NOTATIO

Along the same lines, Beethoven et al. including Brahms used the following pattern instead of octaves alternating between the hands in 16ths alla Liszt. The effect is more mellow and non-percussive, although more difficult to play:

Interesting and apropos example. Cross-staff beaming for alternating hands on the piano is seen mostly (only?) after the Classic period with composers like Liszt, who used it for percussive effects. Brahms used the older notation, since he didn't use such effects. Great observation about the beaming...

You are very welcome, OCTO. Regarding the comments by Schonbergian and David Ward: E. Gould has an extensive section on the division of words set to music on pages 441-446. There are apparently different schools of thought on the subject. For what it is worth, I believe that A. Arnstein used the app...

To supply the advice from a keyboard player requested by OCTO: if the composer intended legato notes alternating between the hands, he has notated the passage correctly. Showing this as cross-staffed 16ths would give a non-legato impression. This is a good opportunity to mention that there are two s...

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"or:" or "ossia:" in italics placed under the "and"?

I may have mentioned this before, David. Your dashed slurs might be more visible and attractive with different settings. I am using 6 EVPUs or .25 spaces for both the dash and the space these days.

The score given by OCTO looks very much like what we produced in the 1970s because serif fonts were not available for the Leroy lettering machine that was used for technical drawing at that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering It gives a machine-like appearance that might be appro...

I agree with OCTO and Schonbergian. What is missing from the discussion are specifics.

Some experimental notation catches on and some doesn't. For example, Chopin invented using small measured notes (as opposed to free small notes) to mean to play very lightly as if on a different plane of sound from the large notes (Etude op 25. no. 1). This was accepted by later composers because it...

...there are some electronic music parts which are sometimes not so difficult to reproduce and for this I think sometimes about finding a (new) way to notate the use of filters, delays and all this kind of sound manipulation. What you are describing in this quote is the way that musical notation ha...