On Mon, 9 Jul 2001, Joerg Anders wrote:
> I want to implement trills into "noteedit". Unfortunately
> I don't know exactly how to play them.
>
> I think it is an 32th alternation between the note with trill
> and the next semitone. But is it the semitone above or the
> semitone below ? Or are there 2 different symbols for above
> and below ?
Depending on what you exactly want to know, I fear there won't be a short
answer. The question of ornaments turnes out to be its own, long story.
I) To my knowledge the trill is always with the note above, if semi tone
or full tone depends on harmony (or how you'd like to call it in earlier
music). But there are several possibilities to play it depending on when
and where the music has been written. For example in the age of baroque
you find mainly three different rules.
a) In French music the normal trill starts with the upper note unless it
is specially marked.
b) In Italian music it starts normally with the lower (main) note.
c) In northern German music it starts with the note which is dissonant to
the actual harmony and this first note should be longer than the following
ones unless the trill goes with a very short note.
II) A trill-like ornament with the next note below you find mostly in
french music, called "pince" if it is a very short and fast one. It can
start either with the upper note (fast one) or with the lower note as a
dissonance held into the new harmony. In the latter this first note should
be held longer than the following (like the inversed version of the
nothern German trill from above). There are two different symbols for
these two cases.
III) Besides that there are a lot of other ornaments, especially in french
music, and furthermore you'll find all possible combinations so that very
often you'll have to decide yourself how to play it exactly. In fact,
since French composers normally tried to controll the way how to play the
ornaments as much as possible, in printed French music you find very often
a table in the front or back matter explaining all the used symbols.
For music after 1750 you shouldn't ask me because there I'm far from being
an expert.
But may I ask why you think you need to know how to play them for
implementing? Do you want them to get written out as single note heads?
Except for such tables explaining symbols I would never do that because
ornaments should always be played freely. Ok, except its for something
like producing a midi file.
regards
Bernhard
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