Britten's Curlew sign in two-part contrapuntal writing

• Feb 26, 2017 - 00:56

Do the down-stemmed notes with the curlew sign take an upside-down version of it?


Comments

In reply to by MikeHalloran

I know what the symbol looks like, I just don't know if you turn it upside down (like a marcato) if you put it on the bottom of the staff because I have never seen an actual score with it. MS has one in the symbols. press z (for master palette), select symbols and search curlew.

I'd consider the curlew sign to be in the same category of marks/directions such as segno, coda, "Tutti". In that case, there should be no up-side-down curlew.

For what it's worth - even though I consider an upside-down-curlew to be a non-requirement - a similar symbol to an inverted curlew may be found by pressing z, selecting "Symbols" and searching for "Hold" until you find the "Hold finger in place" symbol.

In reply to by Ragokyo

It's used when some lines of music are give leeway to move along faster than the rest. The symbol tells the faster moving part(s) to wait for the others to catch up while holding the note. The effect cannot be reproduced in MuseScore without a lot of rewriting of the score.

In reply to by mike320

Oh, I don't mean Britten's curlew sign; I mean the one that looks exactly as one, but it is an upside-down version of it that is given the name 'Hold finger in place' (see underquark's comment). I thought it was odd that it was named thus and not 'Upside-down Curlew Sign'.

In reply to by mike320

As a violin player I have not met this "keep your finger down" sign either, but my first idea was that the name fit the piano (keeping your finger down is necessary to keep a tone going, but bowing is the key--while on the piano keeping a finger down keeps the damper off this particular string).

Can somebody please post a picture of a curlew sign, not a learned dissertation on it?

I am a pretty good English speaker but the meaning of the word "curlew" (outside of music) is not known to me or at least not precisely. I am also quite familiar with notation yet I have never seen a sign called curlew. So I am sure there are plenty of people who would profit from seeing the picture.

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