First post: Rookie learning slurs with Scriabin

[mikkop]

Hello there people!

I'm a keyboard player from Finland with professional backround in jazz/rock/tango nuevo/contemporary folk music and not so professional background with classical piano. I've been doing computer notation roughly for 14 years, but most of the time I've been writing lead sheets and simple band charts with very little or no expression markings or slurs. This year I've been picking up this new addictive hobby of trying to improve the overall look and legibility of my notation, with at least two motivators: 1. I've been teaching small sight reading groups (2-3 pianists/group, early teens) for about a year, mostly using all kinds of existing material but occasionally composing new exercises in order to focus on the individual needs of the students.
2. I have a bunch of old original material I used to write for a small ensemble (lead sheets); this summer I'm arranging some of those tunes for solo piano and I'd like to publish the sheets on my website.
Lurking on this forum for a while has been very enlightening and humbling experience, seeing how many user's attention to detail seems to be on a divine level.

Writing and adjusting slurs is something I've been struggling with. I decided to pick something I've enjoyed playing myself some years ago and trying to match the styles of some pretty looking old editions I've come across (Edition Peters, Muzyka). The piece I chose is the first prelude from Scriabin's op. 16, which gave me plenty of nice little challenges notation-wise.

All kinds of comments are very warmly welcome. The PDF can be downloaded from my proton drive:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/830RHVA8MW#andlqvTskwX9

[John Ruggero]

Welcome to Notat.io!

It's excellent. Just a few little things:

1. I would keep the slurs over the left hand notes as in the original rather than under them for a couple reasons: a. it shows more clearly that the left hand is a counter-melody (note the double-stemmed notes) as well as an accompaniment. b. it's probably the way the composer thought it best (we would need the manuscript to be sure), which is nothing to take lightly. Here is the first edition which should be the model from which you work: https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usim ... 831824.pdf

2. Some of the dynamics and indications that pertain to both hands could be centered better between the staves.

3. You left out some dashed continuation lines for dynamic signs on the second page. They should be included since they are meaningful.

4. The last note in the left hand is an error and should be one octave lower. And I would keep Scriabin's 8 rather than 8ba, since it is perfectly correct, clear and needs no modification or modernization.

1., 3. and 4. might be the result of not working from the first edition.

[mikkop]

Thank you John for the quick and thorough answer!

I had somehow totally forgotten the first edition even though I had it on my hard drive, propably because it had some tiny details I didn't like so much and the layout seemed a bit hard to get used to after practising the piece so much from a very different version. But having the slurs over the notes definitely makes sense musically, maybe other publishers just wanted it to look slightly less crowded. It's a shame the original manuscript seems to be difficult to find online (if it's even available), I've seen pics of some other Scriabin manuscripts, beautiful handwriting.

And those dashed lines: I dug out the printed sheet I got from my teacher years ago and it actually had those lines (I had thought it was the Muzyka edition that's on imslp, but apparently my memory failed me), most other editions I've seen seem to ignore those lines but I now added them to my version. Took a while finding a good lenght and spacing for the dashes.

So here's my second draft with a handful of tweaks. It was a nice little challenge trying to fit those slurs another way without making the second page look too busy. I still wanted to make everything fit on two pages. Now it's a nice hybrid between the first edition and Muzyka, with some personal adjustments.
https://drive.proton.me/urls/QAMXPG3E5M#5YiYaYYb34SH

[John Ruggero]

You are very welcome, mikkop. It' s much improved.

Two minor things: The left side of the initial tempo indication should line up with the left side of the time signature. The cresc. and its dashed continuation line on the the second page could be placed higher to get it out of the music below.

By using the first edition "as a model" I wasn't referring to layout, just the text itself. The layout in older editions (and new ones too) was often affected by extra-musical matters. I think that page turns should be the most important factor in laying out piano music and the engraver should feel free to do whatever is necessary to achieve the best possible page turns.

[OCTO]

They are nice, particularly in the second example.
For my taste, I like when the slurs are more symmetrical when possible, and when they have the same shoulder when possible.
Also I prefer lifting the end (tip) over changing the shape.