On Teaching

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. He writes a blog at www.amorningfordreams.com.

Substitution in thirds

The left-hand version of this exercise for practicing substitution in thirds starts as is shown in Example 1. Again, you should carry out the multiple substitutions in the most comfortable order. Try out various other fingering possibilities, and also try this, and other similar exercises, with added accidentals, as if it were in C minor, for example, or transposed to other keys. Substitution on black notes is physically different from substitution on white notes, since the black notes are thinner and spaced further apart. The principle is always the same: perform the substitutions in the right order, and plan out carefully the direction and angle from which each new finger arrives and in which each old finger departs. If the departing finger is released down and to the side, you have to be careful that it doesn’t inadvertently play an adjacent natural. 

You can also convert the Rameau passage shown in Example 2 (and discussed in the January 2014 column, as Example 9) into substitution exercises by tying the repeated notes and changing the repeated-note fingerings
into substitutions.

Substitution in fifths

Examples 3 and 4 are exercises for substitutions in fifths. Try these all over the keyboard: as written but with added accidentals, in other keys, an octave up or down. As you practice these exercises and a selection of transpositions, try carrying out the substitutions according to various different timings: 

1) As quickly and as smoothly as possible: instant substitution, but keeping the order correct. For example, in the above left-hand fifths it is better to execute the 4–5 substitution before the 1–2. This keeps the hand compact and avoids uncomfortable stretching. In doing the substitution instantly, as one gesture, this order can be preserved by carrying out something that feels like a rolling motion of the hand. (Technically the 4–5 is closer to “instant” than the 1–2, but the gesture is fast and smooth and should feel like one event.)

2) Very promptly and rapidly, but as a succession of separate quick gestures: in the case of these two-note-at-a-time substitutions, the timing of this approach is similar to that of a mordent.

3) Truly timed finger changes. This can be in a number of rhythms. For example, in the rhythm of the fifths above: triplet quarter notes (i.e., with the new chord, the first substitution, and the second substitution spaced out evenly); a quarter note and two half notes; a dotted quarter note and two sixteenth notes. This last rhythm shades over into the final timing concept:

4) Both substitutions as a quick one-piece gesture at the end of the held note, having almost the feeling of a before-the-beat ornament to the
next note.

I have listed these in a particular logical order: from closest to the beginning of the note to closest to the end of the note. It is important to avoid practicing anything at a faster pace than what you can carry out comfortably. Therefore, you should start with a slower (timed) execution of each substitution, and work towards the faster timings and the “instant” un-timed forms as you become fully comfortable with the fingerings and the shapes of the gestures.

Substitution in scalar passages

Examples 5 and 6 form an exercise that has the appealing feature of being simultaneously silly and efficient. It involves playing simple scale passages, and performing extravagant chains of substitutions on each individual note. This is beyond what you are likely ever to do in fingering a piece of music. There are, however, places where more than one substitution occurs on one note, as we will see below.

This can also be practiced in different timings. The “instant” version will of course take a discernable amount of time, since there are so many fingers involved one after another. Don’t try to practice this exercise at a tempo faster than it can be accomplished accurately and comfortably. It can still feel like one gesture: sort of sliding or slithering around on the note. As always, you should pay close attention to hand position and to keeping everything relaxed and comfortable. You may notice yourself occasionally inadvertently releasing a finger before the next finger has arrived to take its place: in effect converting the substitution to a repeated note. Do not try to correct this by holding the notes down harder. It is just a matter of timing. If this becomes a problem, slow down the exercise.

Substitution in counterpoint

Example 7 shows a Reger passage (from the chorale prelude Morgen-glanz der Ewigkeit—discussed in the November 2013 column as Example 10), demonstrating the practicing of separate voices, with a suggested fingering involving thoroughgoing substitution. (This is the left-hand part. I have written the fingerings for the two voices above and below the staff respectively, for clarity.)

The following is a detailed discussion of the logic behind these fingerings, but with an emphasis on the substitutions, and with comments on how best to carry out those substitutions. You should read it and correlate it in detail to what you see in the music before practicing the passage. If as you read this discussion you think of different fingerings that you want to try out, please do so. Make sure that you understand your own rationale behind those fingerings and that you are convinced that they will be comfortable and effective.

The choice of the first finger for the first note makes sense both because that enables you to reach down to the second note easily, and because it puts the hand in the best position to play the a# that is coming up. (This is a comfortable fingering in part because of where the passage lies on the keyboard. Try the same pattern two octaves higher. It will feel quite different and might need a different fingering solution, perhaps playing the opening note with 2, and substituting 1 at the last instant before playing the a#.) The choice of 5 for the d that is the second note of the piece is also obvious. The first substitution (4–5 on the note e) should be performed quickly, both to relax the hand and to enable the second finger to reach the c#. The substitution on the f# should be treated the same way for the same reasons. The substitution on the g# can be performed either instantly or on a measured basis (it is the first opportunity here to practice the latter).

Moving to the second measure, the substitution on the c# on the first beat has to be performed quickly so that the hand can move on to the next notes (d′, e′). In theory, the 4–5 substitution on the a need not be done until close to the time to play the b on the third beat. However, at the moment of the first beat itself, it will be more comfortable to carry out both substitutions quickly, with the 4–5 actually happening first. (This is to keep the hand compact and avoid uncomfortable stretching.) This should be carried out as an instant “rolling” double substitution. The b on the third beat of this measure is an interesting case. It is natural to play it with 4, and it also should have 4 holding it when it is ready to end (seven eighth-notes later, in the next measure). However, it is a good idea to hold it instead with 5 through most of the length of the note. This is to put the hand in the best position to reach the notes in the upper of the two voices, especially the f#′ that is the first note of the following measure. There is no particular reason not to do the substitution from 4 to 5 right away. (You could also postpone it until just before the end of the measure, in which case it would probably be more comfortable to play the d# with 2. The advantage to playing the d# with 3 is that it enables 2 to be poised to reach towards the upcoming f# as promptly as possible. This is a positive reason to do the substitution instantly.)

At the other end of this long-held b, the substitution back to 4 should be done only after the upper-voice substitution from 2 to 1 on e′. This is so as not to stretch the hand out uncomfortably. The purpose of that upper-voice substitution itself is partly to un-stretch the hand and partly to free the second finger to reach up to f#′. The substitution from 5 to 4 on the a should be done only after the thumb has played the f-natural. This is, of course, to keep the hand from being stretched out unnecessarily. On the fourth beat of this measure we come to the first substitution of non-adjacent fingers. The switch from 5 to 3 on the g# is motivated by the underlying rationale for substitution: it makes sense for one finger to play the note, but for another finger to be holding when it is time to move on to the next note. The reason for using 3 in the latter role is that the next two notes are in a downward direction. (It would also be possible to do a 5–4 substitution, and then another 4–5 substitution on the g-natural.) In any case, the 2–1 substitution on the e′ should be done first and very quickly.

The first substitution of the fourth measure, on b in the lower voice, is the first one we have seen that must be really instant: fully a part of the gesture that plays the note in the first place. This is, of course, because of the sixteenth-note motion in the upper voice. The hand must be in position to reach for and then play f#′ comfortably, essentially right away. The two remaining substitutions in this measure can be done at a somewhat more leisurely pace. On the third beat in the lower voice, my suggested 4–3 4 could be replaced by 4 5–4. Or indeed you could do a 3–2 substitution on e′ that is the lower-voice note on the second beat, and then play the rest of the lower voice in this measure with the fingers as they come. The 2–1 substitution on the f-natural in the upper voice on the fourth beat exists for the purpose of un-stretching the hand.

There are four substitutions that must be carried out in the half measure coming up, the last part of this excerpt. The switch from 2 to 1 on e′ in the upper voice and the switch from 3 to 2 on d′ in the lower voice (a note that was initiated in the previous measure) must be carried out in the order in which I just listed them, for the most basic possible reason. The “new” finger in the second substitution was just in use holding another note. It had to be freed from that note—by substitution—before it could take over its new note. These two substitutions are ideal to be played quite measured: the upper-voice substitution on the second half of the first beat, the lower-voice substitution on the second beat. On the second half of the second beat we encounter two substitutions, both of which must be carried out within the time span of an eighth note. For most hands it will be more comfortable to do the 2–1 substitution on d′ first, and then the 4–3 substitution on b. This means that the latter must be very fast indeed. The two should end up feeling like one gesture. 

The fundamental purpose of this fingering could be described as a way to play all of the notes legato without awkwardness or discomfort. This is achieved by a significant increase in the amount of fingering busy-ness: as fingered here, this passage involves sixty-one fingering events to play forty-three different notes. For comparison, Example 8 shows one possible fingering without substitution, based on a willingness to allow many of the notes to be played non-legato. (Remember, however, that Reger in his own hand marked this piece sempre ben legato.)

Try this fingering out, leaving aside for the moment its musical or historical appropriateness. Keep everything light, and make the non-legato gestures smooth and non-abrupt. Is one fingering easier than the other? What differences in feel do you notice?

(Note: Based in part on feedback from readers of The Diapason, I will possibly add further exercises and examples to the final version of this section on substitution. These will deal at greater length with substitution on black notes and with non-adjacent fingers. I will move on next month to exercises and approaches to learning to play with hands and feet together.) 

Organ Method XIV

This month’s column is a continuation of last month’s discussion of learning to play contrapuntal passages.

In the second movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata in C Minor, Opus 65, No. 2, the left-hand part is mostly in two voices. Any part of that movement makes wonderful material for practicing multiple voices in one hand in the way that we have been discussing. Here are the first several measures of that piece, shown in Example 1.

There are more than thirty measures that are constructed like this. Each of the two left-hand voices (marked Clav. I) is quite intricate by itself, so, in practicing each of them separated into two hands, you will have to take some care with the fingering and a fair amount of time. For using this piece to explore this method of practicing, it is not necessary to work on all of it at once: any few measures will be fruitful.

Example 2 shows another Bach passage with two voices in the right hand. It is from the Sinfonia in D Major, BWV 789, beginning just after the downbeat of m. 5.

In this passage, the two right-hand voices briefly cross, and in one spot, one voice passes through a note that is being held by the other voice. In playing the two voices separately on two keyboards, none of this causes any problems or is particularly noteworthy. Can you use this exercise to make it possible—or more natural—to hear those voices clearly as they cross, when you put them back together?

We now move on to three special issues in manual playing. Two of them are approaches to fingering that apply to certain types of writing that are common in the repertoire. These are 1) the fingering of repeated notes, and 2) substitution. The other is an exercise designed to help with the playing of trills and other passages that call for rapid, light playing. I will describe the trill exercise first, and then move on to the other two, which are in fact closely related to one another. 

This exercise is not written in music notation, and does not involve playing passages of music, but rather only simple pairs of notes. Its purpose is to create an awareness of a feeling of lightness and ease of touch, which can then be carried into the playing of other exercises and passages of music, especially of trills, other rapid ornaments, and rapid passages in general. It is physically easy to do, though it requires a certain kind of focus that can take a while to achieve. It is equally appropriate and helpful for seasoned players, for absolute beginners, and for anyone in between. It goes like this:

1) Choose two fingers on the same hand. (The first time you play this exercise, the fingers should be 4/3 or 3/2, in either hand. Later on it is especially valuable to play it with 5/4, and any two fingers can be suitable, even non-adjacent fingers.)

2) Choose two notes—at first they should be adjacent naturals, but later on it is valuable to include sharps/flats as well. As with some of the exercises from earlier in this series, it is important that you choose notes that lie in the part of the keyboard where your arm and hand are naturally more-or-less straight when you are playing (that is, your wrist not cocked or twisted). This is, of course, normally near the top of the treble clef in the right hand and near the bottom of the bass clef in the left hand. It is a good idea to position the fingers near the ends of the keys, and to let the thumb float in the air in front of the keyboard. (But see below for using this exercise with the thumb.)

3) Once you have chosen the two notes and the two fingers, rest the two fingers on the notes and relax your hand, arm, neck, shoulders, etc. Sit in a comfortable  position, and take a deep breath or two. Then play one of the notes—either one—lightly and smoothly, and hold it. When you feel completely relaxed, then:

4) Play the other note and the original note in succession, as quickly and as lightly as you can: a quick, light two-note gesture. While you are playing these two notes, your hand and wrist should feel more as if they are floating upwards than as if they are bearing down. This two-note gesture will leave you holding the same note that you played first, and it will have created at least a little bit of tension in your hand. Once again you should wait for your hand, arms, etc., to completely relax. Then repeat the two-note gesture, and do this a few times in a row. It is crucial to wait each time for your fingers, hand, arm, shoulders, neck, back, etc., to completely relax. Thus, it is not appropriate to develop a steady rhythm or beat in doing this exercise. If you do, you are probably not allowing yourself to relax thoroughly enough between playing notes.

5) After you have done this a few times with a particular pair of fingers and notes in one order, play it with the same fingers and notes in the opposite order. It is important to stop before it begins to feel “routine” and thus impossible to achieve a combination of concentration and relaxation. Usually it makes sense to play it about 4 to 6 times each (up/down and down/up) and then leave it. This varies from one person to another. It is better to do a little bit of this often than to do a lot of it in one sitting.

6) It is not necessary to segue from this exercise directly into playing a trill or other fast passage. Rather, the point is to remember the feeling of the exercise when you next play a trill or fast passage. If you do a little bit of this exercise most days, spreading it around to several pairs of fingers (not neglecting 5/4), and working with both hands an approximately equal amount, the feeling of it will spill over quite naturally into your playing.

7) The following “special cases” of the exercise require extra thought: the thumb, sharps and flats, and non-adjacent fingers. In these cases, particular care must be taken about hand position. Make sure that the alignment of the fingers with respect to the notes permits the hand to remain in (or constantly regain) a tension-free state. For example: using 2/1 on adjacent naturals is usually too awkward to be good for this exercise; however, using 2/1 or 3/1 on a natural and a sharp/flat is often very comfortable, and indeed a good thing to practice (thumb on the natural, obviously). Using 4/2 on F# and D (right hand) is usually fine, but using 4/2 on A and F# (right hand) is usually not. Using 3/2 on a natural and a sharp/flat is usually OK if 2 is on the natural, but not if 3 is on the natural. The point is to make sure that the wrist is not cocked or twisted outwards very much (ideally not at all), that the fingers are not so curved that they don’t have good leverage in pushing down the keys, and that it is possible to remain near the ends of the keys. (These are all normal considerations in organ fingering, but this exercise only retains its purpose if the hands are very comfortable, whereas in playing repertoire, the complexity of the music often makes some compromise in comfortable
fingering unavoidable.)

An important note: In 4) above, I use the phrase “as quickly and as lightly as you can.” The most important part of this is “as you can.” Quickness is the point, but it cannot be pushed. If you try to execute this simple gesture faster than you can comfortably do it, you will defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Playing repeated notes

Repeated notes on the organ are often seen as something of a problem—and with some reason. In order to repeat a note on organ, you must release it all the way. This is also true on harpsichord, but not on piano, and not consistently on other instruments. When you combine this need to release a note before you can sound it again with the sustaining quality of organ sound, you get a situation in which repeated notes can stick out: they can sound disconnected from the rest of the sonority, texture, and musical shape of a piece or passage. If a line or passage is being played fully legato, then two notes in a row that are the same will be articulated differently from the non-repeated notes around them. Repeated notes cannot be fully legato. Even in a line or passage that is being played in an overall detached style, repeated notes can stand out, since the way in which they are detached can sound different—more crisp or abrupt. 

It is a reasonable goal to be able to play repeated notes as naturally as possible, that is, to reduce as much as possible the extent to which they stand out or draw attention to themselves. It is also a good thing to be able to control and shape the playing of repeated notes—timing, articulation, sonority—with as much flexibility as possible. This is true of all notes and all playing, but with repeated notes it calls for some extra thought. 

In general, the discovery made by organists over many centuries and through all sorts of different schools of organ composition and organ playing is that it is a good idea, when possible, to play repeated notes with different fingers—to change fingers from one note to the repetition of that same note. This is not always possible to do. Repeated notes that are octaves or that are embedded in chords, especially four- or five-note chords, sometimes must be played using the same fingers. However, the changing of fingers on repeated notes is a practice that is important to learn and to get used to.

If you have just played a note with a given finger and you are still holding it, then in order to repeat it with that finger you must do all of the work of releasing and replaying the note with that finger. You need time to move the finger up off the note, and then bring it back down. This sets a limit on how little time there can be between the release of the first note and the playing of the second. Not only must there be a break between the two (same) notes, but that break must be a certain length. Also, the gesture of moving a finger up and back down is likely to produce tension. The shorter you try to make the break between the two notes, the more at risk you are for introducing tension into the hand. The paradox arises that trying to make the repetition more “legato” actually makes it more abrupt: more of a conspicuous break. 

If you repeat a note with a different finger, then you can be preparing the new finger to play the note before you have released it with the old finger, and you can release the note smoothly. Sometimes it will make sense to release down and towards your body sitting on the bench or off to one side, rather than straight up above the note that you are holding and that you need to play again. The new finger can move in and replace the old finger smoothly. This gesture creates less tension and gives you the greatest possible flexibility in timing and articulation. The repeated note still must be detached, but, if you want, it can be only slightly detached—
almost imperceptibly. 

Start getting used to using different fingers on repeated notes with the simplest possible exercises, such as that shown in Example 3.

You can move this to different notes and use different fingering patterns. (For example, try 2-3-4-3-2-3-4-3, or 2-1-2-1-3-1-3-1.) Remember to keep hands, arms, shoulders, and so on completely relaxed. Release notes smoothly but cleanly: that is, do not inadvertently slip the new finger onto the note prior to releasing it. If you do that, you are in fact practicing substitution—which we come to next—but not playing repeated notes with different fingers. Experiment with different amounts of articulation, and with patterns of differing articulation between the different notes.

Another useful pattern for practicing is illustrated in Example 4. The fingering given is just one set of possibilities. You can devise and try others, preserving the principle of changing fingers on the repeated notes. Try different things with articulation: making the non-repeated notes legato, with different amounts of break at the repeated notes; articulating all of the notes the same; using varied detached articulation for all of the notes, and so on. ν

To be continued.

Organ Method XIII

This follows directly from last month’s column. For those with little or no prior keyboard experience, I have made this method’s exercises simple, direct, and systematic. At the same time, assuming that the student can remember and build on what has come before, the student should be able to take the right approach to practicing the exercises and be able to concoct his or her own exercises to some extent. A student who is already experienced on another keyboard instrument should be able to get something important out of this section, since the feel and sound of playing in chords and multiple voices is critically different on organ from what it is on other instruments. 

Before we look at exercises designed to get each hand used to playing patterns of more than one note at a time, there are a few general points to consider.

1) The clearest physical difference between playing one note at a time in one hand and playing more than one note in a hand, is that the latter places more limits on fingering choices. If you are called upon to play five notes at once in one hand—which is rare but not unheard of—then there is little or (usually) no actual choice about fingering. In the more common situation of two or three notes at once in one hand, there are often different fingering possibilities, but not as many choices as when playing only one line in a hand.

2) Hand position, already discussed earlier in this column, can be even more important when playing multiple notes at once than when the hand is playing one line, and can also be more difficult to manage well. In particular, the role of fingering choices for raised keys—sharps and flats—in determining comfortable hand position is crucial. In some passages, the position of the notes necessitates some compromise in hand position. Part of gaining experience and comfort with playing the most complex repertoire is learning how to manage these situations well. If a hand position is not ideally comfortable, then it is important to relax the hand away from that position promptly and smoothly.

3) In a piece of music, or a passage, in which each hand is playing only one note at a time, each hand’s part is a musical line or voice or melody. When either hand has more than one note at a time, that texture can be multiple voices or it can be chords, or it can be some combination of the two. 

4) Playing two or more separate melodies or voices with one hand in a way that sounds to an attentive listener like simultaneous melodies rather than chords is mostly a matter of attentive listening by the player. Exercises designed to address that aspect of playing are essentially listening exercises.

5) In most contrapuntal pieces with more than two voices in the hands, at least one voice migrates from one hand to the other. When this is the case, it almost always means that the piece, or that part of the piece, should be played on one manual: otherwise the sonority of that voice changes at essentially arbitrary times. It is also important that choices about which notes will be played by which hand be made carefully and sensibly. (In particular, it is important not to assume that every note printed in the upper staff should be played by the right hand, and that every note printed in the lower manual staff should be played by the left hand. These will be the tendencies, but the whole texture should be divided between the ten fingers in whatever way is most comfortable and gives the best musical results.)

6) Chordal passages often present articulation issues. If a series of chords in one hand is meant to be played legato, that presents fingering challenges, often involving finger substitution—a technique that will be dealt with later. If chords in one hand are meant to be played detached, then more fingering choices are available. Any detached fingering should be practiced first with enough space between the notes that the physical motion from one chord to the next feels easy. Once the gestures have been established, the spaces between the notes can be made smaller without abrupt gestures or tension.

7) Just as it makes sense to practice hands or feet separately, it makes sense to practice individual components of the note picture within one hand separately. Sometimes it also can make sense to focus on listening to one component of the texture of the part being played by one hand over the other parts.

Examples 1 and 2 are simple exercises with which to begin playing more than one note in each hand.

I have placed these exercises in regions of the keyboard that, for most players, will permit the note patterns to feel most comfortable, with the forearm and hand aligned well. However, as with earlier exercises in this chapter, you should move them around: up or down by octaves, or by other intervals, mixing versions with few or no sharps or flats with versions that have more. 

There is an obvious fingering for these exercises. For the right hand: 3/1–4/2–3/1–4/2–5/3–4/2, repeat; and for the left hand: 3/5–2/4–3/5–2/4–1/3–2/4, repeat). However, you should also try different fingerings, for example, playing all of the two-note chords with the same pair of fingers, and simply moving the hand smoothly and gently from one chord to the next, or a mixed fingering such as (for the first exercise) 3/1–4/2–3/1–4/2–4/2–3/1 (repeat). In any case, whenever you pick up the same pair of fingers to play the next chord, make that gesture as light, relaxed, and smooth as possible. In particular, do not try to make the space between the chords particularly short: use as much space as you need to allow the gesture to be completely without tension or any feeling that you are “snapping” from one chord to the next.

Keep the tempo slow for now, and do not worry if you hear the two notes of each chord not quite sounding at exactly the same time as each other. This is important: of course in the long run you need to be able to make multiple notes in one hand sound exactly together, and also indeed to make them sound not quite together in ways that you have decided on for musical effect. However, any attempt to ensure that each finger depresses its note at exactly the same time as each other finger does —before you have developed a fair level of comfort playing note patterns of this sort—will lead to a touch that is too crisp and too focused on driving each key to the bottom. This can sometimes lead to real physical tension and, in the long run, pain. The good news is this: any tendency of multiple fingers to play notes somewhat out of kilter with one another will go away naturally and of its own accord as you continue to practice. 

If you have studied other keyboard instruments, you might be impatient with the simplicity of these first exercises. However, the touch and sound of the organ are different enough from piano, harpsichord, and clavichord that both the physical act and the listening aspect of playing more complex textures is very different indeed.

After taking a first look at these exercises and moving them around on the keyboard a bit, you should practice them in a couple of different ways that involve breaking them up. For example, play each line (upper note and lower note of each chord) separately, as shown in Example 3. (And similarly for the other parts of the exercise.)

Or stagger the upper and lower notes, as in Example 4. (And similarly for the other parts of the exercise. Don’t make this too fast: for this purpose, the rhythm doesn’t much matter.)

Note that these deconstructed versions of this two-voice chord exercise are themselves simpler than the exercises and pieces that you have already been playing. 

Try playing three-note chord patterns,  such as those in Example 5. In this case, the fingering can well be 1–3–5 (or 5–3–1), and the same for each chord. It is important to move from one chord to the next smoothly, allowing the breaks between chords to be as long as necessary to keep the motion comfortable. Are there other fingerings that are possible or, perhaps, better? Play around with it. Move these patterns around to other notes and other regions of the keyboard as you have done with other exercises.

This set of exercises can also be broken into component parts—the lower two notes, the outer notes, the upper two notes—or played staggered. You can devise ways of moving from one of these components to the full three-voice texture yourself, as in Examples 6 and 7. Make sure that you use the same fingers for the components that you want to use for those notes when they are put back into the full texture.

An exercise such as that shown in Example 8 combines some of the above:

A traditional four-part chorale harmonization, such as that of Old Hundredth (shown in Example 9), provides material for continuing to practice moving each hand from one two-voice chord to another.

For the current exercise, you should break this hymn into short sections, and into separate hands. Then work out a comfortable, sensible fingering for each section, assuming that it is acceptable to allow a breath or break between each two successive chords: that is, to play detached. Do not worry at this point about how detached the chords are, but, no matter how much space you leave between chords, keep your hands light and flexible at all times. Release notes/chords smoothly and gently, and move to the next note or chord calmly. Do not necessarily expect to put the whole hymn together or to put the hands together: that is not the point at this stage, though you may very well return to it later and learn it as a piece, probably with pedal. You can find ample material for this sort of practice in any collection of chorales or hymns. ν

Next month’s column will continue this discussion, moving on to techniques for practicing the art of playing truly independent voices together in one hand.

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at .

Repeated notes
The playing of repeated notes on organ and harpsichord has always been an issue unto itself. If two notes in a row are the same, they cannot be treated like two notes in a row that are not the same. The reason for this is simple: in order to repeat a note that you are holding, you must first release it. This seems so obvious to those of us who play only these instruments that it is worth noting that this is not true in all kinds of musical performance. It is not true at the piano, except in situations that rule out the use of the damper pedal. It is not true with plucked string instruments. In singing, the repeated note phenomenon is only rarely an issue in itself. With bowed string instruments and most wind instruments, the relationships among articulation, technique, and pitch are complicated, with repeated notes as such only sometimes being a special concern.
One way to describe the situation with repeated notes at the organ or harpsichord is this: in general, any pattern of notes that doesn’t involve repeated notes can be played legato (though of course it doesn’t have to be), but repeated notes actually cannot be played legato. Therefore, patterns of non-repeated notes have, in theory, the full range of articulation available to them, from “as short as physically possible” to a full overlapping legato. Repeated notes have most but not all of that range of articulations available.
Since repeated notes cannot be (fully) legato, the more legato the overall style of a given performance is—whether because of the performer’s preference, or because of something that is known about the composer’s own style—the more any repeated notes are in danger of standing out, of sounding different at the very least and maybe stylistically wrong, and in any case amounting to a problem to be solved.
This, in turn, may be one reason that repeated notes have often been considered a problem—or again at least a particular issue that needs to be addressed—in hymn playing, since there is a strong tradition of playing hymns legato. Repeated notes are sometimes seen as a source of a disruptive choppiness in hymns, and thus, for some players in some circumstances, are considered worthy of being eliminated through tying.
In addition to obvious repeated notes—instances of the same note occurring two or more times in a row in one melody or one voice—there are various kinds of hidden repeated notes. These arise from voices crossing or from one voice playing a note that was just played by another voice or that is being held by another voice. They can also arise because of ornaments—when there is no repeated note printed on the page, but one arises from the notes implied by the ornament sign.
Of course, repeated notes occur in all sorts of rhythmic contexts. Sometimes the first note is an upbeat and the second a downbeat, sometimes the other way around; sometimes they are two successive weak or light beats, sometimes two successive downbeats. (Of course there are chains of more than two repeated notes in which more than one of the above may occur in succession.) Repeated notes can be fast or slow.
In all of these circumstances the same underlying fact applies: it is necessary to release the first note before playing the next one. It is certainly possible, and often necessary or a good idea, for a student or other player to think analytically about how long or short to make any note that is about to be repeated and to think about how the articulation and timing allows it to fit in to the rest of the music. This has been the subject of extensive discussion, analysis, and debate by teachers and players over many years. For example, David N. Johnson has a detailed and interesting discussion in his Instruction Book for Beginning Organists. Marcel Dupré is famous for having described a very clear-cut system for counting out the amount by which notes should be reduced prior to being repeated. (Perhaps I should say “infamous” since his system is widely considered to be too cut-and-dried to be artistically valid. However, it is worth remembering that he almost certainly intended his guidelines to be a stage in learning, not an end result.)
Rather than suggesting specific musical answers to repeated note issues, I would prefer to begin by helping students to do two things: first, to develop the greatest, most comfortable, and most reliable technical control over the physical act of playing repeated notes; and second, to develop the habit of listening closely to every part of any repeated note transaction—the articulation prior to the first note, the beginning, middle, and end of the first note, the space between the notes, the beginning, middle, and end of the second note, and so on. Once a student has made good progress on these things, then he or she will be able to make choices about how to play repeated notes in various different contexts, and these choices will be able to reflect the whole range of possibilities.
There is, I believe, a simple key to developing the greatest possible technical command of the playing of repeated notes: play them with different fingers, one from the other. That is, if you have played the first note with finger x and are holding it with finger x, then it is appropriate to play the second note (that is, the repetition) with any finger other than x. It is not OK to play it with x. This means that a note repeated more than once can be played with fingers x-y-x-y etc., or with fingers x-y-z-a-b-c etc., until the fingers run out, but not, again, x-x-x-x etc.
When a player repeats a note with the same finger that is holding it, that finger must travel both up, off the key, and back down, to play the note again, in the time that makes up the space between the two notes. This sets up a conflict between making that space short—playing the notes close to legato, at least—and executing the gesture comfortably. If the physical gesture involved is not comfortable, then the musical gesture will almost certainly sound awkward; playing a repeated note with the same finger greatly reduces the extent to which the gesture can come across as musically continuous. That is, either the repetition will have a large enough space between the notes to sound significantly disconnected, or it will have an awkward “hiccup” quality caused by an effort to push the two notes as close together as possible. The part of the “staccato to legato” spectrum that is unavailable to repeated notes intrinsically—because of the nature of the instrument, as discussed above—is made artificially greater by playing the notes with the same finger, and the range of possible, successful, articulations is narrowed.
It is also true that the act of moving one finger up and then back down is, among all of the gestures we make at the keyboard, one of the ones that is most likely to create tension in the hand. The “u-turn” that the finger makes at the top of that arc is a motion that is prone to tension. If it is not dealt with in some way, this tension can build up and, since essentially every passage of music has some repeated notes in it, this can lead to tense playing overall, even for a player who is consciously trying to play in a relaxed, light way.
In repeating a note with a different finger, the player can prepare the new finger in advance, and then release the initial finger smoothly while bringing the new finger into position to play the note and then playing the note. This is an intrinsically smooth, relaxed gesture, and it can actually serve to reduce tension that might have begun to accumulate in the hand.
François Couperin wrote in his L’Art de Toucher le Claveçin that he could tell by ear alone the difference between a note repeated with the same finger and one repeated with different fingers. (This was in the context of the playing of ornaments, which I will discuss briefly below.) When I first read that claim, years ago, I thought it was more or less impossible: that it was probably an exaggerated boast by someone whose eminence was great enough to permit him to get away with it. I would now make that same claim: I believe that, except in rare circumstances, I can detect that difference just by listening.
Once any teacher, student, or other player begins to be able to hear that difference, the motivation to work on playing repeated notes with different fingers follows automatically. Fortunately, it is an extremely easy thing to do. It is no harder, by and large, than playing those notes with the same finger. In fact, once it becomes second nature, then the fact that it is easier—that is, smoother, more natural—physiologically, makes it seem easier as a practical (and psychological) matter.

For a student to get accustomed to the feel and sound of repeated notes played this way, the best exercises are simple enough that they scarcely need to be written out (see Example 1). In this example, the student can play the notes at a variety of different tempos and with a variety of different fingerings: all the notes with any one finger (for comparison); pairs such as 2-3, 3-2, 3-4, 4-3, 3-1, or any others; or chains of fingers such as 2-3-4-5, 1-3-4-3, etc. The student should also experiment with repeating the same note but changing the rhythmic grouping. This can be done such that rhythmic groupings correspond to fingering patterns (that is, a duple grouping with a paired fingering such as 3-2, or a four-finger pattern such as 2-3-4-5; and a triple grouping with a three-finger pattern such as 4-3-2 or a six-finger pattern such as 2-3-4-5-4-3). Or it can be done with rhythmic groupings that are different from the fingering groups, such as a triple grouping with a paired fingering. In this case, the downbeat of each group shifts a finger from one time to the next.
It is very important to remember that repeating a note with a new finger does not mean slipping the new finger onto the note silently while still holding it and then repeating it with that (new) finger, which is now holding the note. This is a temptation—probably subconscious—that many students experience. Of course this is identical to repeating the note with the same finger: the supposedly new finger has become the incumbent finger.

Further exercises can put the experience into a musical context. These can begin with something simple, such as Example 2. This can be fingered in a number of ways, such as 2-3-4-5-4-3-4-3-2-3, or 3-4-5-4-3-2-3-2-3-4, or (again, for comparison) 2-3-4-4-3-2-2-1-1-2. The student should remember to keep everything as light, relaxed, and supple as possible. (It is possible to lose the advantages of using different fingers on repeated notes by playing with stiffness or tension.) The student should try different articulations: for example, making all of the non-repeated notes legato, and the repeated notes as smooth as possible; or making everything lightly detached so that the repeated notes are not articulated any differently from the rest of the line.
A chord pattern such as that in Example 3 can be tried with various fingerings, such as RH: 1,3,5/2,3,5, or LH: 5,3,1/4,2,1, and, for comparison, RH: 1,2,3/2,3,5, and LH: 5,3,2/3,2,1.
In Example 4 there is a hidden repeated note. If the two middle-Ds are played with the same finger, it will be difficult or impossible to make the two voices clear. The final quarter-note of the first measure will sound like a released and repeated note in the lower voice. A fingering such as 5,2/3/1//4,2 or 5,1/3/2//5,3 will make it possible for the middle-D to sound like it arises from the upper voice. This comes about because the necessary early release of the whole-note D can be smooth and unobtrusive. In this example, it would also work well for the left hand—any finger—to play the whole note, and for the right hand to play all of the other notes.
In many ornament situations such as this common one in Example 5, there are hidden repeated notes (assuming that the trill starts on C). A prudent way to work out a fingering here is to decide first of all which fingers should play the trill—say 3/2—and then to make sure that the note immediately before the trill is played with a different finger, say 4 or 2. Many problems that students (and others!) have playing ornaments are in fact problems with setting the ornaments up correctly. If, in this example, the student plays the C with the third finger and then repeats the C with that same finger as the first note of the trill, the attempt to play the trill will be undermined by tension before it has even begun. If the eighth-note C is played with 2, and the C that begins the trill is played with 3, then the trill will get off to a lighter, more fluent start.
Students and teachers can invent exercises to try different repeated-note fingerings, and can extract repeated-note situations from repertoire to use as exercises, before going on to finger and practice such passages in their original contexts. It is important to try different fingering, including those same-note fingerings that I would not recommend, in order to learn what the differences are between them. After a while, if a student finds the approach described here convincing it, becomes second nature, and, if anything, extra thought is required to play a repeated note with the same finger. (I sometimes need to do this as a demonstration, and I often fail to do so, out of habit!)
Sometimes a note pattern is such that it is actually impossible to change fingers on repeated notes. This is because the relevant fingers are doing something else. When this happens, then a student can draw on what he or she has learned through practicing the technique described here to be aware of what the goal is—in both feeling and sound—for those repeated notes. That awareness gives the student the best chance of coming close to achieving that sound or feeling even when the best technique for achieving it is not available. This can involve first isolating the repeated notes from the rest of the texture and practicing them separately with a good different-fingered fingering. After this, with all of the notes back in place, the memory of what the repeated notes would ideally sound like—and a generally very relaxed, smooth touch—will enable the student to get the best results under the circumstances.

Hand Distribution III

Continuing our trek through the Alla Breve section of Bach’s D Major Prelude and Fugue, BWV 532—looking closely at issues involving hand distribution—we come to a brief section that is influenced by something other than the music itself:

Example 1 shows that if there were nothing else to think about, clearly there is reason not to distribute the two voices between the two hands. That is the first principle of hand distribution, after all. However, in most editions of this piece, there is a page turn right about here. Therefore, the player can gain a bit of ease with that page turn by taking all of these notes in one hand (most likely the right hand). It is entirely possible that the various editors have chosen to position these measures at a page turn in order to help out in this way. Of course, for a player who memorizes the piece this won’t matter in the long run, but it might still help during the learning process. 

This is a special case—sort of a diversion. In fact, analyzing it like this is a useful way to help a student to relax: talking about something practical and not artistically intense, but relevant. However, it is not an unreal concern, and there are other reasons for taking clusters of notes in one hand in order to deal with something else while playing. The main one is probably the act of changing stops. Even something as simple as grabbing all of the notes of the final chord of each verse of a hymn in one hand to change stops with the other is a branch of decision-making about hand distribution.

The rest of this Alla Breve section mainly presents the same issues that we have already seen, with perhaps a few twists. I will go through it all, but concisely, since it is more or less “review”. 

The next short passage (Example 2, measures 48–49) has an outer voice that is more active than the other voices. Therefore it will make sense to keep that voice by itself in one hand, for the most part. Some players may want to break up the middle voice by taking the d′ at the end of measure 48 in the right hand. There may be other modifications that could make sense, but tracking the entire middle voice in the right hand would significantly increase the difficulty of the passage.

Example 3 (measures 50–51) shows the next measure, which has an intricate middle voice. All of the notes of that voice can be reached by the right hand; however, it might make sense to take some or all of those notes that can also be reached by the left hand, to break up the physical act of combining that line with another. The candidate notes are probably the opening c#′, and the b and the a in measure 50.

The next, which is fairly lengthy, has the fast-moving figures in the upper voice. However, the two slower voices are not close enough to one another to be taken in the left hand, clearing the right hand just to track the intricate line (see Example 4, measures 52–59).

For most players, the easiest and most natural way to finger the passage will involve taking in the left hand all of the middle-voice notes that the left hand can actually reach, and taking the notes that the left hand cannot reach in the right hand. On the second quarter note of each of the odd-numbered measures, where the two higher voices come together, there is a special issue to think about. Which hand can best project to the listener the illusion that this is two notes, one of which moves away as part of the upper eighth-note line and one of which is part of the middle-voice quarter-note line? It is actually a trap in a spot like this to try to play the note with two fingers at once, one from each hand. (No one would suggest this on purpose, but students will indeed fall into doing it, probably through indecision.) The choice of hand (and finger) should be made clearly, even though it can be made either way.

For most of the next nine measures, there are no real questions to think about, either because the (manual) writing is in only two voices or because the balance of more intricate and simpler writing makes it clear. 

At measure 65 (Example 5) there is an interesting subtlety to examine. The middle voice takes over the note being held—presumably in the left hand—by the lower voice. Which hand should play the note? The left hand is right there, but with the “wrong” finger—since whatever finger is holding the note, the hidden repeated note will sound better if it is played with a different finger. This is not hard to manage. The articulation and timing of the move from the c#′ to the a in the middle voice might seem to be under more natural control if both those notes are played in the same hand. However, it is entirely possible to practice towards making that gesture effective across the two hands, as I will discuss below. It might seem better to take that eighth- note a with the left hand to give the right hand more time to get up to the c#′′ on the second quarter note of the measure. However, to me that “leap”—the tenth from the a to the c#′′ over the time-span of an eighth note—is the main reason to take the a in the right hand. The physical gesture of moving the right hand up the distance of that tenth will—like a bowing gesture in string writing—give the player the best chance of shaping the articulation and timing of the musical gesture in an effective and natural way.

At measure 69 (in Example 6) there is a brief passage in which any and all of the notes of the middle voice could be taken by either hand.

This is a good spot at which to remember once again that it doesn’t matter on which staff the notes are printed. The decision about which middle-voice notes to take in which hand should be based on comfort and logistics. This is not a bad time to mention that this will vary with the particular hand shapes of different players. For example, it is quite likely that a player with relatively short thumbs will gain more comfort from taking the d′ in measure 70 with the left hand than a player with relatively long thumbs will. 

Measures 71 through 78 display a texture in which the upper voice is mostly holding long notes, while the other two voices are fairly active. A sample of that passage is shown in Example 7.

It makes sense to take the eighth-note middle voice in the right hand, just accepting that one finger (the fifth finger) of that hand is unavailable since it has to hold long sustained notes. 

At measure 79 there is another opportunity to use hand distribution to make the playing of repeated notes sound natural, and to avoid letting those repeated notes disrupt the flow of the voices. My suggestions are indicated by letters, and are shown in Example 8.

The next complicated or involved spot begins at measure 89 (Example 9). This is a longer example of the sort of writing found at measure 36 and discussed in last month’s column. In this case, however, the eighth notes in the middle voice can all be reached by either hand. The player has a free choice as to which hand should play any of these notes and therefore what pattern to follow through the passage. The teacher’s role is mostly to point this out to the student, and to help the student notice the implications of different choices for hand position and articulation (and of course the implications of articulation preferences for hand distribution choices: the more interested a student is in playing the upper half-note line legato, for example, the more middle-voice notes the student will want to take in the left hand). I myself would probably take the third eighth note of each beat in the left hand—those that are a third higher than the lower voice left-hand notes, closest to them—and the others in the right hand. There are other ways to do it.

The next few measures (Example 10 measures 94–96) end the section of the piece that we are analyzing. Again, either hand can reach the middle-voice notes. Choices can be made based on the usual factors: closeness of notes to one another, hand position, and so on. However, this passage also has a special feature. A player might find that the shaping of the timing and articulation of the syncopations/suspensions in the upper voice feels more natural either 1) with those notes isolated on their own in the right hand, or 2) played with the middle-voice notes in the right hand, using a kind of rocking motion to reinforce the feeling of the pacing and articulation of those notes. This is an individual thing: I can easily imagine doing it either way.

When a student (or any player) has made all of the decisions about which hand should take which notes of a (middle) contrapuntal voice, and worked out the actual fingering, then the next step is to practice the passage in such a way that that voice sounds the way that the player wants it to sound. If the hand distribution and fingering are right (comfortable) then this should not be categorically different from practicing any other sort of passage. 

However, there is one concern. It is undeniably a little bit more difficult—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say “less intuitive”—to shape the timing and articulation of the transitions from one note to the next in a contrapuntal voice when those notes are in different hands than when they are in the same hand. It is very important not to let this fact lead a player into making awkward hand distribution choices. (Sometimes it can and should influence those choices when other factors are fairly evenly split). But it should be kept in mind and addressed in practicing. 

The main way to address it is to practice that voice by itself, but split between the hands with the correct, worked-out fingering. This is partly physical practice, but even more it is listening practice. It is easiest to attune the ears to the flow of the line when the line is not covered by other notes, and this will make it easier to hear and follow the line in the context of the full texture. It is always straightforward to extract the line once the fingering process has been accomplished. It can be a good exercise for a student to write out—or type out—the line by itself, add the chosen fingerings, and practice it from that. However this is probably not necessary. 

For the bulk of this practicing it is important not to change the chosen fingering—and it is crucial not to do so accidentally or at random. (It is always OK to rethink fingering consciously, if there is a reason to do so.) It is also important to listen carefully during this practice to the transition moments, where the voice crosses from one hand to the other. It is possible, especially with a line that is physically not hard to play, to play short sections of the line in one hand at this stage to listen for the continuity, and then put it back into the correct (two-hand) fingering, trying to match the one-handed effect. It is probably a good idea not to do very much of this: just once or twice through a given short section of the line being practiced. If a student finds this to be disruptive (that is, if it is hard to go back to the fingering that is really being practiced after visiting the one-hand fingering) then he or she should not do it. 

When a student has practiced a line this way and is ready to put the whole texture back together, he or she should try at first to listen only to the line that passes between the hands and to pay no attention to the voices around it. (Unfortunately, it is impossible by definition to solo out this line, since in all of the passages of the kind that we have been studying both hands and all the voices are—and have to be—on one keyboard.) This is an exercise in focusing, and of course it can’t be achieved literally. You will always hear the other notes, but you should try to focus on the line that passes between the hands, to be conscious of that line and the sonority of all of its notes.

It can be a good exercise to take any line of music—say the top line of a hymn, or one voice of a two-part Invention, or a cantabile melody from the slow movement of a Mendelssohn sonata—assign it an arbitrary fingering that shifts back and forth between the hands, and practice that fingering. (The fingering can be worked out arbitrarily, but should be written in and not changed at random.) This is not to end up playing that line that way regularly, but as training in listening to and executing the transitions from one hand to the other.

Often the issue is not that of passing a line between the hands. In non-contrapuntal music, the question of how to divide the notes between the hands (assuming, as always in this context, that the whole texture is meant to be played on one keyboard) should usually be determined as simply as possible by trying out the physical comfort, simplicity, and convenience of any of the various possibilities. In fact, very often, just remembering that it is perfectly all right to distribute the notes between the hands however they fall most easily is the most important as well as the first step. The rest follows from that. 

It is interesting that the impulse to play upper staff notes in the right hand and lower staff notes in the left hand can be pervasive. I recently took part in a conversation about the wide left-hand chord on the fourth beat of measure 8 of the Widor Toccata (Example 11). For many players, it is impossible (or nearly so) to play all four notes of this chord in the left hand, and for even more players it is at least awkward. The player who initiated the discussion absolutely could not reach those four notes. Nonetheless, the conversation revolved around such issues as which note or notes it was best to leave out, or whether there was a solution based on arpeggiation, or whether Widor’s left hand was really big enough for him to be able to play this chord easily and nonchalantly. 

It took a while for someone to notice the obvious solution, namely that the highest note of the so-called “left hand” chord is within easy reach of the notes of the upper voice, and can perfectly well be played in the right hand. Doing it this way opens up some performance issues similar to some of those discussed above. The timing and articulation of that note must be just right, as a match to the other notes of the chord. That is intuitive if all of the notes of the chord are in the same hand—and less intuitive, more challenging, if the notes are split between the hands. This is analogous to the issues involved in passing a voice back and forth between the hands. It is also important to keep the articulation of the top line going the way you want it while adding an extra note for the right-hand thumb. A player who absolutely cannot reach the entire chord can take on the task of practicing to get these things right. A player for whom the chord is possible but awkward can decide where the balance lies as to what is easiest and what will give the best results. 

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center. He can be reached by email at <[email protected]>.

Some thoughts on ornaments II
Last month I shared some ideas about a general approach to playing ornaments and how to practice towards playing them well and comfortably. This month I will share more such thoughts and also discuss specific named ornaments. Next month I will write about the concept of “authenticity” and ways of introducing students to that concept.

Freedom in performance
Ornamentation is related to the idea of freedom in performance. There is a continuum of freedom in making music. At one end of that continuum is out-and-out improvisation—not that all improvisation is totally “free” in the sense of “unstructured” or with no rules. But if a player is improvising, then that player is essentially responsible for deciding what the notes will be, and also for the judgments about how to play those notes. Conceptually, as a matter of accuracy or authenticity, the player is not responsible to another musician—that is, a composer—or to any concept of fidelity to someone else’s ideas. When a player undertakes to learn an already written piece, that player accepts some level of responsibility to reproduce what the composer of that piece created in the first place. Of course, there are many different philosophical and practical approaches to this issue; but ornamentation occupies a place somewhere in between improvisation and simply “playing what the composer wrote.” Exactly where this place is can be hard to define, or, perhaps more accurately, cannot be defined because it is not just one place. But to some extent, ornaments are written as signs rather than just as notes because they are defined as intrinsically freer than the notes around them.
This freedom is of two different kinds; remembering both of them can be very helpful to students. The first is the freedom to add or subtract ornaments. To me, one of the most telling pieces of evidence for the existence of this freedom is that copyists—in the era when most music was copied by hand—felt free to add, remove or change ornaments. That is, clearly the philosophy of copying was that the “notes” should be copied exactly (of course, mistakes were made), but that “ornaments” could be treated with considerable discretion. There are surviving manuscripts of many pieces that differ greatly from one another in ornamentation. If they differed as much in the “real” notes, we would not consider them to be the same piece. Some of Bach’s students, and others in his circle, added copious ornaments to their copies of various of his pieces: the Inventions, for example, or the Canzona, BWV 588. Bach himself added a fair number of ornaments to his personal copy of the (already published) Goldberg Variations. This latter fact reminds us that we can’t even be sure that what we have of the composer’s own account of the ornaments in a piece always represents what that composer really—or finally—wanted.
François Couperin wrote that he considered it crucial that performers play exactly the ornaments that he wrote, neither adding any nor omitting any, and play them exactly the way he said that they were to be played. This suggests that—if we care by and large about respecting the wishes of composers—we should play all of, and only, Couperin’s own ornaments. However, his vehemence on this point—what seems to amount to his actual anger at performers for their approach to ornamentation in his music—also tells us that this was not the common practice at the time. (It is also true that even Couperin’s rather long and detailed ornament tables do not by any means resolve all of the questions about how exactly to play his ornaments. In fact, his “real note” explanations of his ornament signs are largely written in small notes with no time value to them, and therefore give little or no information about the timing or rhythm of the ornaments. More about this below.)

After 1800
One more confirmation of the notion that ornamentation—that is, ornament sign-based elaboration of written musical lines—is essentially defined by the performer’s freedom is this: over a period of time centered in the early nineteenth century, composers began to assume for themselves greater responsibility for determining all of the details of how their music should be played. This manifested itself in metronome markings, explicit phrasing and articulation marks, dynamic markings, more varied, explicit and expressive tempo markings, and, in organ music in particular, registrations. This was part of a long trend away from a performer/improviser-based musical culture towards a composer-based one. The fact that at this same time the use of ornament signs declined significantly—not totally, of course, but enough that we tend to think of ornamentation as being more essentially a part of Baroque music than of later music—suggests that those ornament signs were seen as leaving freedom—too much freedom—in the hands of performers. Thus we believe or assume that we should not, for the most part, add ornaments to music written after about 1800, or take away those that are there.

Ornament tables
Typical Baroque-era ornament tables (and there are quite a few that survive) are paradoxically a main source of confirmation for the second aspect of freedom in playing ornaments—that is, the freedom to play a given ornament in a number of different ways. This is because those ornament tables never give a complete, cut and dried, or even necessarily technically meaningful account of how to play an ornament, beyond the most basic. They give, for the most part, a bare account of what the notes of the ornament should be, sometimes with hints about the placement of the notes of the ornament with respect to the beat, sometimes not. They do not really address the rhythm or timing of ornaments. These tables serve as a guide to the most basic shape of ornaments for players who do not already know that shape, and they are now—and were when they were written—very valuable for that purpose. However, any practical attempt to use them to figure out the subtleties of playing any ornament simply doesn’t work. This suggests to me that it was understood and accepted that those subtleties would be figured out on a flexible basis by each performer as the occasion arose.
Now I would like to turn to some specific ornaments, with an emphasis on trills, offering a hodgepodge of musical/artistic thoughts and practical ones.

Trill
The trill is by far the most complicated ornament to understand and, especially, to execute comfortably. It is widely understood that trills are ornaments involving the printed note and the note above it. (It is possible that I have never had a student come to me who didn’t already know this—certainly almost never. It is always worth checking, though, to be sure that a student does understand this.) The big question, at least at the beginning of the process of learning any particular trill, is which note comes first, and the usual assumption is that in Baroque music trills should begin on the upper note, and in music later than the Baroque period, they should begin on the main note. There is absolutely no reason not to believe that this is basically true, and plenty of reason to believe that it is. I have to put this in a kind of half-fudging way for a reason, though: there are all sorts of exceptions, uncertainties, and ambiguities. One major exception is that by and large Italian Baroque trills probably were meant to begin with the main (printed) note. (In fact it is fairly likely that the reason that classical period and later trills begin on the main note is that in the mid to late eighteenth century, Italian style, especially as represented by Italian opera, spread widely throughout Europe and some of the conventions of that style with respect to ornamentation were adopted.) Another exception is that some North German Baroque composers who were influenced by Italian style probably also meant for many of their trills to begin on the main note.
Concerning this question, what I usually suggest to students is that they start by trying out a trill with the template suggested by the consensus about what was probably meant historically, and then feel free to change it if they find it unconvincing. If anyone finds him- or herself changing many or most trills away from what the composer(s) probably intended, that may suggest an esthetic bias, and it might be fruitful to try to challenge that bias. (For example, I—with my strong personal orientation towards playing Baroque music—have found myself wanting to play trills in Reger beginning with the upper note. I could try to justify this by pointing out that Reger himself had a strong orientation towards Baroque music. In fact, his music has more trills and other ornaments in it than other music from his historical period. However, it is actually quite unlikely indeed that he meant his trills to be played from the upper note. In fact, during his lifetime it was not even customary to play Baroque trills that way. The bias towards doing so in the music of Reger is mine, not his.)
Sometimes an intuitive desire to play a trill a certain way is related to articulation. For example, if a trill is approached from above, with the note immediately before the trill being the same as the upper note of the trill itself, then beginning the trill on that upper note will create an articulation, at least a subtle one. If the passage is one that the student wants to play with a strong, essentially overlapping, legato, then this articulation might seem jarring. Appropriate fingering (see last month’s column) and a light touch can be used to make the articulation as subtle and “musical” as possible. If a choice about articulation seems to force an interpretation of a trill that is inauthentic, then that might suggest rethinking that choice about articulation. However, this is always at the player’s discretion.
One interesting feature of trills is that, almost always, one of the notes of the trill is consonant and the other note dissonant against the prevailing harmony or against the notes of one or more other voices. It is interesting to notice which note stands in which relation to the harmony, and to observe the effect on a passage of starting the trill on the dissonant or the consonant note. Especially when starting on the dissonant note, it is interesting to try holding that note for different lengths before segueing into the rest of the trill, and listening for the effect of various lengths and overall trill shapes on the rhetoric of the passage.
In practicing trills, it often makes sense to start with a very even, “stilted” version of the trill. That is, once a basic decision has been made about the note shape of the trill, create a version of that shape which is rhythmically even, and not any faster than can be played easily. This may be eighth notes, or sixteenths, or sometimes thirty-seconds. Practice the trill that way at first. This will get the fingers accustomed to the correct note pattern. (In general, it is any hesitation or uncertainty about notes or fingering patterns that makes it impossible to play anything quickly and lightly, ornament or otherwise.) Then, as the passage itself gets up to speed, in many cases the trill will automatically become fast enough to “sound like a trill.” In some cases, the planned notes of the trill will have to speed up beyond the natural speeding up of the piece as a whole. At this stage, it is important to remember the feeling derived from the trill exercise that I described last month, and to recapture that feeling as the trill pattern speeds up and becomes a trill as such. The purpose of doing that exercise is to make that particular feeling of lightness, quickness, and floating—rather than descending into the keys—available to be recaptured at this stage in practicing a trill. The process of making a trill sound like a trill, while also allowing it to be comfortable and reliable, could be described as a coming together of the simple note-pattern of the trill and the feeling and technique learned through that exercise.
In general, students often attempt to play trills too fast, and in particular to start them too fast. The practice of holding the first note of a trill a little bit—dwelling on it—before proceeding to the next note and to the body of the trill is very useful for keeping trills relaxed and in the end allowing them to be faster and more incisive than they could otherwise be. I believe that often a student is unconsciously so worried, before actually starting to play a trill, that it won’t be fast enough, that he or she tries to get away from the first note almost before that note has been played. This only leads to tension. If the effect of dwelling a bit on the first note does not sound right as a final way of playing a given trill (and it often does sound right: I tend to do it myself on most trills, though to varying extents), then it can be abandoned later on, when the trill is comfortable and secure. At the stage of moving away from dwelling on the first note, if that is the choice, then it is extremely important not to let tension creep back in. The finger playing the first note should in a sense feel like it is relaxing into that note even if the second note of the trill is going to happen very soon indeed.

Appoggiatura
The appoggiatura is another ornament that raises issues of dissonance and consonance. Most often, the appoggiatura itself is the dissonant note. In deciding how long to make an appoggiatura—anything from a quick almost fleeting “grace note” to a note that occupies almost all of the allotted time—this dissonance is the most important thing to listen to. The more significant this dissonance seems, the more sense it usually makes to hear the appoggiatura/main note sequence as having a diminuendo effect. To achieve this, first, hold the appoggiatura just the right length, as determined by trial and error and careful listening, then make the motion from that note to the main note utterly legato, and finally, release the main note very gently if it is to be released before playing whatever is next.

Mordent
A mordent—the printed note, the note below it, and the printed note again—is perhaps the ornament that least disturbs the main note’s rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic identity. It is usually an “ornamental” ornament, that is, an ornament that does not increase the amount of harmonic motion—creation and release of tension—in the music. A player can experiment with different speeds in mordents. Often, perhaps paradoxically, a very fast mordent, assuming that it is played lightly and gracefully, sounds quieter than a slower one, and actually fits better with even a languid or cantabile melody. A mordent contains a hidden “almost repeated” note. Sometimes it is a good idea to change fingers, as if with a real repeated note. A fingering such as (rh) 1-2-3 or 4-2-3 or (lh) 1-3-2 or 3-4-2 will sometimes give more lightness and control. 

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center. He can be reached by email at <[email protected]>.