| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
bairdstudio
Veteran Member
Joined: 28 Nov 2007
Posts: 182
|
 Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:27 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| dr_trumpet wrote: | The real answer is: It depends.
I've seen some music where the accidental carries through, regardless of octave. This was a common practice for many, many years.
In the 20th century, however, the practice becomes that an accidental is only good for that specific note in that specific measure; not the octave above or the one below, or any other note.
That is how I was taught, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in error playing that way. I suppose any rule is possible, but the truth of the matter is if you apply the above policy, you will likely be fine.
Al |
This is my exact feeling on the subject as well... However, 98% of the time , from what I've experienced in my studies and observations that editors/publishers and composers will write an accidental and expect that it will effect that note through out all ranges. Jeez.... Its almost always been true for anything I've ever played and honestly if it wasn't then more than likely it was a mis-print by the publisher.  However, there have been occassions where I've been shedding a piece and would discover through a fingering mistake of my own that say a F natural and a F# played on the same F, same range, same measure, both sounded right (even though lets say that it was really an accidental F# and a beat earlier it was F natural). When I may think the F natural sounds better I found that if I simply did the analysis of the music (with piano accomp. if it has it) that it would present itself to me as to what the actual right note might be. Often you can follow the progression of the line before and after the measure or note in question and see what its suppose to actually be.
Generally my feeling is that accidentals carry through the measure, through out all octaves of the note. If the accidental is carried across the bar by tie, the accidental lasts only to the end of the tied note, and if you encounter the not again its goes back to the original key signature.
However, I'd advise letting your theory knowledge and ear guide you. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Nonsense Eliminator
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 03 Feb 2003
Posts: 5212
Location: Toronto
|
| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have to say, I'm a little taken aback by the notion that there is a common practice expecting accidentals to carry across octaves. I've been pulling music off my shelf, both trumpet parts and piano parts, and every time there's a note which appeared with an accidental in another octave, it's repeated. If it were indeed the case that accidentals are supposed to apply to other octaves, why is this so?
Because they happened to be on top of the pile, I looked at my copies of Tomasi, Halsey Stevens, and Gregson. All are littered with examples of octaves being repeated when the note occurs in a different octave. The only contradiction I found was in my Arban, and it's only an implicit contradiction. In the last variation of Carnival of Venice, there are some accidentals which are cancelled on notes an octave away from where they originally appeared, which could be taken to suggest that the publisher felt that the accidental still applied. However, in Characteristic Study #1, accidentals are repeated when the note occurs in a different octave, which suggests that Arban and/or the publisher is simply taking pains to be absolutely clear.
I suspect that if one were to do a comprehensive study, one would find that 99% of the time, accidentals are, in fact, used in all cases where a note appears which had had an accidental applied to it in another octave. That is, most publishers will take care to be absolutely explicit about whether or not the accidental applies. Sometimes, they aren't, either due to carelessness or ignorance -- but those are the incidences we remember, because we had to think about them. We don't remember the thousands of times the music is notated properly.
_________________
Richard Sandals
NBO |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
