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Is it okay to write a second voice to hold a chord even though the pedal will sustain that chord? Must each finger hold down the note for as long as the note value dictates? Or is it okay to release the fingers due to the pedal keeping it sustained?

Sometimes, even if a pedal sign is missing, it's assumed that one needs to hold the notes down via the sustain (or even the sostenuto) pedal. Otherwise the note values won't be possible to be held...

So I think it's ok, although I'm not 100% sure of what you mean exactly!

Okay, I see what you mean. But just in case...



Do the dotted half notes signal that you should pedal? Or should I simply make them eighth notes like the rest but add pedal markings to ensure their sustain?


PS: Don't worry about those accidentals, I'll fix that up later.

No it's not clear, because you can play the right hand with... the right hand. There's no indication that you want the upper staff to be played by both hands, so naturally the pianist will hold the D octaves with the left hand and pay everything with the right.

But flip the upper tie upwards please. And downwards on the first two chords!

What do you mean left hand taking over the right hand? I thought 2 voices in one staff was played by one hand, not two? The dotted half notes need to be sustained for the whole measure. I didn't want to change them to eighth-note chords, because then I would have to write in pedal to keep them sustained, which I don't want to do because I want a lot of freedom when it comes to pedaling. I don't want to mark up the whole score with pedal markings.

You mentioned the tie direction... what are the rules on that? (there are also a couple upper ties that can't really be up-facing like you asked)

If the lower staff is to be played by the left hand then there's no need to be discussing anything...

for convenience sometimes we notate things in a single staff, even though they are supposed to be played by both hands.

The rules about ties are that the notes get a tie in the other direction. If you have 2 (or more notes) the outward notes get a tie that 'encompass' the chord (going outward themselves and growing larger. Can't explain it any better).

Think of it like this: ALL of your ties, except the one in the lower D note (in the octaves) are looking in the wrong way!

What do you mean "outward notes"?

Would it make more sense to refer to them as the outside notes of the chord?

I think what you've indicated is perfectly clear -- let the pianist figure out whether they want to use the LH or the RH. Sometimes, even when the composer indicates which hand to use, I change it anyway. (You can go on youtube and find hundreds of examples of professional big-name pianists doing the same thing.)

I think the biggest difference in writing it with either the two voices you've used, or an 8th note with a pedal marking, is the voicing itself. The way you've written it makes it much easier to determine which notes to bring out, and how long to hold each note, than a pedal marking would be able to tell us.

If you need extra convincing, look at the few instances where the sustained note is re-struck. If you don't clearly mark it the way you have done, that repeated note may not be brought out differently because it's not written that way. (In other words, the pianist may confuse an intended pseudo-sustain of the harmony with the notes of the melody.)

Steve - No, it still makes no sense to me.

Derulux - Thank you for your thoughts. I think it has help solidify my decision to use multiple voices for those chords and NOT pedal markings. Now I'm just kind of stressed about the ties... and the accidentals. They're trying to explain to me the rules of ties (and slurs?) and I'm just not understanding.

Ok...

If you have a chord of 2 notes (an octave for example), the ties will need to look at different directions. The one connecting the bottom note will be like a happy smile, while the one on the top note will be like an unhappy smile.

If there's more than 2 notes in a chord, you flip the middle ties whichever way fits better (but usually above the middle B it gets the unhappy smile), etc...

I'm without Finale/Sibelius for this week and I can't show you what I mean. But really... just find any work with ties and check what's going on. In fact this is a good practice overall: Check what others have done before you!

Actually I do this all the time. I'm constantly referring to my Henle editions to get an idea of what's correct, but sometimes it's not sufficient. I think you've explained it so that I understand now. There's so much room for miscommunication when explaining something like this over text, so I'm sorry that it's taken this long!

Any better?

Yes it is. Well done! Flip the upper tie in bar 7 and you're done as far as ties are concerned!

Okay, but I thought the ties on middle notes can face any direction?

Not really, but I'd have to look a bit harder to check the rules...

It all has to do about balance. If something looks weird, then it IS weird (and thus """"wrong"""" (with all the " in the world))

From my understanding, middle notes tend to "group". So, if you looked at a first inversion chord, the bottom third would group with a happy smile, and the top note would get a frown. If you looked at a 2nd inversion chord (like at the beginning of your piece), the bottom note is a loner happy-smile, while the top two notes are grouped as frowners.

But what you have in measure 7 is actually the top note of the tie (with an additional voice above it).

This is one of those tricky cases, I think, which is why everyone's stumbling over it. I actually believe I've seen it printed both ways. Sometimes, a happy smile to really emphasize that there's a separate voice above the tie. Sometimes, with the frown because, for balance, they really needed to turn it upside down.

I think that technically, a frown would be more correct than a smile, but I think because of the extra voices, you may be able to get away with either. (This is, of course, my best guess. I don't have this rule pegged 100%..)

Hi Joel,

Something that could be done here would be to indicate that before bar one the pianist silently depresses the lowest D in that bar and the D below that, then apply the sostenuto pedal which will keep the dampers off both Ds through bar eight and allow minimization of use of the main damper pedal through all eight bars.

M.