Articulation (music)

Under articulation in music is, first, the way to understand how the individual sound is vocally or instrumental produced and formed; secondly, how successive tones, articulated 'are interconnected (Latin articulus, the joint). This connection may be tight or loose, the period between the tones sounded so fulfilled or be silent by so-called weaning.

The Tonverbindungsarten are a strong means of expression to characterize the melodic movement, their shouts, hopping, jumping, prancing Ganges. The artistic articulation can the twists and turns of the melodic line strictly follow or they embellish imaginative in their absolute discretion, but without touching their formal structure and organization more or less.

Clay compound

The basic Tonverbindungsarten be with legatissimo ( verfließend ), legato (bound), nonlegato ( unbound), tenuto ( kept ), ( worn) portato, staccato (detached, ' rejected ') and staccatissimo (heavily sold extremely short ) and denoted with the font symbols bow, dash, dot and wedge listed as follows. Also the vertical tittle (|) is used. Hugo Riemann calls in his piano school or mezzo legato and mezzostaccato ( leggiero ).

The unbound types of articulation can be written with the help of breaks, so-called air breaks, for example,

The names and characters for the musical articulation can not be precisely defined. They vary by class of instrument, playing technique and style of music. Their validity is highly dependent on the pace. The slur must hold also for the legatissimo. The Tenutozeichen can be combined with a bow, the staccato sign with a slash, etc. Not Recorded notes are only nonlegato meant when they referred to are in the context of carefully, otherwise must be chosen for them a weave.

Examples

The nature of the articulation can be studied only in exemplary role models, for example, in the following melody from the violin sonata in B flat major KV 378 by WA Mozart (first movement, Allegro moderato, clock 26-30), legato, Nonlegato ( in 5.Takt ), staccato, portato and tittle ( used in the second cycle). - The example can also be seen that the staccato has no accent significance.

When the articulation is only rudimentary or not prescribed by the composer, the player must find their own, the style of the time criteria should be followed. He can win from plants that have been carefully described by the composer. The Little Prelude E Minor by JS Bach, BWV 941, for example, can be articulated as follows.

Differentiation of the term

• With the articulation concept, the idea of a sensual sound quality is as loud -quiet, hard-soft, pointed - round connected. However, this should not tempt us to reinterpret an articulation to a vocal or instrumental technical Ausführunszeichen, for example, regarded the staccatissimo as an accent. The accentuation of a note is part of the dynamics and in a Tonverbund to metric.

• The linguistic phonation (it. articolare = pronounce ) and the instrumental tone production (preparation, stroke, stroke of the bow ) refer to the technical and physiological production of individual sounds or tones. Here takes the articulation concept its start. In the song, where both sounds as sounds are produced ( phonation ), the articulation concept is also on the clarity and distinctness of the sounds and tones generated based (it. articolare = clearly express ). These sound and tone production must be distinguished from the strictly artistic articulation in the recitation and music. It is significant that vocal notes only very rarely wear articulations.

• The arch, which indicates the articulatory binding and discontinuation of tones, is since the early Romantic period also used to refer to the phrase and even the subject, he then becomes, phrasing slur ', so that the player is forced since then, every bow on its function to investigate.

Articulation and phrasing

The still widely held view, the articulation serve the phrasing is likely to be due to the additional importance of articulus = link, phrase, section. These terms are clearly those of the formal structure, the concepts of character, motive, phrase, theme, period, rate, are available for those in the music among others available. The elementary forms, which are called because of their individual unity, shapes ', are the subject and the phrase formed from motives. This musical thoughts ' constitute the meaning of the music, which is not conceptual but a tonkünstlerischer.

How herauszulesen the formal melody elements from the score and how they are to be defined as they join together to form larger shapes, etc. would be for the theory of forms, if this is not primarily concerned with the determination of the outer measurable mold sizes (, formats ') and the description of the shape would genres (eg joint) content.

Since Mozart does not yet know the phrasing slur, its above, very carefully articulated melody can be used to show their shape formations. For this there is in the notation no generally valid characters. For teaching purposes brackets or outline strokes are used, but without qualification. One can thus make it clear that articulation and phrasing have a common object, the melody, but their own each aspect of diversity: the characterization and the design of the form. " Only if the practice of the phrasing does not affect the articulation, both can co-exist and be performed independently of each other."

The execution of the phrasing implies a formal and metric analysis. An introduction to the theoretical and practical metric can be found at the lemma meter ( music). The attempt to record the motives and phrases with the help of the bow, leading to the corruption of the subtle articulation of Mozart:

The theory of articulation is part of the Universal Music studies ( Hermann Grabner and others). Also in annotated text editions you will find helpful hints.