At 11:56 AM -0400 3/19/09, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
Good Day:
I'm asking advice about the placement of trills. Is there a standard rule on
the distance and where to place them above notes? You can see an example
here:
http://www.bytenet.net/kpclow/music/trills.jpg
Particularly bothersome are notes with the note stem facing UP, how do I
align the trill symbol? If I make it over the note head, or is that the way
it should be.
Thanks for any ideas
Yes, always over the note, regardless of the stem. And over the
notehead looks good to me, making the stem placement irrelevant. And
properly so, since it is the note that is trilled, and the stem only
indicates note length.
As I'm sure you know, Telemann, Boismortier, and others sometimes
used a simple and generic cross sign over a note, which I interpret
as "do something interesting here, as it occurs to you," and those
are also always over the notehead (at least in modern editions), and
could indicate a trill (time allowing) or a mordent or inverted
mordent. And of course the appoggiatura at the beginning of each
trill would have been understood, although in your example you would
have to determine whether to suggest an upper or lower appoggiatura
for each trill.
Clinton Roemer (the only "authority" I have handy) goes into detail
on trill placement for manuscript copying (Chapter 6, p. 42 in the
1973 edition), and they are ALL over the notes. On one thing I
emphatically disagree with him. He calls placing a ficta sharp or
flat over the trill sign to indicate trilling to an altered note
"incorrect," and recommends other ways that I have never seen and
would be completely confused by.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[email protected])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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