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Please read the following first: I am having trouble with the beginning measure of the 'Courante' of Bach's Keyboard Partita No.2 in C Minor. The measure I am concerned with can be seen here http://img89.imageshack.us/i/bachconfusion.png/ and the you can hear the piece I am reffering to here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu-A5G5gqn0 the measure I am reffering to would be the first thing you hear.

I don't understand this small opening measure from the 'Courante". On the top, towards the end, right after the set of sixteen and eight notes, there are what look to be three quarter notes, 2 of which have dots next to them. When I listen to this section being performed, the "quarter-dotted" notes (whatever they're called) seem to be played at the same speed as the eight notes, which I don't understand. I see that 2 of the notes in question have dots beside them, but they look different than the usual dotted notes I run into, the ones where you add half of its original value to the base note. The third note looks like a regular quarter note, but still gets played like an eight. Anyways, could someone help me out here?

Yes, those are dotted quarters and a quarter, but their rhythm is such that they sound like eighths. You're playing polyphonic music with multiple voices stacked on top of each other.

If you look under the first dotted quarter, you'll see two rest markings, an eighth and quarter. The first dotted quarter and top eighth note is one voice, the eighth rest and second dotted quarter is voice two, and the quarter rest and quarter is the third voice.

Thanks Allan. I understand what you said about there being multiple voices, but I don't understand how the musical noation denotes what your saying. I think the probem is that I don't know how to read music well enough. I don't understand what it means if there are multiple rests "on top" of each other, as in this measure. I learned about how to interpret basic dotted notes from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dotted_note, but I couoldn't really find what I needed on wiki about rests. I think if I had a reasonably good written tutorial/guide on reading music. Does anybody have a free online guide that could help me?

I'm not sure how to describe it any further. Reading multiple voices on the spot is something that comes with practice; bringing together the various durations in the notation so each voice in the measure adds up correctly.

The search term you want to use when looking for online resources is "Music Theory". That's really what is being taught when you receive instruction in reading music. There are also several good books on Music Theory, some with audio CDs, available commercially for self study that are inexpensive.

Are you working with a teacher? Someone with a more intimate knowledge of your current skills would probably be able to better answer your questions since they could work with you in real time, versus the back and forth here.

The easiest way to think about the notation in this passage is to hold every note for its full value and to release any given note only when it "expires," regardless of the rests. The rests are to denote which voice(s) are paused and can get confusing when stacked over each other. If you hold the notes only for their indicated durations the music will still come out "right." Count it out slowly -- really slowly, if you have to. It also sometimes helps to lightly draw a pencil line vertically through every major beat in a bar so you can figure out where each note fits. In this piece that would mean 6 vertical lines in every bar. Courantes like this one are also rhythmically tricky, being finely balanced between a feeling of "two-ness" and "three-ness." Overall the piece should have an in-three feel to it (three half notes to a bar), but within each bar there are three 2-beat pulsations.

You're fortunate that the notes in this edition are exactly vertically aligned, as per modern rules of notation (i.e. notes that are sounded simultaneously are exactly vertically stacked, with very few exceptions). Otherwise figuring out what is going on would be made much more difficult. Just look at Bach's own edition of this piece, available at IMSLP, for an example of how slight vertical misalignments make it more difficult to figure out. Take advantage of this alignment by penciling in an exactly vertical line through both treble and bass clefs on these notes in the bass clef:

beat 1: middle c
beat 2: low c
beat 3: bass clef e-flat
beat 4: bass clef g
beat 5: middle c
beat 6: bass clef b-flat

Note that while musically these beats are evenly spaced, on the page they vary in spacing depending on how much is going on in the treble clef during each beat (e.g. beat 2 takes a lot of space). Music notation stretches back and forth this way, horizontally, and its something you have to get used to. A score is flexible time-line, not a heart-monitor readout.

--Sixtus

BTW: the dynamic indications in the score you quote originate with that score's editor. What Bach wrote is contained in his own edition, which has no dynamic markings here. That doesn't mean you shouldn't phrase the dynamics, however, just that strict adherence to the dynamics printed in your score will produce the interpretation of that score's editor, not your own.

sbeckmesser wrote:The easiest way to think about the notation in this passage is to hold every note for its full value and to release any given note only when it "expires," regardless of the rests. The rests are to denote which voice(s) are paused and can get confusing when stacked over each other. If you hold the notes only for their indicated durations the music will still come out "right." Count it out slowly -- really slowly, if you have to. It also sometimes helps to lightly draw a pencil line vertically through every major beat in a bar so you can figure out where each note fits. In this piece that would mean 6 vertical lines in every bar. Courantes like this one are also rhythmically tricky, being finely balanced between a feeling of "two-ness" and "three-ness." Overall the piece should have an in-three feel to it (three half notes to a bar), but within each bar there are three 2-beat pulsations.

You're fortunate that the notes in this edition are exactly vertically aligned, as per modern rules of notation (i.e. notes that are sounded simultaneously are exactly vertically stacked, with very few exceptions). Otherwise figuring out what is going on would be made much more difficult. Just look at Bach's own edition of this piece, available at IMSLP, for an example of how slight vertical misalignments make it more difficult to figure out. Take advantage of this alignment by penciling in an exactly vertical line through both treble and bass clefs on these notes in the bass clef:

beat 1: middle c
beat 2: low c
beat 3: bass clef e-flat
beat 4: bass clef g
beat 5: middle c
beat 6: bass clef b-flat

Note that while musically these beats are evenly spaced, on the page they vary in spacing depending on how much is going on in the treble clef during each beat (e.g. beat 2 takes a lot of space). Music notation stretches back and forth this way, horizontally, and its something you have to get used to. A score is flexible time-line, not a heart-monitor readout.

--Sixtus

BTW: the dynamic indications in the score you quote originate with that score's editor. What Bach wrote is contained in his own edition, which has no dynamic markings here. That doesn't mean you shouldn't phrase the dynamics, however, just that strict adherence to the dynamics printed in your score will produce the interpretation of that score's editor, not your own.

Thanks for responding sbeckmesser. I think I'm starting to understand what you and Allan are saying, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around this musical notation. It seems rather counterintuitive to have a succession of quarter notes (two of whom have dotes) to be played as eight notes. Is there a reason why Bach didn't simply write them as eight notes? Is there something in the musical notation that denotes the quarters being played as eights, something that, if I were more educated, I would be able to see?

I see what the real problem is now. It is simply wrong to state that any of the notes in question, which I take to mean the A-flat, F, D and A-flat in the right hand on the last half-note beat of the bar, as sounding like 8th notes. Only the last A-flat is notated, played and sounded like an 8th note. The F, D and last A-flat come in partway through the beat but they don't sound like 8th notes nor should they. In fact if you perform them exactly as written you'll build up beautiful arpeggiated dissonant chord with the first A-flat, F and D over the held C and B-flat in the left hand. You MUST give up the conception, wherever you got it from, that the first three of these four notes should sound like 8th notes. No -- they should sound and be played exactly as they are notated otherwise you won't end up with the intended chord at the end of the first bar.

The notation in the first bar is intended to produce this chordal effect and is not truly 5-voice polyphonic, as the number of fingers being held down at the very end of the measure might indicate. The right hand D, for example, doesn't directly lead to another note in the next bar, whereas every other note at the end of the first measure leads to another (the A-flat 8th note to the G half note, the F dotted quarter is held over another 8th note, the low B-flat goes up to middle C and the low C is repeated. The last D in the first bar essentially is there only to build up that beautiful dissonant chord.

This kind of written-out arpeggiation is characteristic of Baroque music for keyboard instruments, especially the harpsichord and related plucking keyboards. The chords that appear and disappear, as if by magic, help to give some degree of variation in volume and musical tension to what could otherwise be a very monotonous sound, since harpsichords can play with only one loudness level. Control of arpeggiation (both notated, as here, and as introduced as an ornamental effect by the performer) is one of the crucial aspects in creating a vivid performance on these instruments, speaking as a harpsichordist, or at least as somebody who owns one and has tried this passage out on it.

Hope this helps.

--Sixtus

PS: the edition you quote already contains a deviation from Bach's own edition available at IMSLP. At the end of the first bar the low C in the left hand is tied over to another C in the next bar in Bach's edition. In your edition it is not. I urge you to get a more accurate edition. The Bach Gesellschaft edition also available at IMSLP is of relatively poor scan quality. The Barenreiter edition available from the IMSLP European server is therefore the best one to use, although it lacks fingering suggestions. But even in the Barenreiter edition I'd disagree with how the editor chose to notate the held F-natural in the right hand with its tie intersecting the D as it does. Bach's tie doesn't intersect anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpeggio