Timeline for What's the proper piano notation for adding one note at a time to a chord and holding all the notes?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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| Aug 27, 2021 at 17:12 | history | edited | Aaron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2021 at 18:02 | comment | added | Aaron | @nanoman In the final two measures, there are two reasons to both hold the notes with the fingers and with the pedal, as opposed to pedal alone. First, there is a subtle difference in sound, although an experienced enough pianist can mitigate that. Second, if one releases the fingers first, then there is an unattractive sound that happens when releasing the pedal. I'm not sure how to describe it, but try playing a chord with the pedal down, release the fingers, and then slowly release the pedal. You should hear what I'm talking about. | |
| Jun 29, 2021 at 17:59 | comment | added | Aaron | @nanoman The muddiness I was referring to was in the first four measures. They are marked as having sustain pedal throughout, but this is not actually how pianists perform them, because holding the pedal would give a muddy sound. Instead, one would half-pedal and/or flutter-pedal through that portion (and most of the rest) of the piece. In the initial part of the piece, the fingers also do not sustain the notes beyond their notated duration. | |
| Jun 23, 2021 at 23:07 | comment | added | nanoman | Following on my comment above, it seems your Chopin example is very similar to one addressed in the answer to another question. That answer observes that even with pedal, there can be a subtle difference in sound between held and non-held notes (especially if the pedal is only partly depressed). But I'm struggling to understand how holding the notes with the fingers would make the sound "extremely muddy" yet using full pedal alone wouldn't. | |
| Jun 23, 2021 at 20:01 | comment | added | nanoman | In the Chopin example, given that the sustain pedal is depressed, can you explain what difference is made by holding notes with the fingers or not? Why would the sound be "extremely muddy" if they are held? Doesn't the pedal alone hold them to the same extent? (In other words, aren't the ties effectively redundant in mm. 33-34?) The difference I can see would be if comparing to not using the pedal, where of course only the notes held with the fingers would be undamped, not all strings. | |
| Jun 22, 2021 at 16:11 | comment | added | supercat | @Aaron: Ah, for some reason I hadn't seen the stems. I mistook that example for an approach I've seen which uses ties to extend a note to a non-consecutive note. Whether or not any formal rules of notation recognize that meaning, I think it makes the extension of notes more visually obvious than the presence or absence of stems, especially in cases where some notes are extended and others not, and the last note is a non-extended eighth note (which reproduces all the earlier tied notes that end there, so the other ties have something to connect to). | |
| Jun 22, 2021 at 15:11 | comment | added | Aaron | @supercat The Brahms has "overlapping" note heads. The double stems are one clue, but the dot on the first note displayed is the important detail. The Chopin does show the notation you describe. | |
| Jun 22, 2021 at 14:45 | comment | added | supercat | The Brahms example doesn't show double note heads, but is an alternate form in which a tie between a note of any duration and the next note is assumed to extend the duration of the first. | |
| Jun 22, 2021 at 9:58 | comment | added | Graham | @CarlWitthoft Even that is only true for bowed string instruments. Plucked string instruments like guitars can play 4 notes in true unison (5 if the little finger is used, which is rare but possible), and a strum can sound all the strings for a block chord. Also bowed instruments played pizzicato become plucked instruments, of course, and can do the same. | |
| Jun 22, 2021 at 3:54 | history | edited | Aaron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 21, 2021 at 19:46 | history | edited | Aaron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 21, 2021 at 15:43 | history | edited | Aaron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 21, 2021 at 15:30 | comment | added | Carl Witthoft | Just a warning: this may make sense for keyboards, but string instrument players could interpret this as unison double-stops (not that we could play all 4 pitches but we could possibly achieve 2 pitches) | |
| Jun 21, 2021 at 15:22 | history | answered | Aaron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |