speakers understand the dance better if it's called 'murki." Do you play dance music yourself? |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: michaelr Date: 24 Sep 12 - 09:16 PM Hmmm... Gitta's post is downright mruky. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,gitta Date: 24 Sep 12 - 07:23 PM As the title of COMPOSITIONS, FOR WHICH THE BASS IN GENERAL IN CONTINUOUS BROKEN OCTAVE MOVES AND TECHNIQUE AS A NAME FOR THAT ACCOMPANY Murky is the word since the first half of the 18th Century occupied. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 11 Dec 02 - 03:00 AM Hi, Becky - that's correct. I have an old woodcutting in mind (don't know where I saw it). The drum was as small as the one played by Charles Wells on the Pipe and Tabor Page. How many the holes the pipe had I couldn't see, but since you have to hold the pipe with two fingers, there are only three left for fingering the holes. Thanks for the links, I didn't know that this kind of music is still flourishing. I was astonished at the lot of entries when searching for pipe and tabor with google. Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Desert Dancer Date: 10 Dec 02 - 01:38 PM Wilfried, you described a "small drum used in combination with the one hand treble recorder by one person. Here the recorder was played with the left hand only and the drum, hanging from the left arm by a string, was beaten with the right hand." Would that be a 3-hole pipe or whistle, rather than a real recorder (7 holes plus thumbhole), as described and pictured in the following links? Pipe and Tabor, the Morris Instrument The Pipe and Tabor Page ~ Becky in Tucson |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 10 Dec 02 - 08:00 AM A more explicit definition can be found in the Grimm Bros.' famous German dictionary: MURKI, n. kurze muntere tanzweise, Murki n[euter]. short lively dancing tune, bei der der basz durchgehend aus gebrochenen octaven besteht. whose bass part entirely consists of broken octavoes. im ersten drittel des 18. jahrh. einem offenbar bäerlichen tanze aus Süddeutschland entlehnt, in the 1st third of the 18th cent. borrrowed from an obviously rustic dance, häufig komponiert, composed frequently, und noch lange nachher literarisch bezeugt: and for a long time after testified in literature: [Some references following, also the one by Goethe given in my letter above.] Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: SharonA Date: 05 Dec 02 - 10:13 AM Huh, and here I thought it was a car, as in... Well if I had money Tell you what I'd do I'd go downtown and buy a Mourqui or two Crazy 'bout a Mourqui Lord I'm crazy 'bout a Mourqui I'm gonna buy me a Mourqui And cruise it up and down the road *grin* |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 05 Dec 02 - 10:09 AM It's done. Keep your eye out for the mourqui/murki. It may appear in this thread, it may be in a new thread. As for me, I'm going to look for ropes to lace around the bodhran. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 05 Dec 02 - 09:55 AM Wilfried is right. We should sing and dance. I'm going to send Joe Offer the MIDI of the Mourqui/Murki, and I hope he will post it when he can. The piece is in the erotic or belly-dance minor (only G's are sharp) and is good fun. I have tried to understand and use the programs called MIDItext and TextMID, which help a person download music files. As the king said to the queen in Lion in Winter, it was "a wasteland where I wandered alone." |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,guest Date: 04 Dec 02 - 12:53 PM Use a bodhran. |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 04 Dec 02 - 11:21 AM Leeneia - Unfortunately I don't now much about older drums used with folk music. I know of old military drums (rope tensioned, not so high the ones used by the 3rd US Infantry = The Old Guard picture here) and the small drum used in combination with the one hand treble recorder by one person. Here the recorder was played with the left hand only and the drum, hanging from the left arm by a string, was beaten with the right hand. This kind of playing was used by wandering musicians in the late middle ages. As I wrote before: Any good drum or bongo with a fine sound may be used to accentuate the beat; a rope stringed wooden drum about knee high will do best to look authentic. About the inventor of the Schaumtorte: This joke about my name isn't so far fetched: Schaum = foam is an old nickname for the cook. This fits well to my ancestors - they have been landlords and innkeepers of the "Shield and Swan" in the little village my family comes from for centuries. And now sing and dance Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 04 Dec 02 - 10:28 AM Thanks very much, Wilfried. You certainly know a lot about languages. Now supposing that I wanted to play a Southern German peasant dance and use an authentic drum for it, what kind of drum would that be? Do you have any suggestions? I wonder if you are related to the Schaum who invented Schaum Torte, a traditional specialty in Milwaukee. (just joking! I know it means "foam") Steven: there is no connection between murki and mazurka. "Mazurka" means a woman from the Polish province of Mazovia. As I recall, the mazurka hit the charts about a hundred years after Leopold Mozart wrote this mourqui down. A mazurka is in 3/4 and the mourqui is in 4/4. Joe Offer: is the system fixed yet? Could I post the MIDI for this piece? I have written a nice accompaniment to it and added chords. If I attached it to an e-mail, would the chords show up? Thanks
-Joe Offer (click to e-mail)- |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Scabby Douglas Date: 04 Dec 02 - 04:03 AM Wondering if the word is related to "mazurka"? Cheers Steven |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 04 Dec 02 - 03:36 AM Oh my God! pressed the wrong button and sent the first draft without the corrections. Pardon me for the wrong prepositions and omitting an e in your name, Leeneia. What kind of drum you use isn't so important if only the sound fits in well. Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 04 Dec 02 - 03:31 AM Leenia - my first impression was of an oriental origin, too, because it fits well into the Arabic morphological patterns (pt. pr. IV), but alas! a search in the dictionary led to no result. Then I remembered to wondering about this word when browsing an old student songbook of the 18. century in my possession, so it was easy to start the search with the German orthography. Mourqui is the French orthography for German Murki: A lively dance, supposed originally coming from Southern German peasants. (Duden) The dance is also mentioned by our ubiquitous German master poet Goethe in his autobiography: "Wenn wir nun der Menuett genug hatten, ersuchte ich den Vater um andere Tanzweisen, dergleichen die Notenbücher in ihren Giguen und Murkis reichlich darboten" (Goethe, Dichtung u. Wahrheit 9). When we had enough of minuets, I asked father for other dancing tunes, of which kind the notebooks contained a lot with their gigs and murkis. (Poetry and Truth 9) Mozart's mourqui is the most famous; other mourquis mentioned are from the German composers Bartholdy and Michael Bauer (modern). Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: Joe Offer Date: 04 Dec 02 - 02:29 AM Hi, Leeneia - the only non-Mozart references to "mourqui" that I can find are in German, and none has a definition. The word always appears in association with folk dances, so I think your guess is right. There's a sound sample of Mozart's "Mourqui" here (click) -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: Origins: Does anybody know what a mourqui is? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 03 Dec 02 - 11:47 PM I'm getting a new piece ready for the band. It's a Mourqui from Leopold Mozart's notebook for little Wolfgang. The piece sounds like a folk dance. Has anybody ever heard of a Mourqui before? (It's not in my unabridged dictionary.) I'm hoping it's a Moorish dance so that we can justify firing up the dumbek. |
| Share Thread: |