Arpeggio playback possibly inaccurate
The playback for the Arpeggio symbol begins with the lowest note of the rolled chord on the beat, and offsets the rest of the notes a little more in succession. It is much more common in practice (at least in piano) to play the last note of the rolled chord on the beat, with the other notes preceding it.
Comments
Interesting - you could be right.
See this .
In reply to Interesting - you could be by chen lung
Yes, agreed, we need a different offset. I experimented with negative offsets and the sound is better. All we would really need to do is work with the default offsets.
FYI, I did the following for a 4-note rolled chord. select each note, set the ontime offset values (change auto to user) as follows: bottom note -180, next note up -120, next up -60, top note 0. If you do this on the first chord of the piece the bottom notes won't play unless you add an extra measure in front of it.
Actually both ways are common in practice (my experience is with piano). It depends a lot on the context and personal preference. For example if the top note is melody then you may want the top note on the beat; if the chord is harmony or accompaniment then you may want the bottom note on the beat.
In reply to Actually both ways are common by David Bolton
David, I can think of one example offhand where I would roll chords on the beat, and any number in which I would not: Brahms's op. 119 no. 4 Rhapsody and Scarlatti's k. 141 come to mind. Performance examples of these bear out my point of view: for Brahms check Rubinstein's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci_2xW5au7I @ 1:45 and for Scarlatti Argerich's (amazing!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcsRl_LIJHA at the beginning. Now, I can think of an example where Bach uses the rolled chord as a sort of shorthand for writing out arpeggiated chords (I think it's in the first book of the WTC), and in this case it would certainly make sense to begin the notes on the beat.
My point is that it's much less common IMHO. The main reason that rolling generally anticipates the beat is not due to melodic vs. harmonic considerations; it is that if you start bottom note on the beat the rolling muddies it up. This may be desireable in some situations, but the usual purpose of a roll is to accentuate the beat by anticipating it, rather than to obscure it by overriding it.
If you have examples to the contrary I would be most interested to see them.
In reply to David, I can think of one by Bob Rodes
I enjoyed listening to the performances!
I don't have a good sense of which is the most common or clear rules for when I would play arpeggios before or after the beat, but you asked for some counter examples, so here goes...
Arpeggios frequently appear on the last chord of a piece. I play these after the beat (for all the examples I can think of at the moment). On the harpsichord, arpeggios were a way of extending the duration of a chord, since the individual strings didn't sound for very long (think of the last chord of every movement in Handel's Messiah). Finale and Sibelius both play the arpeggio after the beat.
The following book quote showed up on Google:
"Most tutors realized arpeggios beginning on the beat, but Milchmeyer included them among the ornaments that could be anticipated if played quickly. Although he gave no details, the choice of rhythmic placement might have been determined by the relative melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic importance of the top or bottom notes of the chord, or by other factors in the musical context." (The author then goes on to list several exceptions where she suggests playing the arpeggios in anticipation of the beat)
Source: Performance practices in classic piano music: their principles and applications
By Sandra P. Rosenblum, page 286
http://books.google.com/books?id=pCgR30zEYc8C&pg=PA286&lpg=PA286&dq=arp…
In reply to I enjoyed listening to the by David Bolton
Interesting! Thanks for going to the trouble of researching. The Alla Turca would be another example of what I was talking about, but it is clear in the Mozart example on the page that the arpeggiated chord would work well when begun on the beat.
In any case, it is possible to set this up by hand, so it isn't a big problem. The only thing that is a slight problem is if you try to anticipate a rolled chord on the first downbeat, with no pickup bars. Since it's position zero in the piece, a negative offset fails to play.
See this .