Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals... (Read 4693 times) previous topic - next topic

Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Hi everyone! Hope you enjoyed your holidays.
I would like to ask a few questions, from which I have got too many answers and my mind is baffled.
When you place, say a # sign on a G note, to make it G sharp,
1. Does it remain sharp for the rest of the score until an accidental sign appears

or...

2. I remains sharp only within the same bar, as NWC does...

Also, what special cares do you consider one should have regarding enharmonics, in order for the performer to read easiest?
Thanks so much for your help.

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #1 –
An accidental outside of the key signature is considered to be in effect only during the current bar. That being said, it is common practise to explicity show the return to the key signature in subsequent bars using a "courtesy accidental". For instance, if you're in A minor (no sharps or flats) and have a G# in one bar, all the following G notes at that octave will be understood to be G#. If there is a G (natural) in the next bar, or even a couple bars later, a courtesy natural would usually be added as a reminder that we're back in the key signature.

One fine point: Technically, especially in older scores, an accidental was considered to apply to those notes in all octaves, which is how NWC behaves. However, in more recent times it has become standard practise to explicitly indicate naturals in other octaves. When using NWC, it's good to keep this in mind; for instance, if there is a G# on the second line from the bottom of the treble staff, and another one at the top of the staff, you would mark the second one with a sharp also.

Enharmonics depend on the "key of the moment". For instance, if you're in A minor, G# would be usually be spelled G# instead of Ab because G# is the "leading tone" (the 3 of the dominant E major chord). However, if you're in C minor, it would more likely be Ab, since Ab is the 3 of the subdominant (F minor). In other words, there is no "magic bullet", you have to look at each situation and figure out what's happening harmonically.

In chromatic runs, it is standard practise to use sharps going upward, and flats coming down. This minimises the number of accidentals required.

HTH

Fred

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #2 –
I had a few problems getting used to that NWC convention mentioned in Fred's #2 paragraph. It can get complicated when you have a lot of chromatics,thick harmonies, hidden staves, etc.
The courtesy accidental is often in parentheses. Tough to get lined up right in NWC. A nice addition to version 2??......

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #3 –
Fred wrote:
>>In chromatic runs, it is standard practise to use sharps going upward, and flats coming down

Even this is dependent on context. Normally diatonic pitches are used where possible. For example, in C minor an ascending chromatic run would still use E-flat, A-flat and B-flat rather than D-sharp, G-sharp and A-sharp. Also, the leading tone in a minor key is spelled as a sharp seventh (e.g., G-sharp in A minor) rather than a flatted tonic (e.g. A-flat in A minor). This is also generally true of the leading-tone to the dominant (e.g., F-sharp in C major or minor), which would be spelled as a sharp 4th rather than a flat 5th, even in descending runs.

The famous descending chromatic scale that ends the introduction to Beethoven's "Pathétique" sonata is an interesting case in point. The first part of this scale is played against a C-minor triad in the left hand, and consists of the C natural minor scale plus D-flat, B-natural, A-natural, F-sharp and E-natural. Then the left hand plays a dominant 7th on G, and as the chromatic descent continues, the D-flat is replaced by a C-sharp. So in this case, the context that determines note spelling is not even the current key, it's the current *chord*. (My interpretation of the C-sharp is that it's the sharped 4th of the G-major scale, which is used in preference to the flatted 5th of that scale.)

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #4 –
Re: Fred's first paragraph.

Please can I put in a plea to writers to avoid curtesy accidentals other than in exceptional circumstances. I don't think I am alone in finding that they more often than not trip me up when I see them as I worry about whether I missed an accidental earlier in the bar or missed a key change.

Probably the only circumstances where I would find it better to have one than not are:

a) when a tied note with an accidental extends over a bar line and the same note occurs unmodified in the "tied into" bar. (In this case NWC would need an accidental as well - is this actually required by normal notation conventions?)

b) when an accidentalized note at the end of a bar is immediately followed by the same note un-accidentalised in the following bar.

Other than this, if I feel the need for a reminder, I can add an aide-memoir in pencil.

Stephen

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #5 –
Stephen, I think you may have a less receptive attitude to courtesy accidentals than some other performers I know. It would be interesting to hear other opinions. Personally I rarely run into a courtesy accidental that I wish weren't there.

Of course, the problem would be drastically altered if it NWC supported the practice of enclosing accidentals in parentheses. This would clearly identify them as courtesy accidentals and spare you the worry about what you might have missed earlier. (It would also presumably spare them from the ravages of Audit Accidentals.)

In any event, don't forget that you can use that handy pencil to scratch out any accidentals you don't want to see.

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #6 –
Like any convention, too much of a good thing is too much. Judicious use of courtesy accidentals are most welcome, And I can't think of a time where I've seen them over-used in published scores. Let common sense be your guide.If your reviewing your own music, and are not sure whether the accidental applies or not, then surely someone sight reading it might have the same question.

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #7 –
I agree with Art and Stephen. In fact, excessive use of courtesy accidnetals is not only sometimes confusing, I find
it kind of irritating - as if the copyist is patronizing me.
The conventional notation is perfectly consistent, and not hard to remember. I do like the convention of the accidental only affecting only one octave.

I may add a not to the wish list - I wish Noteworthy treated accidentals (and stemming) the way it treats beaming - i.e. if you change something manually it stays changed through clean-ups, refreshes, and transpositions. I don't know how many times I've transposed a minor-key peice and lost all the leading tones that I've manually changed from flats to sharps.

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #8 –
I am apparently of the very old school and find courtesy accidentals irritating. I also don't know when 'convention' changed for the accidentalizing of different octaves but have only noticed it in the last 10 years [or less] and find that it clutters things up more than clarifies.
Mostly in my own scores I have found that using established [older] conventions work fine unless the mode[scale] is unusual and then key signature doesn't help at all. In that case [Bartokian] key signatures in performance will neccessitate accidentals on all the notes so affected. BTW the transpose in Noteworthy is hopeless when using mixed key signatures.

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #9 –
I guess that makes me an "old schooler" also. I too find courtesy accidentals more of a distraction than a help, unless they're made smaller and in parentheses. Similarly, I prefer having accidentals assumed to apply to all octaves, when I see the accidental "repeated" later in the same measure on a different octave my feeling is "well, DUH!".

But on work that I publish I grin and bear it, putting in courtesy and repeated accidentals on octaves... the peer pressure thing, I suppose....

Fred

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #10 –
Jay,

Unless I've misread you you are claiming that the 'old' convention is that an accidental applies to all octaves.

That just isn't so!

I would guess (correct me someone) that it has always been the case that accidentals only applied to the line on which they were written. Before barlines became standardised of course accidentals would have to be repeated in any case. After barlines were introduced it would then have become accepted at some point that an accidental applied for the duration of the bar, but I've never seen an occurrence(not that I've looked exhaustively) of the accidental applying to a different octave in any older music, so I'd say that it has never been the convention.

Peter
 

Re: Flats, Sharps, Accidentals...

Reply #11 –
I've only seen two "old" scores, original edition facsimile(s?) of Nicolas de Grigny's "Livre d'Orgue" and François Couperin's "Goûts Réunis", both works dating from the early 18th century. In both of them:

1. If you have, say, an "accidentally" sharped C, and then another C-sharp one octave higher, it's got an accidental sharp, too.

2. Both have, of course, bar lines, but if you have several notes on the same line in the same bar, all have got the accidental, not only the first.

3. If you have a C-sharp, and then a C right after the barline, it's got the courtesy accidental. (But it hasn't if it's in the middle of the bar.)

4. For key signature, the accidentals (?) are indicated at each appropriate place of the staff. E.g. a piece in G major would have sharps on the fifth line and on the first space.

HTH,

Yves