 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-10-19 09:54
In another thread, GBK wrote:
"In this particular piece, the accidentals from one octave do not carry over (in the same measure) when the note is an octave higher."
I have often wondered what the general rule is on this point - or indeed whether there is a general rule. For example, if playing in Eb major, if a low E is marked natural, how does one play an unmarked high E later in the bar? Flat or natural?
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-10-19 10:40
Just an opinion as I'm definitely not an expert: I don't recall encountering this situation but if I did I'd follow my gut feeling that only the specific note altered in the first place is altered. Will be interested in knowing the correct answer.
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2003-10-19 11:04
I'm not exactly sure either, but I think I was once told, and saw in several examples, that French publishers don't carry the accidentals over to other registers (so to be the same note, the higher or lower note coming later would be marked with the sign again), but the British and Germans do.
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2003-10-19 13:17
I estimate W.the.Conqueror´s assumption to be correct - in a way, the French way of insisting on "writing everything their own way" can get very close to irritating - or are those publishers to blame? - be it the notation of multiphonics, the use of evrywhere-else-but-inFrance- common Italian terms for articulation or modes, or the applicaton of alteration-markers. As I experience it, one has to analyse every score anew, and hope for a bar or phrase where this question can be answered unambigously, and apply this for the whole piece. ( "Funny" thing is, You may not too rarely run across a composition, where there are parts, usually long-streched phrases, where an alteration-marker applies only to the note it precedes, and lateron, most often in passages when there are not too many notes to the bar, an alteraton in the e.g. lower register applies for every register in that bar. That is most annoying.). Personnally, I think that the classic Hindemith conception is simply outdated - he declares (in his book about harmony) that an alteration holds fast only to the register it is applied to by the composer, and not the other; a strangey authoritarian assumption to me. I really think that the anglo-american way as so often is the pragmatically most apt, the alteration applies to every such note regardless what register, until the bar ends or it is suspended. A simple and effective solution, full stop. Sometimes I think central Europeans should have induldged more in reading Occam.
Markus
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Author: RHuch
Date: 2003-10-19 14:37
"Accidentals do not carry into other octaves in the same measure; one should specify the desired accidental."
Benjamin, Thomas, Michael Horvit, Robert Nelson. "Techniques and
Materials of Tonal Music." 5th Ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998), 5.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2003-10-19 16:23
That "accidentals do not carry into other octaves in the same measure" is the way I learned it in my theory class.
How many composers are aware of/follow this convention is another issue. Caveat [whatever the Latin word is for performer].
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2003-10-19 18:44
¿Could this be a carryover from piano usage where each staff or each voice is independent in its accidentals? Since we play only a single line most composers don't re-write the accidentals for each octave. Two works where I have noticed this problem: Corigliano Clarinet Concerto and Jettel 5 Grotesken for Solo Clarinet.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2003-10-19 20:30
'if playing in Eb major, if a low E is marked natural, how does one play an unmarked high E later in the bar? Flat or natural?'
natural, in most pieces. i think that the composer will say if he has different rules.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-10-19 21:43
I've seen pieces both ways. Often (and preferrably), when two notes displaced by an octave are present in one measure and the first one has an accidental marked, the composer will mark the second one, whatever it is, as a courtesy to the performer, so we don't run into this issue. In Finale, it only applies to the given octave.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-10-20 01:50
very murky waters this thread, but interesting
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-10-20 01:58
diz...As a composer, do you subscribe to the theory of not having the accidental carry to a different octave? ...GBK
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Author: Mark Pinner
Date: 2003-10-20 02:44
In tonal music the answer is fairly obvious both from an aural perspective and a theoretical perspective, if there has been a modulation it is bound to be the leading note or a secondary dominant that is altered and it would be so in all octaves both harmonically and melodically. It is where things turn atonal that you have a problem unless it is strict 12 tone music where a quick calculation will give you the answer. The rule of thumb I was taught was that the accidental, as with the key signature, carried through the octaves with the exception of French music from the end of the nineteenth century. I have since learned that there is no hard and fast rule and you have to take each work on its merits. At the risk of offending, in some atonal music it wouldn't make a lot of difference!
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-10-20 03:08
A bit worrisome, as I have not read most music dictionaries, but here's my wager that most dictionaries show that an accidental changes the pitch of "a note." And "a note," in the sense of pitch determination, is equivalent to "a tone." "A tone" is a sound of definite pitch, which your dictionary should also tell you. Hence, an accidental elevates or lowers *a definite pitch*, not to be confused with every note of the same name in the instrument's entire compass.
Of course, this is mere traceable good sense, which is of course not necessarily consistent with common musical practice. Anyway, no music dictionary is infallible.
By the way, let's say there's a piece of music showing a duet on a single staff (even worse, in a key rife with sharps or flats), using a great number of augmented, diminished, and seventh chords. Trying to establish some semblance of reality using the presumption that accidentals translate across octaves could drive both the printer and the performers nuts.
If there's a vote, I'm against that. And we Californians do have recent voting experience, you may have heard.
Regards,
John
more raconteur than composer
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-10-20 04:19
GBK - I leave nothing to chance (meaning I make it quite explicit) but then again my compositions tend to be quite "odd" so need careful attention to detail.
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Author: donald
Date: 2003-10-20 12:35
ummm.... ok
it is usually assumed that ACCIDENTALS apply only to the octave that they are written.
HOWEVER in some music written by French and Spanish composers (and i'm sure some others from other countries, and i'm sure not all from those two countries)..... you assume that the accidentals are repeated at the octave.
basically, you are required to use your common sense here, and/or a bit of artistic judgement.
of course- modern composers who are writing all sorts of crazy stuff, may stipulate that the rules are different (for example, that accidentals only apply to notes joined by a beam) but this will be written in "notes for performer" that can, frankly, say anything.
donald
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-10-20 16:35
OK, this is news to me. We were carefully taught in theory classes that the accidental applies to every occurrance of the note within the bar, no matter what octave, unless the composer cancels it with a natural sign. For difficult passages with several accidentals happening at once this can mean marking the subsequent accidentals in pencil in order to remember. This has been the rule in many passages played successfully in lessons and exams. So this is a new concept to me. Perhaps it's because I didn't take piano lessons? A good topic to bring up at my next lesson.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-10-20 17:56
I was prompted to raise this question by GBK's comment when discussing the Messager Solo de Concours, and by my own attempts to struggle through the Chausson Andante and Allegro.
The specific example I quoted (E natural in Eb major, or at any rate in three flats) comes from bar 22 of the Allegro. The unmarked E in question immediately follows a C#, and playing it as Eb sounds slightly odd to me. However, there are many other bars in the piece where Chausson has explicitly written the same accidental in different octaves, so I assume that his rule is that accidentals apply only at the octave at which they are written.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-10-20 19:15
David...Check the piano part in that measure to see the underlying harmony...GBK
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-10-20 19:19
Hi,
In Copland's "An Outdoor Overture" in measure 51 (key of F Concert), there is a run from G5 to F3 in which the each F# is natural and each B is flatted; every octave is marked. Same piece, measures 144 and 145 (key of C Concert) with a run from G 6 to E3 and each F# is natural and each B is again flatted.
IMHO one would then suppose that had each suceeding octave not been marked, the key signature would have prevailed. This leads me to support the notion that in single note lines like on wind instruments, accidentals must be marked in each octave.
When I think back to theory class though, everything there seemed to be keyboard related with ocatves (and 4 part harmony) often considered a routine. In that case, one might be able to support that once marked, the accidental would hold for the measure in any octave.
HRL
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Author: donald
Date: 2003-10-20 19:33
in reply to Brenda....
if you look through music you can find easily examples where the composer writes the accidental in at the octave, and it's not hard to find examples where the accidental does NOT repeat at the octave.
here in NZ we are taught theory the "English way"- but i don't remember a big change when i went to the US, UNTIL i happened to be working on some studies by a spanish composer...
i mean, i could be wrong, but then so would lots of other people i know, many of whom have studied in both/either USA and UK (and Europe too i guess).
on the other hand, i'm often wrong about things so why not this time?
donald
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