Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [notation]

For questions about visual representation of music and its uses. If the question is about a specific type of notation like tablature, that should also be tagged. Questions about how to input specific notation are best served with the engraving tag.

Notation is the visual representation of auditory phenomena, often for a musician's benefit. Music can be represented in many ways, some of which emphasize higher-level structure and facilitate analysis, while other methods simply instruct a performer on how to perform a piece. One common method, sheet music, indicates the pitches to be sounded by their position on a staff, and their durations via abstract symbols.

See also the discussion at What is the relationship between the notation and engraving tags?

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How do you draw a quarter rest with a pen/pencil?

It seems to me that the quarter rest we see everywhere was drawn with a calligraphy pen. I don't have one of those - I have a sharpened/mechanical pencil or a ball-point pen. So usually when I try to imitate the shape of a quarter rest, it looks a…
Ricket
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Why are there both sharps and flats?

If we can get away with just having sharps (aka black notes on a piano) then why complicate things and add flats as well? For example, if I have a C# why call it Dflat? Why not just leave it as C# and make things simpler.
user34288
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6 answers

What is the relationship between "do re mi" and note letter names?

When people sing the song, they use do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, (si), etc, but sometimes I hear that the music people say A, B, C, D flat, etc. Is there a relationship or are they two different things?
Ted Wong
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Why is C the base note of standard notation and keys?

Why is it that notes "start" with C? In key signatures, for example, C Major is the basis and accidentals are added for all other key signatures. I know that the musical alphabet starts with A and goes to G, so why is C the base note of standard…
skystar
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Found in an 1800s newspaper--what kind of march notation is this?

Does anyone recognize this musical notation? It looks like a bunch of vertical bars. Is it supposed to be read by a machine? It was found in an issue of Scientific American from 1846. I'm guessing the "C" at the beginning means common time, as it…
keej
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What does a small x-like symbol before a note mean?

I've been playing piano by ear for a long time and now I am trying to learn the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. I am a little confused about the meaning of a little cross placed right before a note. It seems to cancel a sharp or something,…
Patrick Da Silva
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12 answers

Key signature for writing in modes other than major and minor

I have trouble deciding what accidentals to put in the key signature for pieces in Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian or Mixolydian modes. There seem to be trade-offs associated with each choice. For example, when writing in G Mixolydian, setting an empty key…
Gauthier
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Does an accidental apply to all octaves?

I've been playing French Horn for 20 years, and thought I had most basic concepts regarding accidentals understood. But the other day I came across the following image via Wikipedia, which had me questioning what I thought I knew: Wikipedia…
Siyual
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What is the origin of the up bow and down bow symbols for bowed string instruments?

My brother is a beginning cellist and I was helping him annotate "up bow" and "down bow". I find it particularly strange that the "up bow" symbol is similar to a V. Intuitively, I would have thought it would be ^ or an up arrow. I thought I would…
Lou
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Is there any practical difference between 3/4 and 3/8 time?

Is there any practical difference between 4/4 and 8/8? regards a common and unusual time signature; both 3/4 and 3/8 time are pretty common. What difference in performance is implied in the the difference between 3/4 and 3/8 time signatures? What…
Dave
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How to interpret half notes combined with thirty-second stems?

I want to play Also Sprach Zarathustra (IMSLP PDF), but there is something I don't understand there. In the first few bars there are 4 half notes beamed in pairs as thirty-second notes. Because the time signature is common time I deduce each of…
iddober
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Why do people sometimes write notes as E♯ or C♭?

Instead of writing F or B, sometimes people use E♯ or C♭ to write these notes. Are there any advantages to this notation?
Tung D. Nguyen
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What is the difference between sharp note & flat note?

In guitar or generally in any musical instruments, what is the difference between sharp notes & flat notes? For example : Are A♯ & B♭ the same? And are C♯ & D♭ the same? Does that make any difference in terms of the sound produced by…
ragmn
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2 answers

What does a triangle mean in chord notation?

For example, what does the △ mean in C△7?
Sam
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13 answers

What does this note - B# - mean?

I'm confused as to how I should play the second note below, B#. Does it mean it's C? It is possible? In which case, why is it written like this, and not just C? Sonata quasi una Fantasia, First movement (Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven, OP.27 No 2) --…
laurent
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