Talk:Marcato

Pasta?

Isn't the last paragraph, the one about the Marcato "Atlas" pasta maker, "the standard to which all pasta makers are compared," just a wee bit like a shameless advertising plug? -- HarmonicSphere, Feb. 11, 2005, 02:47 am UTC

Yes, it is pretty pathetic as well... I motion to delete that and replace it with an actual Historic example if necessary at all.

Ambiguity

Ambiguity I feel the the jazz big band circles comment makes it sound like you circle the marcato in jazz... just a little unclear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.128.64 (talk) 22:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I've rewritten this passage. TheScotch (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The citation for my rewriting the passage: Tom Ferguson and Sandy Feldstein, The Jazz Rock Ensemble: A Conductor and Teacher's Guide, Alfred Publishing, Inc., 1976, p. 40: "> (accent) = stressed or louder sound, full value. A short accent would be indicated ^ or [^ above a dot]." TheScotch (talk) 05:46, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Illustration

the picture of marcato is an accent. 76.214.49.106 (talk) 01:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)Music Student

General critique

I'm thinking it would be better to start this page from scratch...so much stuff on here is either annoyingly specific or just plain wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.114.95.245 (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of grouping the earlier discussion page comments into sections and adding section titles. I agree that the article is in pretty bad shape, and I'm considering undertaking major revisions. TheScotch (talk) 05:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Major revision commenced. TheScotch (talk) 05:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Marcato, the vertical wedge, and martellato

The sentence: " In traditional art and "classical" music, "marcato" is correctly notated ">". It is commonly incorrectly assigned to "^" in "classical" music, when that mark is known correctly in the genre as "martellato." " is wrong. Lets consult some notation books and get all the facts straight. And I think the marcato is not even related to the length of a note in traditional notation, only the volyme.. I had a discussion with a violinist colleague and martellato is a form of string atriculation..? --Käkki2 (talk) 08:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the offending passage and supplied specific citations from notation texts below. You are essentially right on all three counts, but there is a bit of wiggle room. Marcato is both a verbal instruction (that is, the word itself sometimes appears in music) and the name for a musical symbol (the vertical wedge, ^), but the two are apparently somewhat distinct and not everyone calls the vertical wedge marcato--when they don't, they generally call it nothing at all, oddly enough. Neither the verbal instruction nor the symbol essentially refers to length, but, like the regular accent, the marcato symbol is often interpreted as a sharp attack followed by a tapering to a lower dynamic. Martellato is a bowing, as I point out in a section below, and a string player may infer it from a vertical wedge or from the word marcato or, for that matter, from a vertical line or from various other clues. TheScotch (talk) 05:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Sources for marcato as a vertical wedge, ^

1) The Norton Manual of Music Notation by George Heussenstamm, published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, p. 52: "MARCATO This vertical wedge [in following examples shown as ^ or upside-down ^, depending on the direction of the note stem], which always points away from the notehead, signals that the note or chord is to be played somewhat louder than an accented note or chord."

2) Preparing Music Manuscript by Anthony Donato, Prentice-Hall, Inc., p. 50: "Marcato signs, ^ and [upside down ^], are place above or below note heads, opposite the direction of the stems. The sign always points away from the note head." TheScotch (talk) 10:09, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

3) Essential Dictionary of Musical Notation by Tom Gerou and Linda Rusk, Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., p.36: "When the marcato is placed over or under a note or chord, the note or chord is to be played with even more attack, and more marked, than an accent. [Example below shows ^ symbol with the word macarto beside it and an arrow pointing from the word to the symbol.] TheScotch (talk) 04:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Precise length of marcato?

The second and third sentences of the article as it now stands strike me as ridiculous. Two footnotes follow both giving the titles of whole books. Do they both say this? If so, where? I'm going to wait awhile for an actual quotation (with page number) to appear on the discussion page, and if none eventually does, I'll delete these two sentences. TheScotch (talk) 10:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is a contrary citation, with page number and actual quotation:

From Orchestration by Walter Pison, published by W.W. Norton & Company, 1955, page 20: "There are different kinds of accents created by different modes of attack. The following figure attempts to show graphically the shape of the tone in the most important of these forms. > ^ [These two symbols thus grouped together and illustrated by a single drawing I can't reproduce here. It shows a sharp attack with a rapid tapering to a softer dynamic which then continues. Below this there are other, separate drawings to illustrate sfz, fp, and < > in turn.]....Composers in general seem to have been indifferent to these distinctions, one reason being that they are impossible to produce on the pianoforte." TheScotch (talk) 04:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Offending sentences deleted. New citation added. TheScotch (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Bowing

Martellato is a bowing, not an accent. From The Technique of Orchestration by Kent Kennan and Donald Grantham, Third Edition, published by Prentice-Hall, pp.53-54: "The indication for [martellato] may be dots, arrowheads, accents, or a combination. Occasionally the word martele [French version of the Italian martellato--imagine acute accent on the final e] is written in....More often, however, the player simply chooses the martele bowing as being appropriate to the music at hand." TheScotch (talk) 04:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

At the top of p.17 of his Orchestration, Walter Pison reproduces a musical example with the instruction marcatissimo below the staff, illustrating one instance calling for, in his judgment, martellato bowing. Hence my citation in the article. TheScotch (talk) 05:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)