Contradictory articulation indications
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:42 am
This isn't a tuba/euphonium question, per se, but in a lot of music for wind instruments I have seen articulation marks that seem to contradict each other. For instance, a series of notes with both tenuto marks and dots. I have had a composer tell me that he meant that to be longer than staccato but still separated. I asked him why he couldn't just notate the length of the note he wanted, in this case a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth rest. He said when he did that people complained it was too busy looking. Some composers also use the tenuto dash to indicate a milder accent than an accent mark.
I was working on the Horovitz euphonium concerto with a student the other day. In it there is a scale passage in sixteenths with staccato marks. A few measures later the same scale occurs but this time with a slur above the staccato sixteenths. Usually when there is a long slur above a passage with other articulation marks I tell my students that it is an indication not to take a breath and to make the passage sound like a single phrase but I can't say that about this passage since no one would breath in this short phrase anyhow.
Any thoughts?
I was working on the Horovitz euphonium concerto with a student the other day. In it there is a scale passage in sixteenths with staccato marks. A few measures later the same scale occurs but this time with a slur above the staccato sixteenths. Usually when there is a long slur above a passage with other articulation marks I tell my students that it is an indication not to take a breath and to make the passage sound like a single phrase but I can't say that about this passage since no one would breath in this short phrase anyhow.
Any thoughts?