How to transcribe diamond noteheads (strings)?

• Aug 1, 2018 - 11:17

See:

diamondnoteheads.png

I'm not very familiar with this topic (artificial harmonics?), and I'm not really sure if attached score sounds correct.

Attachment Size
Diamondnoteheads.mscz 24.7 KB

Comments

• Aug 1, 2018 - 15:02

I would (and did) notate them exactly as you have in your example. One bit of added info that will help clarify the reason for this is that I have seen the sounding no indicated as a small stemless note above the first beat, but this is usually, but not always, when the note is held for an extended amount of time.

See the frist example here.

I would expect Shoogle to accept this notation for OpenScore, but you will have to ask him.

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• Aug 3, 2018 - 22:36

The notation looks good to me. I think it is helpful to make the sounding pitches visible as small stemless noteheads in brackets. Users can always hide them if they don't want to see them.

However, I think the source edition contains some mistakes with the pitches of the diamond noteheads. The other two scores on IMSLP show different pitches for some of the diamond noteheads.

Tchaikovsky_Violin_Concerto_artificial_harmonics_IMSLP.png

(Red = wrong)

Unhelpfully, in all three editions it is ambiguous whether the F notes are supposed to be F-sharps or F-naturals. The key signature indicates they are F-sharps, but the interval from C-natural to F-sharp is a tritone, which does not give a harmonic (see comment below), so either they are F-naturals or the C notes are C-sharps.

Happily, IMSLP edition #82112 (which contains only the solo violin part) confirms that these are indeed F naturals, and even shows the sounding pitches:

IMSLP82112-violin-harmonics.png

Since the diamond noteheads are all a perfect fourth above the normal noteheads, this means the sounding pitches are all 2 octaves above the normal noteheads (see comment below).

Conclusions:

  • When in doubt, check other IMSLP editions, and also the individual parts and arrangements/reductions.
  • For highly specialised notation (like this), the parts are more likely to be correct than the full score.

Recommended notation

Although #82112 is extremely helpful, I don't recommend showing stems on the sounding pitches. Instead, I would do what you suggested and use brackets on small, stemless noteheads, as shown below.

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• Aug 3, 2018 - 22:30

As you rightly deduced, the diamond noteheads represent artificial harmonics. I hadn't come across these before, so thanks for the links to these helpful resources!

Page 420 of Elaine Gould's "Behind Bars" also explains how artificial harmonics work. Putting these sources together, I've come up with the following explanation.

How artificial harmonics work

  • The musician fully presses their index finger (or thumb) down at the position of the lower (normal) notehead.
    • This is known as "stopping" and it creates an "artificial fundamental".
  • The musician lightly touches the same string with another finger at the position of the upper (diamond) notehead.
    • Sometimes called "half stopping", this restricts the vibration of the string to a harmonic of the artificial fundamental (i.e. an "artificial harmonic").

If the terms "harmonic" and "fundamental" don't make sense to you then see the middle part of this video (the rest of the video is worth seeing too).

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• Aug 3, 2018 - 22:31

Determine the sounding pitch of an artificial harmonic

To calculate the sounding pitch, you need to know:

  • The pitch of the artificial fundamental (the normal notehead)
  • The interval between the normal notehead and the diamond notehead

Various sources do the calculations for us:

Interval between fingers (normal and diamond noteheads) Interval between artificial fundamental (normal notehead) and sounding pitch
Perfect fifth 1 octave and a fifth (1 octave above diamond)
Perfect fourth (easiest to play, most common) 2 octaves
Major third 2 octaves and a major third (2 octaves above diamond)
Minor third (hard to play, very rare) 2 octaves and a fifth
Major second (very hard to play, extremely rare) 3 octaves

You will notice:

  • The closer the fingers are together, the higher the sounding pitch.
  • With one exception, closer fingerings are more difficult to play.
    • Closer fingerings create higher harmonic, which are less stable than lower harmonics.
  • The exception is a fourth is easier to play than a fifth.
    • A fifth is a big stretch and people with small hands won't be able to reach it.

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• Aug 3, 2018 - 22:32

Notating artificial harmonics

I recommend making the sounding pitches visible as small, stemless noteheads, like this:

Tchaikovsky_Violin_Concerto_artificial_harmonics_NoBrackets.png

If there are tied notes, the sounding pitches should be visible above them too, but the ties between sounding pitches should not be visible.

Artificial_harmonics_tied.png

See attached score for how to do this.

EDIT: This post was updated to reflect the conclusion of the discussion immediately below regarding brackets and ties for sounding pitches.

Attachment Size
Artificial harmonics.mscz 8.9 KB

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• Aug 3, 2018 - 23:10

The example in this discussion is far more difficult for a musician to play than the example I gave where the note is longer. It also has the advantage that there are no hidden notes, which may cause some users difficulties. Your standard also has the advantage that you can silence the fingered notes and allow only the sounding note to be heard. The question is, what do you expect from the more common harmonics as in the linked example, which I recreated here:

long harmonic.png

This picture is what I see more often, but has the disadvantage that to sound the notes, something must be hidden. It does tell the musician what notes should sound though. How would you put several measures of this into brackets? FYI, this is the opening bar of The sorcerer's apprentice by Dukas.

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• Aug 4, 2018 - 01:20

I prepared a few examples in the attached file, but I think yours is the best, except according to Gould (p.420) the diamond notehead should always share a stem with the normal notehead (though I know the source you copied didn't do that). This corresponds to (A) in my examples:
Artificial_harmonics_tied_A.png

The other examples I made experiment with showing sounding pitches over later notes, with or without visible ties between them, and with brackets around all sounding pitches, or only the first and last. I think they all look too cluttered (or too weird in the case of brackets around the first and last only), and don't really add anything. I'm not too worried about people being confused by invisible notes.

However, your example drops the brackets altogether, and this makes me wonder whether the brackets are necessary at all (even though Gould recommends them). Without the clutter of the brackets, it might be acceptable to show the later pitches:

Artificial_harmonics_tied_NoBrackets.png

And in the Tchaikovsky example:

Tchaikovsky_Violin_Concerto_artificial_harmonics_NoBrackets.png

What do you think?

Attachment Size
Artificial harmonics tied.mscz 14.6 KB

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• Aug 4, 2018 - 01:41

I always prefer no brackets. Every violinist understands exactly what you are showing in all of your examples without brackets.

As far as the stems are concerned, I endeavor to follow the source material as much as possible while ensuring a modern musician will be able to play it.

In your final example, the transcriber can use the proper sounding notes and make the ties invisible for an acceptable playback. If it were decided your first example were acceptable or preferred, the method for acceptable playback would depend on the interval from the fundamental. It could require only an invisible 8va, 15va... with play turned on for one of the notes, or it could require yet another group of notes that are invisible (as in the case of the minor third).

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• Aug 4, 2018 - 03:41

You have me convinced about the brackets: they don't add anything except clutter. Let's not use them here and reserve them for other things instead (like editorial corrections/suggestions).

However, by the same token, there is no point in using separate stems for the diamond noteheads. The extra stems don't add anything, and can be actively confusing since up/down stems usually indicate divisi. I don't think I will allow them for OpenScore, but you are welcome to do what you like in your own scores, of course.

You made a good point about there being multiple ways to achieve correct playback for harmonics that are an integer number of octaves above either the fundamental or diamond notehead. Having multiple ways to do something is generally a bad idea, and tricks with ottava lines could get confusing because for some harmonic intervals the fundamental would be muted, while for others the diamond would be muted.

I think I will make it a requirement that all sounding pitches are made visible. This is helpful when a tie occurs across a system break, for example, and it also means there is only one way to achieve correct playback (i.e. no tricks with ottava lines).

I updated the recommended notation for artificial harmonics to reflect these decisions.

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