Questions tagged [ornaments]
For questions about using ornaments for music or any other general questions about ornaments. Ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Examples of ornaments include the mordent, turn and trill.
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Multiple grace note snare drum ornament
I am looking at Sergei Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights (from the Romeo & Juliet ballet: Act I, Scene 2, No. 13) .
In mm. 9–10 (from rehearsal mark [77]) and also a few times later in the piece ...
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How do I play a crossed note before a hammer-on?
The tab below is from Stop this Train - John Mayer
How am I suppose to play the part circled in red?
Also what is the correct name for this notation?
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Bach BWV 812 Menuet I: do(can) ornaments presage the accidental?
In Bach BWV 812 Menuet I bar 6 we have a trill preceding an accidental — the thrust of the bar is to B(natural), therefore in the preceding trill do(would) you trill on B(natural)-A or B(flat)-A?
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How do you distinguish an upper mordent from a trill?
I recently learned of the upper mordent. (first ornament in this image from Wikipedia)
To me, it looks identical to the trill from the table of ornaments I'm familiar with:
When encountering this ...
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What's this flat squiggly line below the notes at the end of this clarinet jazz solo?
This is from cuphead.
Youtube link here:
It kind of sounds like vibrato.
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What is the best way to notate/convey this ornament?
I'm currently writing a piece of music (solo piano) which has a certain ornament. This is the way that I want it to be played:
It would be really nice if I could notate it something like the ...
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Bach French Suite BWV 816: Allemande - what is the ornament with the swoosh at the end?
I am using this (Henle) reference for ornamentation: https://www.henle.de/media/foreword/1816.pdf. The ornament in bar 9 looks like "idem" but the swoosh comes at the end (instead of at the ...
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Mozart K.494: How do you play this (turn inside a tie)?
Mozart K.494 b.178 near the end of the movement. (This is the 3rd
movement of the sonata K.533/K.494)
This is in bass clef BTW. This image is the Bärenreiter edition.
Henle puts only the turn option.
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How to play a turn? [closed]
What does the turn notation symbol mean to play rhythmically?
what if it is not on the note but in between 2 notes? thanks
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What is the difference between a mordent and turn?
I've tried Googling the difference between a turn and mordent, but all the answers are really vague. I also couldn't find any helpful images that explain to me. I'm really confused right now. Turns ...
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How do I notate alternating quickly between two notes an octave away from each other?
I'm vaguely sure that an ornament exists for this but I'm not sure which one it is. I'm a music theory beginner, so pardon me if there's a simple answer. Basically, I want to alternate quickly between ...
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Strange "less than" accent or ornament in Sullivan's "The Mikado" score
In the old Kalmus handwritten conductor's score for The Mikado, a few notes in the overture had a unfamiliar notation. For example, here's Measure 50 from the oboe part (other instruments have ...
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Why are accented passing tones not figured but suspensions are?
If 4-3 happens as a suspension and it is figured then why not also figure an accented passing tone 4-3?
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Is there a word for when you scoop to the same note?
I'm a vocalist who's done different kinds of ensembles over the years, and I often have this instinct to scoop to (rearticulate? emphasize?) a repeated note if the other voices change to make a ...
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Shift trill symbol horizontally in Lilypond
I'm rewriting (with Lilypond) an old copy of Händel's Allemande HWV 437 and I can not recreate the orignial position of the trill symbol. In the original the ornament begins with the note 'b', yet ...
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I don't know how to deal with the trills in Bach's Fugue in D Minor
(Included from comment: the fugue is from well-tempered clavier, vol. 1 BWV 851)
All research I do gives me a different answer. One example said to use the auxiliary note first - more in keeping with ...
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Bach Invention 2 Bar 13 overlapping keys for both hands while playing mordent
I know there are related previous discussions (I had asked one here, which , interestingly, was also a Bar "13"), but they concerned one individual key overlap. In this case, left hand plays ...
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Grace notes with slash
What exactly does the slash mean as opposed to the other?
And if you have a group of grace notes together, do you just slash the first one?
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Trill notation with a wavy line
There are 2 trill notations: 'tr' and 'tr' followed by a wavy line.
What exactly is the difference and when is one used over the other?
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Timing of grace notes in Chopin's Waltz in a minor
Consider the following:
(Chopin At the Piano - Verlag)
Should the grace notes be played before the beat or on the beat? I am reading a book on music theory, and it says:
(The AB Guide to Music ...
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How did Glenn Gould know, in 1955, the proper ornamentation for Bach's "Goldberg Variations"?
This question has its origin in Why does the Open Goldberg score have a G rather than A in bar 9 of variation 25?. See that Q&A for background information.
At what time, and on what basis, was ...
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Beethoven Sonata Op. 49 No. 2 Bar 12 trill
I just started learning this piece on my own. I played the trill (red circle) as A G F# G (So with the context it's G AGF#G A. Is it correct? When I listen to the videos played by professionals on ...
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What kind of non-chord tone dissonance is this?
What is the correct term for this type of non-chord tone? I really like the sound of it and since I see it a lot I was wondering if an "official" name exists for it. It is not a suspension ...
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What are the ornaments in the western music and their corresponding ornaments in Indian music?
I am learning to play the different ornaments in western music (Trill, Tremolo, Turn, Appoggiatura, Acciaccatura, Glissando, Slide). I also want to know which are the corresponding ornaments in Indian ...
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Baroque ornamentation is not consistent across editions of the same piece
Here are two versions of the Quodlibet from Bach's Goldberg Variations. As you can see in the attachments, the ornaments and the recommendations as to how to play them are exactly opposite. One shows ...
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ornamentation in keyboard music of William Byrd
I'm working through some tunes by Byrd, and am wondering about the ornamentation, the two diagonal slashes through the note stem.
As far as I can tell, we don't actually know what the composers of ...
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Obscure markings in BWV 814 I. Allemande, Bach, Henle edition
I am looking at Bach's French Suite #3, BWV 814, Allemande, and the ornamentation typesetting is confusing me.
I am familiar with mordant vs. trill, and the standard description of ornaments for Bach. ...
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Different versions of mordents in Bach Invention No. 1 In C Major, BWV 772
I was playing Bach Invention 1 when my sister told me that I was playing it wrong.
When I learnt this piece like 10 years ago, my sheet looked like this.
But my sister showed me her music sheet from ...
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How did Victorian Christmas carolers sing Christmas carols?
Do we have any idea of how Victorian Christmas carolers actually sang Christmas carols? What chords did they use, did they use ornaments etc, were there special ways that they ended the Christmas ...
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Did Nicolas Gombert compose a clean change of note or slides as endings in his motets?
A member of the Facebook group Barbershop Harmony said that in live performances of Gombert motets, the Bass will randomly drop an octave on the last chord, within one syllable, whilst the other ...
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Acciaccatura vs Appoggiatura in Beethoven
While studying the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Sonata Op.90, I found these appoggiaturas in bars 28-29.
This is the Henle edition (which I find to be one of the most reliable editions for Beethoven); ...
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Why do notes not add up to the bar in this example by Couperin?
Consider following excerpt from the beginning of Couperin's Leçon des ténèbres pour le mercredi saint:
I noticed that the note values don't always add up in a bar.
Cases (indicated in the figure):
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Questions about mordents and trills (piano)
The difference between the symbols of a mordent and a trill is just a tiny vertical bar. Sometimes it could be misread when the print is blurred or too small. Is there a general rule, from the context,...
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What does this downward triangular arrow mean?
What does the prime symbol above the note mean? I have not seen it before.
This is from Haydn's Variations in F minor (Hob. XVII/6)
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Term for One person performing a whole Arrangement with nothing else accompanying (As a Cover)
Like how "Unplugged Version" means the Original Song has been performed with 0 usage of technology-stuff (other than Microphone) [No editing, Acoustic Instruments only, No Faders, No ...
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What is a line prall?
I am composing a melody for piano in Musescore, and after experimenting on a particular note with various ornaments (i.e. trills, mordents, etc.) I decided to use a 'line prall'. It sounded good, so I ...
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How can I make my D gracenotes shorter and crisper?
On the Great Highland Bagpipes, the D gracenote can be difficult to play as short and crisp as the G gracenote, especially in contexts such as the tachem. Aside from just consciously trying to play ...
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What does tying an acciaccatura to the principal note with a slur imply?
Note that this is not a duplicate of this question, which asks for a grace note tied to the same principal note. This is more generally about tying grace notes (specifically acciaccaturas) to any ...
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Is this an appoggiatura?
Would you call the A going to G in the second group of 16th notes here an appoggiatura? It seems to fit the definition because it is approached by a leap. However, what makes me feel unsure is that ...
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What is this type of ornament, and how should it be played?
An appoggiatura is a grace note type ornament, that precedes main note it slurred to. When it is played, it takes some time from the main note.
An appoggiatura looks like this : and should be ...
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Is it correct to call this figure a "turn figure" in Haydn's Surprise Symphony?
In the IB Music Revision Guide, the author says that a cadence in the second movement of Haydn's Surprise Symphony (end of the first statement of the theme) is "decorated with a turn figure" (see ...
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note cancelling or what is it called?
i came across a sign on my notation where a note is being played that is G after that there is a note in between e that is open but we first play it and then hammer on it... what is it called ?
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Strange Ornamental Symbol on Bach Piece
This is from the marvelous andante from Bach’s organ trio sonata BWV 528. What does this symbol mean on the stave of the second keyboard? I am assuming it is ornamental. Is it just a strange version ...
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Why is there so much dispute about how ornaments are supposed to be played in classical music?
It seems like almost every piece with an ornament has some argument as to how it is supposed to be played. For example, in my Alfred's edition of Fantaisie-impromptu, the footnote claims that the ...
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Weird acciaccatura (?) notation in Chopin's polonaise
I am not sure how to interpret the particular notation in Chopin's Op.53 Polonaise:
Here, we have a single (smaller font) Eb (just before the trill). I should interpret it as a grace note, but then ...
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Identifying piano notation symbol in Chopin Mazurka
I'm trying to identify what this symbol is (circled in pencil) in the sheet music for Mazurka no.4 op.17 by Chopin. It looks like two connected diamond shapes, and I can't find an explanation of it ...
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How to use Meend in Bansuri Playing
I am following tutorial to play Om Jai Jagdish Hare.
The gentleman says we can use Meend in Bansuri. He explains it is a soft way to go from one note to the next.
How would I do it.
The video ...
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Would an accidental in a mordant still be effective for the whole measure?
This is from Bach's Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue:
This would obviously be played D, C#, D. Let's say that there was a C on the same octave later in that measure. Would the C be sharp?
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Need help understanding the double sharp turn in Chopin's prelude in e minor [duplicate]
I need help understanding why the notes in this turn are B-A#-Gx-A#.
I don't understand how the double sharp affects the turn. I would assume that instead of A# being the "base note" (for lack of a ...
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