Matthew Saunders’ Blog

An excerpt from Chapter 5 of my book Music: Notation and Practice in Past and Present, currently in press.

The conception of the staff as a form of the xy-coordinate plane is adequate for an understanding of the notation of pitch events and their temporal relationships.  However, music is far more subtle than the four elements of melody, harmony, tempo and rhythm that can be described in this way.  In fact, staff notation as we have studied it ignores the musical element that frequently gives the first and most basic aural cues to listeners:  timbre.  Many listeners who fail to be excited by the use of unique scales, obscure keys, unorthodox meters or complex chords are instantly enthralled by the sound of familiar or favorite instruments or the specific timbral qualities of the voice of a beloved singer.  The system of musical notation simply cannot be considered complete without a means for indicating timbre.

For centuries, though, there were no such indications in Western musical notation.  While the earliest forms of what would become modern notation date back to the 10^th century A.D., no composer indicated what instruments were to play the specific parts in a score until Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557-1612) published his Symphoniae Sacrae (1597, 1601), which indicated timbre by naming the desired instrument to the left of each staff in a system, or group of staves.  For music prior to that time, performers and musicologists must often rely on other clues left by the compositional process.  The inclusion of poetic text, for example, indicates that a composition was likely for voices, although it is always possible that instrumentalists would double the vocal parts, as continues to be the case in much music written to this day.  This practice is prevalent in Protestant hymnody, where it was traditional for the music to be written in four vocal parts (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), but doubled on a keyboard instrument such as piano or organ.  Specific melodic or harmonic figurations may indicate that a composition was intended for a specific instrument, such as a keyboard instrument or a fretted string instrument.  In general, however, during much of the history of music, music, whether notated or not was performed by the available forces at any given moment.  It is remarkable that the first composer to call for specific instrument worked in Venice, one of the most prosperous cities at the time, where he supervised the music for St. Mark’s Cathedral, the central church of the city.  The musical forces available to Gabrielli were likely some of the most reliable, professional and well-paid in Europe, and it has typically been in environments such as this that musical experimentation thrives and new standards are set that eventually become adopted throughout a culture.

It is likely that an experienced musician, presented with an unlabelled instrumental part for a standard instrument, could identify the instrument being called for by investigating certain factors.  Instrumental range is a possible clue, as all instruments have at least an absolute lowest pitch, and while their range may theoretically extend upward to infinity, there is usually a generally-accepted upper limit to the pitches that a standard instrument can play.  For example, the modern flute can play no lower than B3, and only to C4 on some student models[1].  Its upper range extends to approximately C7 for professional players.  In addition, as with all woodwind instruments, it is common to write trills, in which a player rapidly alternates between two notes a step apart, for flute.  However, some notes are more easily trilled than others, and an astute composer will avoid the difficult trills while utilizing the more convenient ones.  If the hypothetical mystery part, then, had no notes below C4, but a range extending up to B$6, all the while treading delicately around the more tricky trills (such as that between C4 and D$4), it would be reasonable to conclude that it was music for the flute.  This music would be said to be written idiomatically for the flute.

Idiomatic writing for an instrument or voice is crucial to successful composing and arranging.  While more basic music is generally playable on any instrument if transposed into the correct range, more complex and difficult music can quickly overwhelm the abilities of even a professional performer if utmost consideration is not given to the unique properties of an instrument or voice.  For vocal music, it is even reasonable to compose with a specific performer in mind, as human voices are as wondrously varied as human faces.  For example, British composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) had a life-long collaboration—both personally and professionally—with tenor Peter Pears (1910-1986), resulting in several sets of songs, operatic roles and the incomparable Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (1943) being composed with Pears’ somewhat unremarkable voice in mind.  These works reflect the limitations and advantages of Pears’ instrument and, like others composed for specific performers, they must be approached with this in mind.  The Britten-Pears collaboration has been the subject of much musicological study, and is a prime example of the ways in which a composer’s life can impact his work and vice versa.

Composers also write for specific instrumentalists.  For example, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) composed his Clarinet Concerto (1947-9) on a commission from clarinetist Benny Goodman (1909-1986).  Goodman, better known for his jazz improvisations than his classical performances, felt a responsibility to add to the repertoire for his instrument, despite his own feelings of inadequacy about his ability as a classical performer and admitted discomfort with notated music.  Copland’s concerto, then, is scrupulously notated and, while not in a jazz idiom, works very closely with what is natural to the clarinet while at the same time providing a piece worthy of Goodman’s substantial technical prowess.  Goodman has not been the only performer to feel compelled to contribute to the repertoire for his instrument.  In the 19^th century, virtuoso violinist Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840) not only composed music for himself but commissioned others, with the result that Paganini’s revolutionary technical skills, many of which were innovative developments for the instrument, became standard violin technique within a few generations.  In the late-20^th and early-21^st century, a generation of gifted trombone players, such as Swedish virtuoso Christian Lindberg (b. 1958) and the American Joseph Alessi (b. 1959), has been creating a repertoire for their instrument by commissioning and performing new music.  These new pieces will impact the study of the trombone for generations to come as students begin to view these new works as the standard aims of serious study on the instrument.

Similarly, a performer may possess unique or innovative abilities that a composer wishes to exploit in a musical composition, or that a performer may employ in his own music.  Vocalist Bobby McFerrin (b. 1950) possesses a miraculous instrument capable of an enormous variety of vocalizations that he has employed in jazz, popular and classical-style compositions.  Similarly, soprano and composer Cathy Berberian (1925-1983) possessed a vocal instrument whose range, expressiveness and accuracy inspired not only her own compositions, but also those of her husband Lucciano Berio (1925-2003) and many other composers.  The ongoing collaboration between composer and performer can be as vital and important as that between two actors or an actor and a director with onscreen chemistry (Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, for example, or Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau, or Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock), and it can define careers and musical legacy, as is currently being seen in the collaborations of composer Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960) and soprano Dawn Upshaw (b. 1960), or composer Magnus Lindberg’s (b. 1958) on-going work as Composer-in-Residence with the New York Philharmonic.  For this author, who is trained as a composer, collaboration with a performer who gives significant practice time to a new piece is a joy.  When a performer becomes as emotionally involved as the composer with the new piece, however, the experience is as thrilling—and absorbing—as a new love affair.[2]

It is likely that most composers in the era before 1600 simply knew their performers personally, never intended to distribute their music widely and wrote for the individual at hand.  In our technological, text-saturated world, duplication of the written word (or composed note) is cheap and easy.  A composer can write a piece today that will be played, sung or heard  by thousands tomorrow, making it impossible for the composer to know every performer—or potential performer—personally.  Every musician’s abilities are different, and every musician’s musical language is slightly different.   This is the challenge that the composer of music for a specific timbre faces, then, and the answers to this challenge are highly varied, and often quite subtle.

An excerpt from Chapter 4 of my forthcoming book, Music: Notation and Practice in Past and Present:

There is an unfortunate tendency among music readers to view rhythmic notation as defining points of sound that occur at discrete moments.  On certain instruments, this is effectively true.  For example, once some percussion instruments are struck, there is very little the performer can do to alter the resulting sound, which at any rate, has a relatively short duration.  This is certainly the case for some drums, such as the snare drum, and for some of the idiophones such as the claves, woodblock or anvil.  For nearly every other instrument, though, including the piano, guitar and the human voice, a note indicates not only an attack, or the start of the sound, but also a release, or an endpoint.  In addition, performers may have some control over a sustaining, or continuous middle portion, of a tone, or the decay of a sound, the resonance that continues after a release point.  While some aspects of these envelopes are inherent in the timbre of an instrument, others can be effected through developed instrumental or vocal technique.  For example, the timbre of the piano has very little sustaining quality—as soon as a note is struck, the sound begins to decay.  But through the use of the damper pedal (found on the right on modern pianos), the decay can be allowed to persist instead of being cut off when the key is allowed to return to its original position.  This ability has largely defined the sound of piano music for the last two centuries, and a piano without a functioning damper pedal is not a functioning instrument any more than a car without brakes is a functioning vehicle.

The act of shaping the attack, sustain, decay and release of notes is known as articulation, and the art of articulation varies to a greater or lesser degree on every instrument.  It is crucial for an aspiring musician to study and understand the technique of articulation on her chosen instrument, and within various styles.  Much of what constitutes a style is often a tacit agreement on how to apply articulations to written or improvised music.

Despite the differences in articulation technique between instruments, a reasonably standard set of symbols has developed in written music to allow the composer some control over certain aspects of the shape of notes.  These symbols really alter any of several different musical elements—most often rhythm or dynamics, other times melody, and occasionally timbre.  Their meanings vary slightly between instruments and styles, but some generalizations about each symbol can be made.

The slur is a symbol with several different meanings, depending on the instrument or voice for which music is written.  Its first use was with notes in vocal music that employed melisma, the technique in which a single syllable is sung over two or more notes.  In this case, as in Figure 29, the slur indicates exactly which notes are involved in the melisma, and does so more precisely than the lyrics below the notes can do.

 

Figure 29: Indication of melisma in a vocal part using a slur.  The notes will be sung with the words “A melisma,” with the melisma occuring on the syllable mel.

Woodwind and brass players, whose approach to phrasing and articulation is similar to singing in many respects, also use slurs to group notes into unbroken (or slightly-broken) streams of sound.  In Figure 30, a passage for clarinet, the first note under each slur is given a relatively pointed attack with the tongue.  For the subsequent notes, the air continues to move through the instrument without interference, while the fingers work keys and cover or uncover holes to change the pitch.  At the end of the last note, either the tongue or the breathing apparatus may be used to stop the air.



 

Figure 30: A passage for a wind instrument employing slurs.  Only the first and seventh notes would have tongued attacks.

For bowed stringed instruments, slurs indicate the use of the bow rather than the tongue or airstream.  All notes under a slur will be played without changing bow direction.  In Figure 31, for violin, the player would play the first four notes without changing direction, then reverse course for the next five notes.  String players often use the Π and V symbols for downbow and upbow, respectively, in which the right (bow) hand moves in the stated direction, adding further control over attack and sustain envelopes.  In addition, other articulation symbols may be used in combination with the slur in writing for strings, often indicating the degree to which the bow should stay on or bounce off of the string at the end of each note.[1]

 

Figure 31:  A slurred passage for a bowed string instrument.  The bow would change direction on the first, fifth, tenth, twelfth, 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th notes.

Some instruments, such as piano, guitar and many percussion instruments, have little control over the sustaining power of their notes.  The result is that slurs for these instruments are most removed (although not completely separate) from their meaning for the voice.  For guitar, a slur indicates that the performer is to pluck the string for the first note with the right hand, and then either “hammer on” (articulate the second note by pressing a higher left-hand finger onto the same string), or “pull off” (change to the second note by lifting up a finger to lengthen the string).  The ability to slur on guitar, then, is much more limited than on most instruments.

In music for the piano, which also has limited sustaining power, a slur generally indicates a legato approach to the notes under the slur, meaning that the release of a note is delayed until the finger playing the next note can be put down, usually with a sense of heaviness in the wrist that allows one note to effectively blend into the next.

Slurs for most percussion instruments have only the most basic meaning, but one that is really at the core of the idea of the slur.  In its most basic form, a slur indicates musical phrasing, that is, it shows a player that a group of notes is meant to be a single musical idea.  This type of slur is frequently combined with the other types for all instruments, and it is typical of many styles to modify the tempo at the beginnings and ends of slurs to allow performers to breathe.[2]

Figure 32 shows the notational difference between the slur and the tie.  Several visual cues can be used identify which symbol is being used, notably that the tie always connects two adjacent notes that are on the same line or space on the staff, while the slur may connect any number of notes.  There are also slight engraving differences, namely that the ends of a tie are closer to the heads of the affected notes, and the overall depth of the curve is shallower.  Slurs generally point to the heads of the first and last notes, and are found on opposite sides of the note from the stem.  Two important exceptions, however, should be noted:  When a slurred passage begins with a stem-up note and ends with a stem-down note (or vice-versa), the slur is drawn above the notes.  And when two voices appear on a single staff, any slurs will connect stems instead of noteheads.

 

Figure 32: Slurs vs. ties.  In each measure, the first two notes are slurred while the second two notes are tied.

Several other standard articulation symbols appear in contemporary notation, each with a slightly different meaning on every instrument.  A good instrumental teacher will be able to couch their meaning in terms of instrumental technique rather than precise rhythmic practice, but in each case, the effect is relatively the same.  An additional differing factor is how each articulation is treated in any given style, even down to the expectations of an individual composer.

The staccato dot (.), which appears either directly above or below a notehead, opposite the stem, originally instructed players to perform the note at half its value, with a rest on the second half.   While this interpretation holds true for many styles, there is a fair amount of variation in the meaning of this symbol, even among performances of the same piece.  Many performers will tailor their interpretation of staccato in some passages to the acoustics of the room in which they sing or play, as the reverberation times of musical sound can vary greatly in live performance spaces.  Other composers had the opportunity to let their desires be known, as in the case of Igor Stravinsky, who generally insisted that his staccato markings indicated that the note was to be played “as short as possible.”

The tenuto symbol (–) is an indication to play a note for full value, but no more, in other words, to let a note take up its entire allotted space, but to also keep it separate from the next note.  Like the staccato dot, the tenuto symbol is written either above or below the notehead, opposite the stem.  While this symbol may seem redundant, it is highly useful as a clarifying symbol in a complex passage, or in unfamiliar styles.  The author, in his role as a composer, advises contemporary composers to use articulation symbols liberally in their music.  While most classically-trained performers could supply a reasonably acceptable performance of a piece by Mozart without any written articulations, and indeed frequently do so with the music by Bach, which has few, if any of these symbols, contemporary composers cannot rely on performers’ being able to make these assumptions, and thus should be as specific as possible.

The accent mark (>) always appears above a note, whether the stem is up or down, in order to be somewhat more visible.  This mark indicates that a more forceful attack, often in contrast to the tendency of the meter, should be made on that note.  The mechanics of this attack vary from instrument to instrument, and among styles, composers and individual performers, but the effect generally results in a more forceful attack at a slightly stronger dynamic level than the surrounding notes.

A cousin of the accent mark is the martellato accent (Λ), which is frequently understood as a combination of the staccato and accent.  It is not appropriate in some styles, but is ubiquitous in jazz, where it is often placed above beat-length notes.  Experienced jazz brass and woodwind players emphasize not only the attack but the release of notes with this symbol, and often describe the result with the word “daht” in the vernacular (and often highly personal) rhythmic solfege syllables that are used to communicate information about “swung” rhythms.

The notation of rhythm, meter and tempo, whether in the form of individual rhythmic patterns, metric notation, or articulations defining attack and release, is the key to the higher-level organization of notated music.  Ironically, it is the aspect of Western notation that came later (although not last), as the music originally notated (Medieval plainchant) was rhythmically formulaic to the point where only pitch and text required notation.  Precision of rhythmic notation, and accuracy in reading rhythm, are crucial skills for any musician that will allow the development of true music reading skill.  Rhythmic notation can be confusing, and must be read in real-time, but a focus on learning specific rhythmic patterns will yield relatively quick results for most students, and a degree of comfort and familiarity that will allow exploration of a great deal of written music can be developed by regular practice.  It is crucial that the goal of an aspiring musician in the Western tradition be to understand musical notation at sight without assistance from a teacher or director.  This is the first step toward a firsthand experience of the body of work that is the musical inheritance of a civilization.