Common notation problems | Rhythm
On any given week, I am processing a lot of new music. Since most composers are doing their own copy work these days, I thought it might be helpful to make a little journal of the errors I see. I will say up front, that I’m not a great copyist myself. I don’t keep up with the latest style manuals. My thoughts come from teaching theory for 20 years and — more importantly — from getting yelled at by actual players when something is notated in an unclear fashion.
Here is the hard truth. Professional players are inundated with music. They will form an opinion of your composition on the first reading. Anything that hinders that reading can hinder your piece both in the selection and performance process. If I have to choose between learning a piece that’s notated well and one that isn’t, I need a compelling reason to pick the latter.
Here are some of the things I’ve seen in the past two weeks. These examples are my own based on notational problems I’ve seen.
In style manuals from the 19th century, it was popular to break stems for non-melismatic passages. We don’t do this anymore. It’s terribly confusing because you can’t see where the beat is. In the 20th century, we started notating these passages like this:
Now that it’s the 21st century, we don’t need to see the broken beams ever again. The passage is also typical of another problem that I see all the time. The text is set poorly with accented syllables on unaccented beats, but I’m going to save that for another post.
While working on a premiere from a major internationally known composer, I found this little gem, and it’s one of the most common problems I see.
I’m not saying that good players can’t make it work. I’m saying that it’s confusing. Any given player will prefer to see this rhythm notated as:
The first option is only acceptable because it doesn’t obscure the larger beat pattern. The second option might be a little fussy, but in my experience you are much more likely to get an accurate reading on the first pass.
Whatever you do, do not obscure the big beats. So, for example, if there is an extended syncopation pattern, we sometimes see notation like this:
It’s OK because I can still see the strong beats. In my experience, you are more likely to get a good first reading with this notation:
No matter what you do, you have to avoid ever notating a syncopation like this:
In this case, beat three has become obscured. The problem is that this notation implies a 3+3+2 pattern in common time, and that’s something different. Properly notated, it looks like this:
So keeping in mind the idea of not obscuring beats, we can develop the general rule that dotted notes should only go on the front side of strong beats. If you are putting a dot on a weak beat, you’re getting into the danger zone. So for example, I came across a passage with this notation this week.
This is wrong because the dotted note on the weak beat obscures the strong beat three. That momentary bit of confusion can make all the difference in a reading. Much better to notated it properly like this:
Similarly, it’s best to follow these rules for keyboard even when you can keep track of the beat with one hand. For example, I discovered a passage like this last night:
In this case, the beats are clear because of the right hand, but I still don’t like the weirdness of the left hand obscuring beat three with the dotted not on the weak beat. The first dotted rhythm is fine because it’s on a strong beat. The passage is much clearer as:
Like I said above, I’m not up on all of the latest style manuals, and I think there is some room for variation. I’m just saying that after almost 30 years of writing charts for actual players, this is what most players prefer.
