Ornaments
Six ornaments, each engraved twice: the sign as it is printed and the same spot written out — both playable, both exactly as long.
One sign above a note, and a single note becomes four. An ornament does not prescribe different notes; it prescribes a way of playing this one. The note value stays exactly as it is, and the sign says what happens inside it. Every ornament stands here twice — once as it is printed, and below it written out. Both versions last the same; playing them one after the other is how the difference between notation and sound becomes audible.
Trill
The main note and the neighbour above it alternate as fast as it stays clean. The sign does not say how many alternations there are; written out here it is four pairs, and the note value stays exactly the same.
Upper mordent
One quick step up and back, then the main note is held. The sign is the plain zigzag without a stroke. The step lasts no longer than a flicker — all the rest of the note value belongs to the main note.
Mordent
The same thing downwards: once briefly to the neighbour below and straight back. The sign carries a vertical stroke through the middle of the zigzag. That is the whole difference from the upper mordent, and it is easy to miss.
Turn
Four notes around the written one: the neighbour above, the main note, the neighbour below, the main note. Placed over the note, the turn starts at once; placed after it, the note sounds first and the turn comes at the end.
Acciaccatura
The small note has a stroke through its flag and is played as short as it possibly can be. It takes almost nothing from the main note: it sits on the beat, and the main note follows immediately.
Appoggiatura
The small note without a stroke is not decoration at the edge, it is a suspension. It takes half of the main note’s value — two thirds of a dotted one — and only then resolves. Written small, it is the thing you actually hear.
From above, or from the main note?
This is where opinions part: does a trill start on the main note or on the neighbour above it? In the baroque, and still with Mozart, it starts above — the ornament is a dissonance that resolves. In the nineteenth century, from Hummel and Chopin onwards, it starts on the main note. The pictures here show the later reading; with early music a look at the preface of the edition belongs to the job, and a good edition says it there.
How many notes fit into an ornament is something no sign says. That depends on tempo and instrument: what is written out here with four alternations becomes fewer in a slow movement and more in a fast one.
Two that cannot be written out
Two signs are missing from this series, Arpeggio and Glissando, and for one reason: they have no fixed notes. The wavy line before a chord says its notes come one after another — not how fast. The line between two notes says the way between them sounds — on the piano that is the keys in between, on the violin a stepless slide. What lies in between is the instrument’s business, and that is why it cannot be put into notes.
Music symbols · Dynamics · Note values · Music notation glossary
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