Musical Notation

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Although there are alternatives, staff notation is the most universal method of writing down music. Good though it is (it wouldn't have survived otherwise) there are many confusables which crop up in my teaching.
1. The dot: above or below a note it means shorter; to the right of a note, it means longer.
2. A tenuto marking: it resembles a leger line on the wrong side of the note.
3. A slur: or is it a tie or a phrase-mark (the last one being very confusing for wind players).
4. A semibreve rest. Not only does it look like a minim rest, it hardly ever means semibreve rest - more often a full bar rest, which might happen to be in 4/4 time.
5. A mordent. The terminology is the problem here. It has changed over the years. The one with the vertical line through it was once the mordent and the one without was the inverted mordent. Over time, this was reversed. However, the terms "upper mordent" and "lower mordent" have helped to overcome this.
6. C clefs: 5 of them, all identical except for the positioning, but making a huge different to what is sung/played.
7. Swung music: written in 4/4, played in 12/8.
8. Accents: these look like short diminuendos, and it's unclear in some editions.
9. Those funny circumflex accents that look like defy explanation, so that different composers (and styles) intereprest them differently)
10. Fingerings: On some instruments, "1" = the thumb; on others it's the index finger. But even for pianists it isn't entirely straightforward; there are some old editions with "English fingering, with a + sign for the thumb, and 1-4 for the remaining fingers.
11. Trills. Just don't go there.

[Uncle Monty]

And your point is?

Seriously, yes, agree with all those. I have left students even more confused than I am, especially with regard to trills in baroque practice, the orthodoxy on which seems to change every other week, whether one should start trilling above the note, on it, or below it, etc.

It's true that a better method hasn't yet been invented, but as a pointer to its imperfection, I always think of the often cringe-making results when a serious orchestra is told to play pop music with the dots in front of them. OK, it's possible to notate every little nuance, but even then the music seems to have seeped out through the cracks.

At the risk of incurring death by (I hope) friendly fire, I always hear Britten's folk-song arrangements with terrible embarrassment, because he clearly hasn't a clue about the genre he's dealing with, and his musical notation is a hindrance rather than a help.

Perhaps that should be on the Grumpy thread, though

[johnb]

... and then there are the dynamic markings ppp to fff which depend on the context, the period and composer as to what they actually mean (an 'f' in an edition of Mozart's music is quite different to an 'f' in, say, Liszt).

And 'p' also has the association of 'softly' which is different in quality to 'quietly'.

[Uncle Monty]

Yes, absolutely. I always try and drum it into the little beggars that "forte" means "strong", which is not the same as "knock eight bells out of it". When I want them to do that, I tell them to write in "Con bottiglia"

I have had conductors saying:

"Cellos, that's hellish loud. What does your part say?"

"Forte."

"Well, can you play forte in the style of mezzo-piano?"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Tchaikovsky was rather keen on the extreme dynamics: pppppp followed by ff.
Yet Beethoven never wrote an mf (apparently)

And then there's the question of interpreting Italian terms that don't all mean in music what they mean in Italian conversation.

[rauschwerk]

7. Swung music: written in 4/4, played in 12/8.

It seems that when such music was first published, publishers would not print anything in 12/8 for the mass market because they were terrified it would put people off buying. Sometimes one sees a confusing mess of straight quavers (to be swung) and dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms.

[Martin]

Not to mention Allegro, Allegro Molto and Allegro Assai in Mozart symphonies, which I believe is a complete minefield.

But if anyone can define or differentiate those in terms of real tempi, please feel free to go ahead.

[rauschwerk]

Not to mention Allegro, Allegro Molto and Allegro Assai in Mozart symphonies, which I believe is a complete minefield.

But if anyone can define or differentiate those in terms of real tempi, please feel free to go ahead.

There may be no definitive answer but Charles Rosen, in the chapter headed "Tempo" in his Beethoven's Piano Sonatas - a Short Companion discusses at length the notion of standard tempi in the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He proves - to my satisfaction at any rate - that the two-in-a-bar Allegretto in these composers' pieces should be taken at 76 beats per minute. However, he also observes that tempo markings varied from country to country - Mozart observed that an Italian Presto was the same as an Austrian Allegro! That's probably why he slagged off Clementi's playing ("He writes presto over a sonata, or even prestissimo and alla breve, and plays it allegro in 4-4 time.") Clementi was a native of Rome.

I read somewhere that in order of increasing speed we have: Allegro, Allegro molto, Allegro di molto, Allegro assai, assai Allegro but again I doubt if this would meet with universal acceptance.

[Vile Consort]

A + sign above a note could either mean "thumb" in English fingering, or in early-ish German keyboard music it could indicate an ornament.

Amusing incident at a masterclass on Messiaen given by Jennifer Bate at St John's college, Cambridge. Half way down the last page of Dieu Parmi Nous the student drew the 32 foot pedal reed, only to be stopped and told not to draw it until the very end. Plaintive voice from the organ loft - "but it says five f's!!".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It seems that when such music was first published, publishers would not print anything in 12/8 for the mass market because they were terrified it would put people off buying. Sometimes one sees a confusing mess of straight quavers (to be swung) and dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms.

And, of course, dotted notes nearly always meant double dotted or triplets.

[Bryn]

Please note, this book is still very much in copyright.

I felt it worth checking what sort of job they had made of the upload, (I have, from new, a now rather bedraggled first edition of the book, by the way, so am not trying to avoid payment for the content).

[Mark Sealey]

This might help: ISBN-13: 978-0393950533 and particularly this: ISBN-13: 978-0800854539.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

About 25 years ago, I did quite a bit of work as a music copyist, having been noticed for my neat work in the days before computers did it much better. It was an education in itself, getting to know the conventions that we take for granted for most of the time.
It included little things like changes of key signatures. Do you want cautionary naturals, and do you include these before the new key signature (the usual way) or afterwards (as in some American publications)?
Not all music software provides all these choices, but I wouldn't choose to be without it now.

P.S. Gardner Read's book is excellent.