Jump to content

Page:How to Write Music.djvu/28

From Wikisource
There was a problem when proofreading this page.
20
HOW TO WRITE MUSIC

This practice was consistently carried out, even when it involved writing a note on the bar-line! or a note in one measure and its dot in the next (see Fig. 11).

Fig. 11.

(Pianists will recall a modern instance, so far as the dot is concerned, in a little exercise in C major of Czerny's.)

The practice cannot have been due to the non-invention of the "tie" or "bind." For though the first use of this is difficult to trace, clear instances, in the form of a bracket, ??, occur in Morley's Practical Music, published in 1597.

Rests15.—Rests, especially whole note Rests. rests, when used for a whole measure, are still very often illogically placed in the middle of the space they represent. This has been defended on the ground that they represent silence or inaction, and that therefore no error can arise from their appearance being deferred. But a performer should be conscious of the action or inaction of every voice or part. If there be a seeming vacuum or hiatus, how is he to know whether it is a note or rest which has been omitted? If he concludes, from the ab-