Notation questions.

[fmm]

I?ve got a student who?s picked up string bass (I usually teach bass guitar, I haven?t touched an upright in about 15 years) and he?s got some music with notations that I no longer recognize:
 
1.   Quarter notes or eighth notes with a small horizontal slash through the stem.
2.   A section in 2/4 time has two half notes, A & A#, with ?sixteenth note? bars between the stems.  Would this be some sort of trill between A & A#?
3.   A German piece with the notation ?Bog.?.
 
Thanks in advance.

[adriaan]

With apologies for the piano-oriented answer -
 
1) Is that on an ornamental note, or does it count? There's a difference in the timing of slashed/unslashed ornamental notes on piano: if I remember correctly, slashed is played staccato, unslashed is played legato.
 
2) Yes, kind of like a trill, but really a series of sixteenths, for the duration of a half note, alternately A and A#. Whichever one is written first should be the one that you start on.
 
3) The German word for bow is Bogen, so perhaps simply play arco?

[fmm]

Adriaan:
 
Thanks for the reply.
1) The note counts, it's not an ornament.  The slash is usually on every note in the measure.  Somewhere I got the idea that is was shorthand for this quarter note actually means play 16ths, but I have little confidence that's correct.
 
2) That's what I thought.
 
3) That makes sense, but then the music is not consistently marked.  There is a pizz. section, and we couldn't find an Arco before the next pizz. section (there was a Bog. notation), and the director berated him for not using the bow.  Curious that there would be both Bog. & arco notations....
 
 
The group is also playing Pictures at an Exhibition (The M Ravel arrangement).  I'll be amazed if they can pull it off.  It's a community orchestra for a town with a population of about 10,000.  The dang thing starts in G flat and moves to B.  Not a problem on bass guitar, a little more difficult on the upright.  I told him I'd buy him lunch if he could pull it off.

[adriaan]

Item #1, like you say this could well be shorthand for playing double, so a slashed eighth would be 2 16ths, and a slashed quarter would mean 2 eighths.
 
Ambitious group!

[David Houck]

Pictures at an Exhibition is wonderful.  I bet it's a thrill to play it with an orchestra.

[gare]

'Pictures' has always been a favorite piece for me. Mussorgsky always seemed to write in off keys. Promenade(s) isnt so bad,except for the constantly changing time signature, look at the score for Gnomus and Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks, check the ornamantation on those.
G

[bracheen]

Adriaan has it on this one. The slashed quarter means two eighth notes. A double slashed quarter would be four sixteenth notes.  
Bog could be short for Bogen referring to a slur or tie. It also means Bow.
 
Sam
 
(Message edited by bracheen on September 18, 2004)