Hello ladies and gentlemen! I've been visiting this forum for about a year, since I bought a new Yamaha keyboard (PSR E303) and started taking keyboard lessons at the local Yamaha school. I keep going to this school because it's fun and I do learn some stuff. However, I'm a bit more ambitious so I also do some study by myself. I don't play the piano so far, I may consider getting a digital in the future. But I stick to this forum anyway because it's the best one out there.

A bit about myself: I'm 37 and of the female condition. I'm from Spain, the Canary Islands to be more precise, so if I sometimes sound awkward please remember English is not my first language. (Then there are those other times when I just sound awkward, specially at the keyboard, and have no excuse for it...). I've been known to torture some keyboards and guitars while growing up.

As it is customary, I have a question! What's a newbie without a question?

I have this exercise which is a based on Bach's Minuet. It has a turn symbol, like the last one on this site http://www.treblis.com/Notation/Ornament.html , but it's not situated above any note, it's at the end of the staff. What is it trying to tell me?

Thanks for your time and patience following me up to this point.

I looked it up on wikipeda and it says that the effect depends on where it is placed in relation to the note it refers to. For some reason it wont let me post the link here, but just type in "turn music" on google search and it should show the wikipedia result. There is a little diagram example that shows how you would play a turn that isn't directly over the note

You might have seen my previous post too, but if you are interested I made a music website recently (www.mymusicstudies.com) and it has some piano patterns on it. They are just basic, but I wrote them out with intervals if you want to check it out. I'm going to try to update the homepage in a few days to be more interesting than it is now.

Glad you delurked, Arietta! I don't know anything about ornamentations, alas. But I did want to say welcome.

Hi welcome to the forum, I too can't answer your question Just wanted to say Hi.
Just a thought, I always marvel at the the fluency of the members who do not speak English as their first language, and yours is excellent

Arietta, I think someone more experienced needs to answer your question (maybe post it in Pianist Corner?), but I'd like to pass on this recommendation that Betty Patnude made some time ago: Bach\'s Ornaments . I'm not sure if my fingers will ever be nimble enough to really handle ornaments, but everything I might ever want to know is on this CD.

Welcome on board Arietta.....

May be you need some help from:

ornaments

Just scroll down the list and they tell you how to play the ornament.

Look also at Wikipedia at: ornament (music) This hyperlink can'nt be pasted.

Succes and best regards,
Johan B

Just select, copy, REMOVE STARS and past:

*http://en.*wikipedia.org/*wiki/*Ornament_(music)*

Succes.
JB

Sorry,

first paste and then REMOVE THE STARS in the browser.......etc....

Without further context, this would be a
"segno" mark, which is a stylized captial "S"
with two dots on the sides of it and a slash
through it ("segno" means "sign" in
Italian). It looks vaguely similar to
a turn sign, which looks sort of like
an "S" lying on its back. The
fact that it is not over any note and is
at the end of the staff indictes a segno
rather than a turn, because a turn would
have to be over some note.

A segno indicates some kind of repeat.
Sometimes there will be another segno
mark somewhere else in the piece. If
there is another segno, then that means
you go back to the point where the other segno
is and repeat what is between the segnos.
But often there are other instructions
in conjunction with a segno mark. For
example, there might be a segno at the
end of the piece and another one at
the beginning and then the word "Fine"
("end" in Italian) somewhere in the
piece. That means that after you get
to the end of the piece you return to
the beginning and play until the "Fine."

Sometimes at the end of piece there will
be the words "Da capo (or just D.C.)
al segno" ("from head to the sign").
This means you return to the beginning
of the piece and play until
the segno sign, wherever that might be
in the piece. Or there might be the
words "da segno (or just D. S.) al fine"
("from sign to the end") at the end of the
piece. This means you return to where
the segno mark is and play
until where the word "fine" is. And there
are numerous other variations.

Arietta,

I extend yet another welcome to you. (And I would never have guessed English is not your native language if you hadn't mentioned it!)

I agree that the sign you describe could be a segno rather than a turn, but I'm not sure what you mean by "at the end of the staff." A segno would be above the staff.

This article shows a picture of the segno symbol:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_Segno

But maybe it's a turn symbol after all. A turn doesn't necessarily have to be over a note; it can be between notes, too, as illustrated here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29#Turn

Steven

p.s. There are some errors on the page at treblis.com that you provided the link for. If that page is representative of content elsewhere at that site, it may not be a reliable source for accurate information.

Hi,

Here is a good example of how to play turns:

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory23.htm#turn

It shows both a turn as it would be played if the symbol is above the note and how it would be played if it were beside the note.

Rich

Thanks everyone for the welcome, the answers and many interesting links, and the comments about my English! The truth is I feel pretty much bilingual at this point, but I still have to look up (or guess) and learn some of the more fine, not-so-colloquial musical terms.

After reading all the answers, I think the symbol is not being used in a very conventional way… I took a very careful look at the passage, and I think I know what I’m supposed to do. (This is an exercise from the school, the teacher said “look at this while on holidays” so I can not ask her until September). The exercise is what they call an “ensemble”, where different pupils play different hands: A, B, or C. After playing the melody of the Minuet in the key of G major and 3/4, we come to this part (photo) where we change rhythm to 4/4. In 1 and 2 we play a bit of a transitional embellishment bridge, and then we start the melody again in C major. And after 3 and 4, I guess the sign says: hands A and C continue to play the chords (F, C, Dm, G7,…) or just the same notes, in the same way described, while hand B is to continue to play the melody (B purple).


I think a few of you will cringe when you see this classic played this way!
(Edited to adjust the image link)

Dang, I've never seen that before. (And the only thing I can say for certain about it is that we were wrong!)

My guess from seeing it in context is that it concerns repetition, and I think your own intuition about it is correct.

And it is at the end of the staff, after all! I couldn't even picture that in my mind.

Steven