Two rests and a note that isn't played? misunderstanding ties

Question

I've been teaching myself Piano (it's just for fun, I can't take classes at the moment so don't start with that) and reading music. I'm practicing a piece from J.S. Bach called Prelude in C major here's the part of the sheet that confuses me:

I'd never heard this piece before, but the melody I was playing sounded off to me. I went to YouTube to check some videos of people playing it or a Synthesia video and effectively the E note that is tied to the first E note on the treble isn't played (the one that should be played, AFAIK as a chord with the E on top of it) , why?

Another thing, why does this piece have two silences in the same staff?, and with different duration on top of that.

Lastly, that 1/8th E note on the treble is tied to the last E note of every "section" (I don't know how would you call a part of a bar?), is keeping that note going until that point even possible? I guess it would have to be done with a pedal, right? Is this done so more notes can "fit" into the time signature? because that really seems to me like a half note.

Answer 1

The two things required to understand this piece are:

• tie and slur symbols look the same but have different meanings.

• in piano music, especially polyphonic, you can have many melodies (think - virtual staves) squeezed into a single staff.

  1. The slur / tie problem:

• If you tie two notes (they need to have the same pitch), it is always played as a single sound, played for the duration of both notes;

• If you put a slur (which looks exactly like a tie) over notes that form a phrase, this means just that - that they form a phrase and should be played as such.

  2. The polyphonic problem

The upper staff contains two separate melodies, one is very simple (and consists of two sounds per bar, denoted by two pairs of tied notes), one is more complex (and marked with a slur). Because the two lines notes are squeezed into one staff, there is a different set of rests for each of them.

Answer 2

This score writes three voices. The lowest voice is in the lower staff, stem down. The middle voice is in the upper staff, stem down, its rests close to the bottom staff line. The top voice is in the upper staff, stem up, its rests close to the top staff line.

As the piece progresses, the middle line (if I remember correctly) will likely venture into the lower staff as well. In this case, it will be stem up there, with the lowest voice staying stem down.

All of the three voices are pretty much kept alive during the entire prelude (not sure about the last two measures without looking them up though). In typical piano music, voices come and go: just look at the fugue following this prelude (of course, in a beginner's book you'll only see the prelude since the fugue is in a totally different class of difficulty, but both are prelude & fugue #1 from Bach's "Das wohltemperirte Clavier"). When a voice comes and goes, it is pretty much left to the discretion of the composer for how long he will write rests around the incoming voice.

In this particular case, the rests and ties are written very, very straightforwardly and the voicing is very clear. As your experience grows, figuring out which notes belong rhythmically together will get more automatic.

Answer 3

Generally, notes with up tails are deemed to be 'the melody'. Notes with down tails, as here, are ' the accompaniment'. Thus, the tune starts with two notes that are not the melody. There are three lines to this tune, and since the top line doesn't start immediately, it needs a rest shown. Similarly, so does the middle line of notes.

That 'eighth note' is a dotted semiquaver, and tied to another quaver - the middle line, if you like. The line that sweeps over the 7 or 8 notes is a phrase line, not tying any specific notes.

Your last para. isn't too clear, though!

Answer 4

This is what this score is saying:

1. 1st 16th note, play and hold middle C with your left hand.
2. 2nd 16th note, play and hold the E above middle C with your right thumb.
3. 3rd - 5th 16th notes, keep holding the E with your right thumb while other fingers of your right hand complete the arpeggio.
4. 6th - 8th 16th notes, keep holding the E with your right thumb (do not play it again) and repeat the last three notes of the arpeggio with the fingers of your right hand.
5. Repeat that same pattern of play for the second half of the first measure and so on, beginning with releasing all the notes on your right hand and playing the middle C with you left for the 9th 16th note.

Answer 5

The part that probably isn't clear - and may be played wrong in the Youtude video - is the prelude is actually three separate "voices."

Superficially it looks like a bunch of rolled chords, arpeggios. But it's actually like a trio, like three people singing separate parts. In technical terms we would say there is counterpoint between the three parts, and even though this is played on one piano we refer to the three parts as three "voices."

Using red, blue, and green for the three voices we have...

The bass in green just plays steady half notes on beats 1 and 3 while the two other voices are displaced rhythmically with rests. The effect of that displacement makes the combination of parts sound like one single arpeggio starting at the bass note of each chord.

The Es and D of the middle voice in blue are almost full half notes, but the sixteenth rest displaces them to start right after the bass.

The top voice in red is displaced a little more than the middle voice with a eighth note rest, it then continues with a broken chord pattern.

Again, the rhythmic displacements in the middle and top voices create a combined effect of a large arpeggio, but it isn't really played that way. The bass and middle voices should be held for their long values while the top voice sixteenth notes are not held. Despite the "legato" marking - which is an editorial marking, not Bach's - the top part should not keep the keys held down like an arpeggiated chord. I've heard recordings were the top part was played with a detached sound to highlight the difference in the lower two parts and the top.