Part 2 (1/2)

(Pianists will recall a modern instance, so far as the dot is concerned, in a little exercise in C major of Czerny's.)

The practice cannot have been due to the non-invention of the ”tie” or ”bind.” For though the first use of this is difficult to trace, clear instances, in the form of a bracket, ?, occur in Morley's _Practical Music_, published in 1597.

Rests.

15.--Rests, especially whole note rests, when used for a whole measure, are still very often illogically placed in the _middle_ of the s.p.a.ce they represent. This has been defended on the ground that they represent silence or _inaction_, and that therefore no error can arise from their appearance being deferred. But a performer should be conscious of the action _or inaction_ of every voice or part. If there be a seeming vacuum or hiatus, how is he to know whether it is a note or rest which has been omitted? If he concludes, from the absence of any note, that a rest is intended, he can only _guess_ how long it will prove to be when it does come. Therefore, in the writer's opinion, rests should be located on the same principle as notes. If it be not a profanation to say so, since the example is from Bach, the rest in Fig. 12 would have been better placed at the beginning of the measure. Let a sheet of paper be held over the right half of the measure, and though the player will be able to begin, he will not know in how many parts the piece is written.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 12.]

16.--In open score, that is, in writing a single melody or part on one stave, it is usual to make whole note rests below the fourth line, and half note rests above the third. Quarter note rests should be written exactly in the middle of the stave. The crook of eighth note rests, and the upper crook of shorter rests, is generally placed in the third s.p.a.ce, in the absence of any reason to the contrary. The stems of rests are, in ma.n.u.script music especially, better slanted somewhat. This helps to distinguish them from the stems of notes--in rapidly written ma.n.u.script a not unimportant thing!

17.--There are two forms of quarter note rest, the English, which is like the eighth note rest but turned to the right-hand, and the German, which is somewhat difficult to describe. The German is far the better of the two as being much more distinct from the eighth note rest. It is, however, harder to write, and of the slightly varying forms, perhaps the easiest is that with a crook at each end of a very oblique stem and which is thus very much like a reversed letter Z (see the first example in Fig. 13).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 13. Ma.n.u.script forms of German quarter note rest.]

18.--In short score, that is, in writing two or more parts or voices on one stave, the rests are placed, not only in the top or bottom s.p.a.ce of the stave as may best indicate to which part they apply, but above and below it, involving, in the case of whole note and half note rests, the use of a leger-line (see b, Fig. 14). This is partly because _the stems of all rests are turned down_, and therefore cannot be made, as the stems of notes can, to indicate the part they belong to by the direction taken. This, therefore, has to be shown by their position on, or off, the stave (see Fig. 14).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 14. J. S. Bach.]

It will be seen that the lower eighth note rest in the first example belongs to the same part as the following sixteenth note rest, though by no means on a line with it.

19.--In modern piano music which is not of a strictly part-writing character, rests often represent the absence, not of a part or voice, _but of the hand_. If the notes, though representing as many parts as the piece can be supposed to possess, are all to be played by one hand, rests are employed to represent the absence of the other.

And in music which _is_ of a part-writing character, though the parts are _incomplete_, rests are often _not_ employed if both hands are engaged (see Fig. 3, c, ba.s.s clef, supposing it to be of more than two parts).

Bach rarely, if ever, employed rests to represent the hand; with him they always represent a voice. Thus in a melodic or one-part pa.s.sage divided between the hands, each playing alternate groups, he used no rests to represent the absent hand. These, appearing simultaneously with the notes, would have implied a second part. With him rests represent a living, though absent, voice; in modern usage they frequently represent, not music, but the way of playing it. See Fig. 15, the first half of which is in _two_ parts, therefore rests represent the thirty-second note silences; and the second half of which is in _one_ part, therefore no rests are employed though only one hand is engaged at a time. It is from a B flat Prelude in Bach's _Well-tempered Clavier_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 15.]

Dots.

20.--Dots are used in music for three purposes: (1) as repeat marks, (2) to indicate semi-staccato, (3) to prolong a note one half. As repeat marks, they may be placed in each of the four s.p.a.ces of the stave (which in the writer's opinion is the better plan, as being less liable to confusion with time-dots), or in the second and third s.p.a.ces only, in accordance with a modern custom. _Staccato_ dots and _staccatissimo_ dashes, when two parts are being written on one stave, should be placed below the note if applying to the lower part, and above if applying to the higher. In the case of open score (a single part on one stave), they are best placed on the side opposite the stem.

Time-dots, or those which prolong a note one half, if applied to a note in a s.p.a.ce, should be in the same s.p.a.ce as the note; if applied to a note on a line they should be placed in the s.p.a.ce above, if the next note of the part is higher, and in the s.p.a.ce below if it is lower. The importance of this usage is often overlooked. If it cannot be called a rule, it is high time it was made one! When two parts are written on one stave, and a note is doubled, having two stems, one up and the other down, to indicate this, and in one part it is dotted, and in the other not, it is impossible, apart from this rule, to tell which part has the note dotted and which not (except, of course, from the context, which may expose any mistake). The following example from Henry Smart's ”Festive March in D,” for the organ, appears to contain two dotted half notes. It would probably be so read by anyone playing the pa.s.sage at sight. The context shows that it is the eighth note not the half note which is intended to be dotted. All the dots except that to the last note but one should have been in the s.p.a.ce _below_ the note, where this is on a line.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 16.]

Logic would suggest that where a doubled, that is a two-stemmed, note is dotted in both parts or voices, _two_ dots should follow one above the other. This would, however, be awkward when the note was in a s.p.a.ce; and also when it was on a line, if, as in the last group above, _both_ voices proceeded to a lower note (or both to a higher). For according to the rule here being considered, both dots would have to be in the s.p.a.ce below (or above).

There is another slight inaccuracy in the above example which will be noticed later on. Let the tyro try and find it!