In addition to the notation for the notes and the rhythm, most of our musical scores have other markings, intended to help the player understand what the composer wants in terms of "interpretation." When I say most of our scores, that is because in the Baroque era (Bach, Scarlatti, etc.) there were none of these markings added to keyboard music; it was thought to be up to the performer. Since the Classical era (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) the musical scores always have some of these, generally increasing as the years went on.
The beginning or intermediate student may be unsure what to do about these markings. When you see p for piano, meaning soft, or f for forte, meaning loud, you may ask, how soft? How loud?
Of course, that is the point. It's all relative. There are no absolute values for loud or soft. When you see a staccato mark, how staccato? (Many of my students over the years who have had previous teachers have really been given a wrong impression about staccato.) An accent -- how accented? The answer to all of these is that you have to use your judgement. The more years you play and expose yourself to a variety of music, the better your judgement will be.
If you think maybe you should listen to some recordings of the music you are playing to get a better idea of the markings, you will be quite frustrated, as every performer will do them slightly, or very, differently. And that's the point.
Let's take the example of staccato. In a fast piece, the staccatos may be very crisp, very short. In a slow piece, when the composer indicates staccato, is is more of a slightly detached sound, but not crisp and short. In other words, the mood and tempo of the piece effect how you would interpret the markings.
I have discussed staccato and slurs in previous posts.
Sometimes the markings seem contradictory. You may see a staccato marking and a tenuto (-), meaning hold the note for it's full value, over the same note. How can you possibly do both? The composer is telling you it's very slightly detached, almost imperceptibly. You will see this kind of notation everywhere in Debussy and Ravel, for example.
The tenuto is a confusing marking anyway. Holding the note for its full value is what you would do if there were no marking, so why is it needed? Often you will see it after a series of notes that were staccato, to alert you that it is no longer staccato.
A crescendo tells you to increase the volume, but doesn't always indicate your starting dynamic level. Likewise for a diminuendo.
The one that I think causes the most confusion is accents (>). Presumably that would mean playing that particular note louder, or more pronounced. But how much? If you overdo it, it will interrupt the legato line, the phrase. It will "jump out" and be distracting. Is it a sharp sound, or more of a "leaning into" the note? Sometimes there will be an accent on the first note of a slur, which is redundant, because the first note of the slur is already more emphasized. Sometimes you'll see the symbol sfz, which stands for sforzando. Is it the same as an accent? Not exactly. And sometimes you'll see this symbol (^) which is also similar to an accent. It is not my purpose in this post to explain every single marking you may encounter, but suffice it to say that there are subtle shades of differences in them. Again, your musical judgement and experience may tell you what to do. In the meantime, I actually tell my students to ignore accents, or at least to take them with a giant grain of salt. It is more important to be able to play a legato line, a beautifully phrased passage, then to slavishly try to do all the accents.
It's all relative (see my post of that title). If there were an absolute way to do all of these markings, then everyone's rendition of the piece would sound pretty much the same. These markings are one of the ways to express your interpretation of the piece. And of course you should experiment with different ways of interpreting the markings to detemine which feel and sound the best to you. It's not a crime to omit or change some here and there -- up to a point! Just strive to play with emotional involvement and many of them will come out naturally.
No comments:
Post a Comment