Hey, I've been listening to McCartney's "Yesterday," and I've been trying to figure out if the grace note attached to "day" is an Appoggiatura or an Acciaccatura. As far as I can tell, it looks like this:
Yes - ter - day
8th note - 16th note - dotted 8th note
"Day" is further divided like this:
Da - ay
16th note - 8th note
From what I've read, to be an appoggiatura it has to take up 2/3's of a dotted notes alloted times (or half of a non-dotted note), but this grace note only takes up 1/3. Does that mean it's an acciaccatura? I thought those had to be so short they could barely be registered with timing.
"Like the coldest winter chill. Heaven beside you. Hell within." -Jerry Cantrell
Why do you think it's a grace note and not just a normal sixteenth note? I don't have a copy to listen to, but from memory there are no grace notes there. There's no acciaccatura as the notes are all far too long, and neither is there an appoggiatura as the note in question is a chord tone. An appoggiatura must be a non-chord tone that occurs on a strong beat and resolve by step to a chord tone. Sus4 chords resolving to the major or minor chord are often examples of appoggiatura. In modern notation, appoggiaturas are virtually ignored now as grace notes, as the notes are usually written out in full.
If I remember right, the first syllable of the next verse "SUD - denly" could be written as an appoggiatura as it's a non chord tone (G) on a strong beat, resolving by step down to an equally long chord tone F (assuming the song is in F major) but you'd never see it written as a grace note nowadays.
I'm not sure it isn't just a regular 16th note, but it has some characteristics of an appaggiatura. The note in question is actually not a chord tone. It looks like this:
Yes - ter - da - ay
I - I - IV - V <-----(edit)Oh, man. I was WAY off on this. I'm still getting used to recognizing notes.
The IV is very subtle. I didn't notice it until it was pointed out to me. There are two more in the first verse, as well. On "away" and "stay."
"Like the coldest winter chill. Heaven beside you. Hell within." -Jerry Cantrell
Sounds like a regular vocal inflexion to me. The scores I've seen for Yesterday don't have extra notes added.
As I understand it
Acciaccaturas are optional, they don't form part of the melody but are squeezed in before the note they're attached to
Appoggiaturas are not optional, they form part of the melody and are written before the note to which they resolve
always happy to be corrected.
A :-)
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This is from wiki, "ornaments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or 'ornament' that line." Appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas are both considered ornaments.
Still, I can find only a few examples of either of them, and it's difficult to understand a piece of music notation when you've only heard it used one or two times.
Does anyone know of any resources online where one can listen to various examples of music techniques. Or does anyone know any examples of appoggiaturas or acciaccaturas being used in modern music? I have a fairly nice cd collection. I might have it already.
Thanks! :D
"Like the coldest winter chill. Heaven beside you. Hell within." -Jerry Cantrell
Or does anyone know any examples of appoggiaturas or acciaccaturas being used in modern music? I have a fairly nice cd collection. I might have it already.
Thanks! :D
Many songs, (e.g., Pinball Wizard) have sus4 chords. Many (most?) of those are examples of appoggiatura. They are just decorations of the harmony or melody by a non chord tone (the 4th in the case of sus chords) on a strong beat, but they last long enough for us to perceive that note "leaning" over and stealing half the time from the real note (or 2/3rds from a dotted note) that follows one step away, (the word itself means "leaning" from Italian).
Strictly speaking appoggiaturas in a melody should be approached by leap and resolved by step, but that rule isn't always applied, especially if the first note in a piece is the appoggiatura, like the "SUDdenly" example I gave.
Acciaccaturas are ten a penny in fast lead solos. Any extremely short note attached to a much longer note can be called an acciaccatura, because that's how it would be written. In fact, it doesn't even have to be extremely short. It just has to be so much shorter than the following note that it's obvious that it's just decorating the longer note and isn't an important melody note in itself, i.e., it could be omitted and no-one would be any the wiser.
As much of a theory geek as I am, appogiatura/acciaccatura are basically the same thing - the notation is about the same (in fact, with many publishers they're identical), and the performance is basically the same too. It's just a difference of degree, and since both are ornaments, that difference is largely up to the performer.
For listening to them in modern music... one example that comes to mind is the keyboard part in Steely Dan's "Fire in the Hole". Once you hear that, you'll probably think of dozens of keyboard-based examples on your own, because acciaccaturas are how piano players "bend" notes :)
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Ah, I listened to Steely Dan. I like that. I suppose I'm just caught up (probably needlessly) on the specifics. I supposed the rule of 1/2 or 2/3's is overly rigid. Does the appoggiatura then take the from timing of the melodic note, or come before it? Or is that up to the performer, as well?
"Like the coldest winter chill. Heaven beside you. Hell within." -Jerry Cantrell
That part has changed over time.
In music written before about 1840, the appogiatura (or acciaccatura) receives the accent - so it starts on the beat. The main note is shortened so everything works out as far as the beats go. But in music written after roughly 1850 the exact opposite is true - the appogiatura anticipates the beat, so the note before the appogiatura gets shortened. For stuff written in between, it depends... your best bet is to research the specific composer and piece.
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Here's some random guy on youtube playing a classical study by Carcassi. The 4th note of each chord arpeggio (of the first 7 measures) is an appoggiatura, which then resolves 3 notes later by step to the chord tone. These aren't acciaccaturas (this being Carcassi's well-known appoggiatura study).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR-_Bi_bsQc
The first chord is A, but the 4th note of the arpeggio is F#, an accented non chord tone approached by leap that dutifully resolves by step to the nearest chord tone in the manner of all good appoggiaturas. This happens with most of the chords throughout the whole piece. Unlike acciaccaturas, these appoggiatura notes are long enough to be both melodically and harmonically important and can't be omitted or otherwise messed around with at the discretion of the performer. At least not without causing old Carcassi to turn in his grave :D
As NoteBoat said, things change and the term is often found applied less strictly than its use in Carcassi's time (who composed around the early to mid 19th century.) I guess it's going the same way as other once well-defined terms like SUSPENDED, for example.
