Maybe someone here has an idea if with the analytic followed by the measured tremolos it is fine to have the number included in parentheses or if a pianist would just say "what does this mean" and turn the page?

This isn't intended as a replacement for the analytic in most instances but as a supplement, and of course in some music with rapid changes this might avoid using an analytic altogether and maintain clarity - the number with a one beat tremolo in 32nd notes could be "(12)" instead of "(8)" for instance.

Thanks in advance!

What do you mean by an analytic?

The analytic is a written out presentation of a tremolo, as in the first bar, to give a guide for the remainder.

Some compositions have many of these, as with Liszt's 2nd Legend . . .

M.

I've never come across that term for this. Googling only brings me to this thread. Is it a term your notation program uses?

It is just the word I use

M.

You don't need the number at all. You need to trust that the pianist knows what to do with the measure. It's pretty obvious in this case.

And what's with the tempo decimal again? 87.25? Do you really expect anyone to follow that? I would wager all the gold in Fort Knox that if you listened to 10 different performances of Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto, you'd get 10 different tempos at every single tempo mark in the score. Why are you overly complicating the music in this way? Is there a specific/musical reason?

By using a three-stroke tremolo marking you have asked for 32nds just as clearly as you did in the first bar by writing notes with three beams.

The (32) is unnecessary and confusing. A number in that position would normally be the count of identical repeated bars.

By using a three-stroke tremolo marking you have asked for 32nds just as clearly as you did in the first bar by writing notes with three beams.

The (32) is unnecessary and confusing. A number in that position would normally be the count of identical repeated bars.

I hope no-one dares to perform this music at q=87.24 instead of the authentic q=87.25 :-)

Thanks - with each iteration of the (32) that would make for a quite long composition!

The authentic tempo is q=87.251036, and depending on gyroscopic factors and weather pressure patterns it is + or - .02

Are you sure about this? A few days ago I did a quick review of Alkan's Le Preux, and there are in the score instances of the number "12" for 12 sixteenth note chords in two beats, only the twelves never are parenthesized.

Are the parentheses an issue?

M.

Wombat's correct. It's been a long time since I played music with vamps or extended repeats, but that's typically what it means. I rarely see it over a noted measure. Usually, the measure is written out once, and then a "repeat the previous measure" sign is used.. I'm used to seeing it as %. The number is usually over that measure. And of course, over rests, they usually just put the number without the parentheses.

Some times it means that. But usually the numbers are bold and rather larger.

BTW, in your example, the numbers are barely visible, because they are in the middle of the staves...

Interesting that you say sometimes, Nikolas. I didn't want to say "always" and then end up being wrong -- it appears my choice was pertinent in this case! haha

What else can it mean?

Oh...

I didn't notice your post Derulux! Sorry.

Numbers above a beam, Italized mean a tuplet. Bolded they mean something else.

In this case there's a single beam per bar which makes every single number apply for the whole beam as well as the bar. And it's unnecessary. But since it's Italized and repeated it's not unclear what it is.

Numbers can also be a count (1, 2, 3, etc), or repeated bars as you guys mentioned.

No worries!

And thanks for the answer. Nothing there I haven't seen before, but I think the recollection is going.. haha

And I also agree -- I wouldn't expect to play every measure 32 times. That would be excessive. Or, perhaps, Czerny.

LOL @ the Czerny comment!

Maybe there is a specific score that can be mentioned which has this use of numerals for a repeated bar?

The closest I've seen is a repeat section with between the staves "x3" or whatever number of repeats is desired - and without italics or parentheses.


M.

I wish I could send you to one guaranteed to have it, but the last time I played a score requiring that notation, I was playing lead trumpet in a pit orchestra, and it was 15 years ago.

And I still don't remember if it was in the pit, or in the jazz band I used to play in, that I saw these figures.

I'll see if I can dig something out of the attic that might have this kind of notation...

There isn't any need for that special effort!

Each of the two 64th note tremolos at the end of Thalberg's Fantasie Op. 33 has an "18" under it, but without parentheses and not in italics.

There should be a standard way to indicate the number of note stems in a tremolo of any duration without the number indicating other things about the music . . . but maybe there is no such standard.

I've become focused on this due to inconsistencies as with the 2nd Liszt Legend when an analytic for each section of tremolos is used or not, and when the sections of alternating notes are written out or not - and it seems that if one checks enough recordings unless the number of note stems is specified very firmly performers feel free to play a free tremolo instead which technically it otherwise is.

So with the Liszt Canzone in Annees de Pelerinage every tremolo is written out in full, and everyone plays it that way, I just don't think a composer should have to write out every tremolo in full and use four times as many pages to achieve that consistency of outcome.

(and of course it is a personal contradiction, because I don't care how anyone plays the music, but I at least like the score to reflect how I hear it!)


M.

I think what you may be referring to is the number of lines between the notes in the indicated tremolo. I'm used to reading a single line as 8th notes, a double line as 16th notes, a triple line as 32nd notes, etc. for whatever duration the note values indicate. I believe this is convention, but someone who is more of an expert may want to chime in there if I'm wrong.

Anyone who plays the tremolo free, in those instances, is usually ignoring what's written in the score (for which, whether it's good or bad, we'll have to refer to the Pianist Corner's discussion on sticking to the score ).

Before putting scores into Finale I read up on music notation standards and everything I read says that the tremolos not written out are free tremolos. Digging through piano scores and comparing a lot of recordings of that music seems to suggest it is correct that performance of the short-hand tremolos is ultimately assumed by the composer to be left up to the performer.

Just as with trills which when not written out can be played as free trills (e.g., the trills in Schubert's G-flat Major Impromptu).

A whole note tremolo in 32nd notes could be 32, or it could be 48, or it could be a free tremolo . . . it should be as simple to indicate this when the tremolo lasts an entire bar as with smaller numbers of beats, but not if the indication would then be interpreted to imply the bar repeats 32 (or 48) times - and as free tremolo, not measured tremolo.

And as with that 2nd Liszt Legend, sometimes there is an analytic, sometimes there isn't, sometimes tremolos are written out bar after bar rather than use an analytic . . . there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how it is notated.

I am hoping to cut through all this by sometimes using analytics and always having the numbers as part of the information when the tremolo is not a free tremolo and for whatever reason an analytic isn't or can't be used and yet to write out everything would consume an excessive amount of paper (it isn't like hand engraving where each element by default is and can be micro-positioned for best results, or at least I'm not going to do spend 10 minutes per bar with Finale doing that, going back and forth readjusting and respacing things, et c. !).

[and as you say, how a performer responds to the information in a score is his freedom of expression and up to him!]


M.

A similar type of issue would be a bar in 4/4 with triplet half notes for the four beats. Surely the "3" over the half notes wouldn't be taken to imply that the bar repeats three times?


M.

I reviewed Alkan's Op. 39 No. 4 for possible inclusion in the streaming Alkan recital here, and noticed the bar where the "5" has been circled in read:



I wouldn't think this indicates to play the bar five times consecutively, and there isn't anything about such use of numerals within the notation book consulted before entering all this music into Finale.

Maybe it is something pianists customarily do - I've never listened to any Alkan recordings so maybe they do it here, but I just don't see how that makes sense with the music, surely it would be a mistake to perform that bar five times in a row.

So I'll just put a brief section in the front matter about the free vs. measured tremolo notation and how the variability of the measured tremolos is indicated with numbers in parentheses.

Thanks for all the responses on this!


M.

No it would not mean to play the bar 5 times, but to play pentuplets. The only kind of situation I have seen numbers to indicate a repeat like that are on lead sheets and usually only when there is a full measure of rest, and there would be repeat bars.

Michael, I found an image showing one of the ideas that I previously mentioned:

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/boo..._06/ff3614b5b3b77229c03e830fdada43a5.jpg

It deals with the " % " repeat sign. Though the surrounding measures are rests, they could just as easily have notes.

Hi Derulux,

Thanks for that! I've always thought of the "%" and the //// type symbols as being a composer's short hand as with the image below, not something one puts in a published edition of a score . . .



So I guess then the // type symbols with a number above are what everyone is talking about? I had not seem these before with the numbers written above, and had only seen these in copies of handwritten scores.


M.

Yes, you will sometimes see this symbol for repeated measures in published music. In instrumental music it is not uncommon.