On 20 Jun 2011, Gibbons, John wrote: > "stacc. abbreviated form of staccato (Italian: detached, separated) > staccare (Italian) to detach, to separate each note" > The word has its natural meaning, in other words.
> Stacatissimo is what some people think it means, but it doesn't! I believe I read (probably in the online dolmetsch.com music theory site since that's what I tend to use) that in classical / art music terms these days, a note with a staccato dot should be played half length of what is printed, (so a crotchet becomes a quaver, for instance), whilst staccatissimo means the note should be played one quarter of the written value. I have more than a suspicion that the precise meaning of these terms varies from instrument to instrument (different characteristics and all that) as well as through historical and musical time. Maybe an exploration of the relevance and meaning of such terms for the nsp is worthwhile. Tenuto also appears to mean separated, but only by a hair's breadth, which I think we should appropriate, as it describes exactly what we sometimes want. Reading (this time on Wikipedia) legato can be either separated or joined (slurred legato?) depending on instrument and context. What / which do we (nsp-ers) mean by it? And under what circumstances? I once played classical flute - where staccato dots often (but not always) meant tongueing, slurs meant no tongueing. And so on and so forth. Each of us is coming to the nsp with a slightly different perspective and experience and we have to bear this in mind in discussions We have staccatissimo marks in Peacock on Meggy's Foot - and all seem agreed that this is a highly exaggerated staccato tune. So, in our case, staccatissimo could be said to be "as short as you can possibly make it", whilst "staccato" is with the bounce that most players seem to apply to (for example) the first of a pair of repeated notes. Not something that's ever been pointed out to me formally but "most" players do it, almost by instinct. Which makes it traditional in my book. If we can find a consensus on how these terms are / should be used in nspiping, discussions might be a little less confrontational. Julia (who has been told off by both Chris O and I- Adrian for playing "too staccato" - yeeeeees!) To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
