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HOW TO WRITE MUSIC

11. In pianoforte music a note is very occasionally intended to be reiterated before the first iteration has ceased to sound. This is effected by allowing the key to rise sufficiently to release the hammer, but not sufficiently to reimpose the damper on the string. The second sound therefore overtakes the first. (It is comparatively easy on some pianos and very hard on others.) As the sound, though periodically reinforced, is continuous, the composer indicates his intention by a tie. There is nothing but one's judgment to distinguish this from the ordinary kind of tie. The chief indication is the employment of a tie where a single musical character would otherwise have been better. For instance, the following tied sixteenth notes from the Adagio of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 106, could better have been represented by eighth notes, had it not been for the intention of overlapping iteration (Fig. 6).


\relative f''' { \time 6/8 \key d \major <fis fis,>16 fis[ ~ fis] fis[ ~ fis] fis[ ~ fis] fis[ ~ fis] fis[ ~ fis] fis \bar "||" }
Fig. 6.


The ties commencing in measure 134 of Beethoven's well-known Sonata Pastorale were evidently regarded by Cipriani Potter as of this order. As having been a personal friend of Beethoven's he was likely to know. (The