Small heroic piece

It has suddenly occurred to me that we have entered the Notation Nerd Zone. I'd better get some sun today.

Anyhow...

Thomas, your strenuous objection to the timpani receiving its own little bracket is well founded, and it might be all the push I need to stop doing it permanently. Sometimes people need an intervention. I know it's an idiosyncrasy of mine, the source of which is my strong feeling about the timps being a section, and not merely one player playing two to five (or more) separate drums. I deviated from it once last year when I had no choice but to notate a few timp passages on two staves, forcing me to remove the bracket so I could use a brace to properly connect the staves. (My hypocrisy knows no bounds.)

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Re: Ww doublers. I was too tired last night to elaborate what I meant. The rule I use for, say, whether to put a Picc./Fl. 3 above Fls. 1& 2, or a Fl. 3/Picc. stave below them is really simple. I decide according to whichever instrument dominates the part. If it's mainly a piccolo part that doubles flute 3, that's how I label it and I put it above flutes 1 & 2. But if it's mainly a flute 3 part that doubles the piccolo, I label it that way and put it below. I do the same when the Eb Sop. Cl./Bb Cl.

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Re: Harp pedaling. I include harp pedaling throughout. Solely based on what harpists have told me, some say that they'd rather write in their own pedaling, but digging further the reason for this is often that harpists have no confidence in composers (general speaking) knowing how to write for the harp. Composers are routinely derelict in this regard. According to harpists, a majority of composers write for it like it's a piano part for eight fingers, resulting in impossible passages, and a too-chromatic conception of the part—as if the harpist is supposed to sit there tap dancing on the pedals like Fred Astaire for the duration. Composers also don't use enough enharmonic spellings to rectify certain types of issues, nor do most of them consider the harpist's need for placing. More harpists than not say that if—IF—the composer notates pedaling correctly and consistently, and has a well-conceived part that doesn't require much if any correction, it allows them to focus more on penciling in placement brackets and fingering on-the-fly. I've got myself now to the point where I could correctly add placement brackets and fingering, but I don't do that of course. I just use that in the background as I score the harp so I now it's all sorted out.

Of course there is a tier to the type of playing you can ask for according to whether the part is for scoring stage/studio (most straightforward), concert orchestra (a bit more involved), or a piece for virtuoso harp (solo or concerto, where the harpist can take weeks or months learning it). For the latter type, I would not include pedaling matrices except for glisses.

Also on the latter, Ginastera's first scoring of his harp concerto was problematic harp-wise (I think that version was never performed), and the premiering harpist helped him revise it to sort out all the issues.

Speaking of composers doing weird things, back in the 90's one harpist published a book that provides several hundred pedal matrices that are compatible with hundreds of chord symbols. As it turns out, some miscreant arrangers indicate harp glisses with a chord symbol(!), not understanding that harpists don't speak the more arcane aspects of that language. I've never seen anyone do that, but harpists who do studio work have come across it from time to time. That oughta go in the notation section of the Ripley's museum.

 

Oh yes, I knew that.

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As for strings bracketing, I like to reserve sub-bracketing for divisi.

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Crap, but is notation an anal retentive rabbit hole or what?

 

Disclaimer: I hope everyone knows—including anyone just reading and not posting—that when I talk about this stuff, I am pretty much just speaking out loud in general, and never questioning anyone's expertise on anything. I have full respect here for everyone in their various musical pursuits. And yes, this would be an interesting discussion to have over beer. I have a case of Corona if anyone would like to join me.

Anyhow...

I can't seem to stop tinkering with my score formats and various aspects of notation. There are so many competing values to balance out.

Doug: I think you make a valid point regarding bracket style. Now you've got me wanting to do some additional visual A-B comparisons between winged and non-winged brackets. It's been years since I discarded the old bracket style, but I think I will reexamine. My usual method for testing is to place the score or part of whatever I'm assessing, then stand or sit at a distance a bit further than you'd have in the real world setting and ask, "Which one is easiest to reckon at a quick glance?"

Thomas, tell anyone who uses chord symbols to notate glisses that harpists hate that.

Regarding gliss notation: Yes, the old method (first seven notes in 32nds) is flawed in several ways. First, it doesn't indicate the gliss duration. Second, there is not always room in the case of short glisses. Third, it's not even possible for certain gliss effects.

It's interesting you brought up the Chaloupka pedal tracker. I did the same thing, but I ended up constructing it differently than his recommendation by using a metal board, artist's tape, and magnetic doohickies. I think there are iPhone apps for that now, but I still like the physical thing better. Here's a picture if anyone is looking for ideas on how to make one. It's a double tracker, which you have to have a government license to operate:

 

Looks like early Mondrian (of course below is not a real Mondrian)




I have a story to tell regarding harp writing and Benjamin Britten's harp works. For another day.

Let me just leave you with one of my favorite harp pedalings from the repertoire. Figure this one out.
It's spelled out in the gliss too. The afternoon of the faune, and the copyist shot at dawn.

 

It's the same mistake twice. I wonder who's responsible. I'm guessing that the gliss was spelled from the initial pedal indications. Either one person screwed up the same way twice, or one person inadvertently repeated someone else's mistake.

And the rhythmic duration of the last note of the gliss...

The bar is played a few bars later on the next page and notated identically to this one.

 

Whilst we are all nerding out on notation, I wonder if one of you guys could clarify the following for me. I've been doing a fair bit of scoring study recently, and have come across the following notation question quite a few times...and I've always meant to check up on this, but never got around to it.

The bar below is from a second violin section and a couple of bars after a divisi instruction. Up until this point all the divisi in the piece on all the strings has been two voices only. Then you get this :


So the question is that this notation seems to be able to have a possible number of interpretations.
Does this signify a double stop on one of the divisi sections ? and if so which divisi section plays the C ? Or is it a case of, we are lobbing this one to the 2nd violins and they can sort it out amongst themselves....
If a double stop it seems logical to me that the section playing the lower note will perform the double stop, as they are already on the C for the second note.

But I'm wondering what the 'correct' one is.

Cheers, Michael

BTW I know I'm hijacking this thread, but I'm feeling rebellious after being locked down for so long.....

 

Of course, it does. It's simply bad notation.

There is no way for me, or anyone to deduce this from the example. You can look for clues by looking at the rest of the score.
For example, is this passage doubled with another section? (Clarinets etc.) What are the other strings doing?
If you made a harmonic analysis of the section would this shed any light on your question?

Sadly it is this.


If I was to rescore this; the first thing I would look at is the Bass and see if we really need both F's. If F is in the bass then we clearly will not.

Next, while in theory what you say is very logical

I would not make this my first choice. The over-riding reason is a perfect 5th is a pain in the butt for double stops on the Violin.

Therefore I think you are left with two options: 1. Div. a3, or 2. delete a note.

If the later, I would delete the lower F (the one in the space) and then have both joined on the D.


What would have cleared up this confusion is if the person doing the notation used stems up/down to delineate the proper division.

It's just bad notation.

Where are you finding this?

 

Thanks for such a comprehensive reply Doug. That explains it very clearly, and I had guessed as much.

First of all, the basses & cellos are simultaneously on an F, though both in lower octaves, and the viola is also playing the same F, (and also in Divisi), so we are hardly suffering from a lack of F's, so I think I'll send the F out to make the coffee instead of playing it, as you suggest.

The problem is for people like myself who are studying, and indeed working from a really well known piece of music, you don't want to start hacking about without good reason. First of all, who are you to tamper with the classics - and also, when you don't get the opportunity to work with a real orchestra, it's little details like this than can make a difference to a performance that you simply won't notice when working with samples. (I must invite the LSO round for a jam session when the lockdown is lifted).

This is a perfect example of book learning vs experience - look it up in a book and yes a perfect fifth can be performed, but they don't tell you it's a pain for the performer. I shall stick that one in my book of 'shit I need to remember', which is rapidly growing into a rather large tome.

I was once told that general in notation that String players prefer sharps as accidentals, Brass players prefer flats - is that true also ?

I'm surprised you don't recognise it ! It's some Elgar from from his variations - he liked an F here and there did our Elgar - but he always was a bit of a lad.

Seriously, though, there are some inexpensive scores available from a company called Dover. The Planets in full score was only about £12 and I far prefer paper scores to study from, and printing them out on A4 doesn't work for me. As we all know, composers, even amateurs like myself, have so much sex that our eyesight is ruined even at a young age, so printing things out on A4 is not terrific, and I don't want to have massive amounts of loose sheets of A3 kicking around, or even an A3 printer. I've recently got Staffpad on an iPad for notation, and it is so easy to cart about reasonably sized bound scores and my iPad for working things through and testing. The playback is pretty terrific for testing out ideas, and of course, shamelessly stealing them.

Anyway, this particular set of scores is a republication of the original 1899 Novello & Co London score, (probably why the score is so inexpensive). However, I have now learned something new. Which is nice.

Thanks Doug.

 

Sweet. I am now in good company.

Ironically these are the same two pitches we talked about for the ending of your piece.

 

Sure. I've included the page before also, as the offending F is in the first bar.

 

I transcribed Nimrod years ago. The bar you posted is legit. Non divisi. I guess the publisher didn't believe in multi-stop brackets. Who knows?

(It looks like you may have mixed up the divisi violas from the previous page with Violins II, since the latter are all non div. on the previous page except for the pizz divisi bar.)

1st finger stops the top F. Second finger stops strings 2 and 3 for the 5th. The F's are all necessary on account of all that weight on the 3rd in the bass. And the lower F is reinforced by the upper divisi of the violas.

So: Two fingered triple stop. Then double stop. Then another one-fingered 5th. Etc.

You wouldn't want those fifths if they were sustained and/or exposed (cuz intonation and resonance), but these are neither.

Elgar—master orchestrator that he was—wanted a big push here for the climax of the piece, and it is looking after such details like this that he's able to clinch the effect.

 

So its a triple stop. Well I wasn't expecting that - and that's exactly why I am doing score study .....

I am not a violinist - would that be a bit tricky to play ?

Thanks by the way.

 

Not here. Both 5ths are in first position before the strings spread too far apart for a decent one-fingered 5th. It would be more challenging if it were sustained and exposed (again, cuz the intonation and/or resonance might be a bit sketchy).

The stop will not be played precisely how it looks on paper. If they tried to get in all three notes as a block chord at mf, it would be overemphasized.

Always look at the intent of the orchestration when trying to determine these types of things.

This is a piece of cake compared to some of the multi-stops R-K scored in Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol.

 

If you want to see a genuine mistake, look at the first two bars of the timpani part on page 90.