If there is a dash below or above a note like that of a minus sign, is that a tenuto sign or marcato? Thank you so much for any help!

The dash generally means that the note is tenuto, and needs to be given it's full count (and sometimes longer to add atmosphere to the piece). Marcato notes are stressed or accented notes.

a dash implies a heavy emphasis throughout the note (unlike the small arrow which indicates an emphasis/attack only at the start of the note). This is a form of marcato and does not indicate that any extra lengthening of the note is necessary.
Tenuto on the other hand always indicates that extra length should be added to the note - it is a mini pause - and is indicated with ten

I'm not a teacher but I had cause to look this up recently! "Tenuto" marks mean different things in different contexts - per AB Guide to Music Theory Part 1 at page 85.

If you go back to the root of each word, tenuto comes from the verb ' to hold' and marcato from the verb 'to mark'.

However I find even tutor books sometimes seem to interchange the two. And I know from past experience that teachers and performers disagree on their usage.

I regard tenuto as a held note with a little added importance - although not as much as an accent. Maybe a slight ' lean' on the note.

-Not a teacher-

My understanding was that tenuto meant play the note to its full value (although not more than the full value), while marcato meant accented.

So they're both ways of emphasising particular notes: you can either make them longer than surrounding notes or you can make them louder!

Thank you for all your reply! But I am still confused! I don't mean to ask about the meanings of tenuto and marcato as I can easily look them up in a music dictionary. I am confused when I see a "dash" symbol above or below a notehead. Does the "dash" symbol imply a tenuto sign or does it imply a marcato sign? I know what a tenuto sign and a marcato sign mean, but when I see a "dash" , is this dash a tenuto symbol or is it a marcato symbol or can it be both, depending on the context ?

Thank you so much for taking time to help me with my query!

Tenuto is a dash and marcato is a flipped around >

I think it can be both depending on the context. So far, the ones I've seen in recorder music have always been tenuto, but in piano music they've generally been marcato I think.

EDIT: Dolmetsch agrees with Ben, so maybe my piano teacher has been getting it wrong.

It's a tenuto - I've always been taught that.

Lucid

EDIT: Here's a pretty useful link, although I do agree that things can be interpreted differently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulation_(music)

I've done a lot of research on articulation lately and the different types as I wrote a 3,000 word essay on the use of it in saxophone performance. So I hope i'm correct otherwise my whole essay is wrong lol

The AB Guide to Music Theory says:

A horizontal dash above or below a note may indicate tenuto.....although this sign has come to be used primarily as an indication of pressure or emphasis - which, in practice, entails a slight degree of separation between notes so marked.

Thanks once again for the reply! Has anyone of you read the book "For All Piano Teachers" by Cora B. Ahrens and G.D. Atkinson? (one of ABRSM recommended text for diploma exam) I was confused because it mentions under the chapter "Tone Production" /Various Types of Staccato that Marcato is indicated by ... the symbol of a dash over a notehead is drawn. What also puzzles me is that it states that the tones are slightly separated and each may be given some emotional emphasis.

If a dash means tenuto, then this book has gotten it wrong? (it prints a note with a dash above it and states that this indicates marcato)

Or could it be that the book is right after all?

Thanks so much for all your help!

I'm starting to think that maybe piano is the exception to the rule.

It doesn't always indicate that extra length should be added as it's sometimes used in conjunction with a staccato mark. Also I'd be inclined to say that more often than not it indicates that the note should be given its full value, rather an any extra duration.


I don't really think that emphasis and length are the same thing at all, especially on the piano where the emphasis can only come at the beginning and anything from a breve to a hemidemisemiquaver can have a varying degree of emphasis or attack.

In my experience, a note with a dash on it often means play with extra emphasis ("lean" on the note), and if there are several dashed notes in succession it also implies a little separation between the notes, which enhances the emphasis. But, as with most of these things, it depends on the context, and in the end what counts is what sounds best.

Chris

Yes, I agree. As far as piano goes, my understanding is that the dash above or below the note is the least of the accents

- a leaning note

> is next in status and it is a moderate accent

/\ is the strongest of the accents and means bang it hard!

LR

Tenuto means held - i.e. sustained. It means that the note should be sustained for its full written time-value and, indeed, sometimes even beyond. Nothing more!

As the meerkat says in that television advert, "Simples"!

My understanding of tenuto is that, while held for its full value, the note should not be slurred to the subsequent note.

There are so many things in music that cannot be conveyed with complete accuracy by signs and symbols alone. There are certain conventions that have developed over the centuries and what means a certain thing to one instrument will not necessarily mean the same to another. We can offer a textbook definition but that would not be the full story. A recorder player will interpret a tenuto mark differently from a keyboard player for example and both will differ from the interpretation of that of a string player.
In the baroque age there was a huge artillery of ornaments. Many of these have died out over the years and we are the poorer because of that, although this is a topic that merits a new thread perhaps. (Don't worry; this rodent isn't going to start one!) I think that composers may use tenuto marks now to suggest what they don't want as much as what they do.

Thanks for all your replies!

I am confused when I encounter tenuto marks in music of the Baroque period (my students' exam pieces). These marks are placed over /under crotchets which are to be lightly detached. Ever since I was young, I played these notes with tenuto markings with a slight emphasis and never once questioned its definition. But now that I started teaching, I got confused when I read the definition of the tenuto sign. "To hold for its full value or sometimes even more" isn't the same as "giving the note a slight emphasis". (How do I play crotchets giving them their full values ? I would be playing legato crotchets! ) So I started questioning whether a dash refers to a tenuto mark or something else. I thought perhaps I was wrong when I read the book "For All Piano Teachers" which mentions that MARCATO is indicated by a dash over/under a note.

So, does this mean that I cannot take definition literally? But if I interpret Tenuto mark as giving the note a slight emphasis, slightly separating the notes so marked, won't that make it a MARCATO sign instead? To conclude, can I take it that a dash can mean tenuto and also marcato, depending on the context?

Heartsong, do you play the piano or something else?

The impression I get is that the dash means marcato (or something similar) for piano, but tenuto for everything else.

As you refer to a Baroque piece these will almost certainly be editorial marks anyway and as such are suggestions only. Play it in a style that is in keeping with the conventions of the period and bear in mind that these marks are more an indication of how not to play the notes rather than otherwise.

Yes, you would. Precisely!

It means that you shouldn't shorten them by making them detached in any way.

Hehe. You and me both. I thought I knew what tenuto meant until I read this thread.

So, The Consensus appears to be: a tenuto mark means whatever a particular composer\editor\performer wants it to mean at any one given moment; that meaning might change with the next given moment.

This makes total sense to me. My job as a performer is to interpret the score in front of me. To be honest, I ignore most of the printed stuff and go with my own instincts.

So, to me tenuto means whatever I want it to mean at anyone given moment........................

Aaarrrggghhh!

Ok, just to be pedantic , how would you define the difference between tenuto and sostenuto? (Leaving aside volume, because there's clearly more to it than that.)

And what about the tenuto mark that's on a single crotchet placed in isolation, rather than a string of crotchets, all with tenuto marks, when the passage is marked legato?

But heartsong is talking specifically about Baroque music where it's common practice to detach crotchets, particularly in the bass line. It's clearly sylistically appropriate to do so, and it's a very common instruction in editorial notes. I'm assuming one would do something similar on the organ, no?

Not quite sure about this idea of the dash meaning marcato just for piano. There's already a mark for marcato which is used in piano music. Isn't there??

My understanding (just to confuse things further) is that tenuto can mean 'held' (as it is, I think, the past participle of the verb tenere meaning 'to hold') and also 'stressed' (as opposed to accented). Which of these meanings is more appropriate (or it can be a combination of the two) should be reasonably clear from the context (and/or the editor's notes).

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads...697/Tenuto.html

I hope I'm allowed to post a link to another forum. Just to show that there is no great consensus here either! I've never seen this forum before, but have just googled 'tenuto' to see what came up, and, along with this thread that we're in at the moment, so did the above!

This for strong marcato..


This for marcato..

Er, the first one is marcato. The second one is just an ordinary accent!

Ah, but you've missed the point, I think.

Firstly, as Petrat observed earlier, any such markings will be more than likely to be editorial ones. Secondly - and here's the crunch - such a marking is obviously an indication NOT to detach notes in a place where, otherwise, one might instinctively do.

Oh, have I.

Fair point, although that shouldn't mean they are contradicting the composer's intentions.

I don't agree that that is necessarily the case. I have seen it used lots of times in precise juxtaposition to an instruction to detach notes. If the editor wanted a legato effect, why would they not simply use a slur instead?

Also, how do you explain staccato markings used in conjunction with tenuto? I suppose that could suggest a slightly longer staccato, but again I'm not convinced as that is usually indicated by using staccato dots in conjunction with a slur, as we discussed on a previous thread.

A slur is a completely different thing, though, as it would imply that the second note be shortened. Tenuto does not imply this.

Yes, the mezzo-staccato marking which you describe merely means that the staccato be rather less detached than a normal staccato marking. But that doesn't mean it's tenuto.

I'm not sure if you're referring to instruments in general or just piano. If a slur is written between two notes in recorder music, it means don't tongue the second note at all whereas a tenuto mark would mean play it legato but tongued. Obviuously, there isn't this distinction between types of legato for piano.

Of course there is a distinction!! Granted there are some things a piano cannot do (crescendo through a single note, for example) but there are certainly many different types of legato, if not as many as some instruments (possibly ).


Only if the slur was between two notes. I meant a longer line than that.

I didn't say it was!

But tenuto is a much better way of marking that, because it applies to individual notes. Additionally, it doesn't imply that the last note in the group would be shortened, as a slur would.

But I don't think your point was correctly applied here, as that marking signifies mezzo-staccato, which is not tenuto.

I know that! What I meant was - and, being a teacher, I will concede that the fault lies with me for not expressing myself sufficiently clearly - if a tenuto mark always means to make the note at least its full length, what do you think is intended when it's used in conjunction with a staccato mark? I think it means to detach the note, but emphasise it slightly. The reason I mentioned mezzo-staccato was as an indication that it (tenuto plus staccato) didn't mean that as there is already a combination of signs to indicate that manner of articulation.

Anyway, here's what Wikipedia says (and yes, I know Wiki isn't always authoritative):
"Tenuto can mean either hold the note in question its full length (or longer, with slight rubato) or else play the note slightly louder. In other words, the tenuto mark is sometimes interpreted as an articulation mark and sometimes interpreted as a dynamic mark. When it appears in conjunction with an accent mark, it is of course taken as an indication of articulation, and, conversely, when it appears in conjunction with a staccato mark, it is taken as an indication of a slight dynamic accent. When it appears by itself, its meaning must be determined by its musical context."

I prefer to think of it as an 'emphasis' or 'stress' on the note, rather than an 'accent', but otherwise the definition concurs with my understanding of what can variously be meant by tenuto marks. Incidentally, it's also used in drumming notation to indicate an emphasis.

Thank you for clarifying what you meant, Czerny. I would not disagree with what you are saying about mezzo-staccato.

BTW, your email provider is evidently having problems and I've been unable to send a reply. Can you make some room in your inbox here, please?

Well I'm sure there are a few dozen PMs from you I suppose I could get round to deleting...

Well, I deleted all yours ages ago!

Only after you'd printed them out onto vellum and stuck them on your bedroom wall!

Nope, but I did print them out and use them in the bathroom....

Who needs Andrex after all?