13

In a beginners piano scorebook, under the last cord there is a V with a dot in it. I searched but can't find what it could mean. In case that matters, it's a French book.

V with dot in final chord

There is no other place in the score where I can find this symbol. What should I do with it or how to play this? Thank you!

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23

It's called a "staccato duro", and as the other answer correctly wrote, it's a marked staccato, i.e. shorter than the note duration and with force.

For future reference: all musical symbols and their explanations can be found on dolmetsch

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10

It's a combination of the wedge (marcato) and the dot (staccato). The note is to be played shorter than normal (like a staccato) but forcefully (like with the wedge.) I didn't find a specific name for the symbol.

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7

It could also be a short fermata. It is a lesser-known mark signifying that a note is to be played longer than the indicated duration, but only slightly longer.

See this page for an explanation.

fermata types

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3
  • 3
    Gardner Read's "Music Notation" (1979), p. 108, calls the blue and green versions a modern innovation. (So it's not found in music before 1945.) The traditional notation would be to add a lunga or a poco to the traditional fermata.
    – Camille Goudeseune
    Aug 9 '20 at 21:05
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    If it were any sort of fermata, it would be above the staff, not below the note.
    – phoog
    Aug 10 '20 at 3:47
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    @phoog - usually, but not always.
    – Tim
    Aug 10 '20 at 6:18
3

Called 'martellato', it's to make sure the note(s) is/are played strongly, hammered. Not necessarily staccato as such. Used more often in violin music - a strong downbow from the frog - but also piano and vox.

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2
  • Interesting. I've never seen other than the crescent. I have seen (and used) fermatas over different length notes (quarter, half, whole, tied wholes) to indicate the length of the fermata. The angular one is a right angle which differs from the dotted wedge in having a bigger angle. I probably would have read the green version as a staccato down-bow.
    – ttw
    Aug 9 '20 at 17:24
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    @ttw did you mean to comment on my answer rather than Tim's?
    – KeizerHarm
    Aug 9 '20 at 20:53

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