john cage's piece "amores" i am busy with these days dear friend of piano forum. i have a question for you... is there anyone who played or studied it before?
my question is about "8va" in front of G key signature. I know that if 8va comes upon the notes it means play it one octave higher. and if it is under the below the notes it means the opposite, so 'play it one octave lower. but what if it is right in front of the key signature...ok..all staff is one octave higher lets say..what about the left hand then? that is also G key signature..but without the 8va..so i think it should only affect on my right hand..but still i wanted to ask you..
thanks

yes, that is correct.

He means that the whole staff (or until he removes the 8va sign from the clef) is played one octave higher. Otherwise there would be a doted line above every stuff, which is rather inconvinient.

BTW, bellow the note, it is 8vb, not 8va.

The left hand plays as normal on the tremble clef (G clef).

I've not seen the score but from what you describe this is what it should be, as far as I know.

"8va" is short for the italian, octava (octa=8), or in English, octave.

"8vb" is short for the italian, octava bassa, or in English, octave bass (octave below).

thanks to both of you for the answers. yes..thats the logic i guess. otherwise he would write also in front of the left hand staff 8va or he would write it just in the middle for both of the staffs...even though left hand has the same key signature..i would get surprised if it would affect both..
about the octava bassa...you are right.but sometimes it is written 8va bassa not 8vb.. for example in one piece of robert delanoff i see it right infront of me..
which means the same as 8vb...off course..

thanks again...

btw: there is another challenge in this piece as i see it now...the last page of it he writes in 4/4 bar, 2 half notes on left hand and 5 quarter notes on right or 7 quarters on right..which is Ok...but left hand plays low e and octave higher f sharp or g chord on this half notes...which is impossible for small hands..(i cant take the e and g only f sharp i can take if my pink is on e) so in this case i take the g with right hand..which makes it very complicated because i have 5 or 7 quarters against 2 half notes as a said...so its unnecessarily difficult