So if the barline is such a tyrant, why do we tolerate it? Most of the world’s musicians have lived and died in blissful ignorance of the barline, which reminds us that it’s a peculiarly Western thing. Busoni looked forward to a future where rhythm, like pitch, would admit finer gradations than our present cumbersome notation would allow. Debussy complained that music’s ‘divine arabesque’ cannot be imprisoned within its regular grid.
Schumann dreamed of a music without barlines.
Plenty of other musicians have chafed at the rule of this tedious musical traffic cop. But there have been many times since when I’ve felt the heavy presence of the barline squeezing the rhythmic life out of something (violinist André Rieu’s plodding waltz performances are a case in point…). I was trying to blow a tune on a fife, and can remember the teacher saying, ‘Come on now, it’s in three-in-a-bar! Where are the accents? It should be ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three!’ I have a distinct memory of thinking, ‘No it shouldn’t, it sounds silly like that.’
I was very young when I first felt the tyrant’s boot on my neck.
