A question about preferred notation choices for which hand(s) to use in the piano part.
I have a small 3-bar section in a new piece of mine where there are some overlapping melodic lines that need to swap between the hands at some point. This is how things are notated right now:
I don’t think it will be hard for a pianist reading the part to understand what is wanted here (happy to be corrected on that point if I’m wrong), and I think the ergonomics of the hand division proposed here are probably the most appropriate (but I’m not a pianist, so would appreciate being corrected if I’m mistaken). However it would be great to have some feedback on whether there’s a better or more intuitive way to notate the same passage.
(Long explanation: I arrived at the notational choices above because given the dynamics, slurs/phrase marks and ergonomics, this seemed like the least visually messy option. For example, if I split the triplet 8ths between lower and upper staves, that creates a situation where the slur, the beaming, and the p < sf dynamics all start to visually overlap. And then if I want to move the last two quarter notes from the upper staff to the lower, that means the voice-leading dashed line will have to be placed earlier, and will also clash with dynamics, phrase marks and/or beaming.)
In short: is this clear and adequate notation, do the ergonomics of the hand-swaps make sense, and does anyone have any suggestions for a clearer and simpler ways to notate what is wanted?
I’d say the answer depends a bit on the type of piece. If it’s a solo piano work that the pianist will anyway spend many hours practising, your notation is fine.
But if you want the sight‑reading to be as straightforward as possible, I’d say this kind of notation:
will be much more readable — maybe less elegant from an engraving point of view, but immediately playable without thinking! (btw, since you want the 2 triplets to be beamed together, I would rather choose a sextuplet.)
Hello
I am a pianist and your notation is perfectly clear; the LH and RH markings are unnecessary. Only the dotted line indicating the continuation of the melodic line is welcome.
For once, I find @charles_piano 's notation less clear, as it might lead a less experienced pianist to avoid crossing their hands, which would be a mistake.
I’m not sure I follow your thinking, as the whole point of the notation (mine or @charles_piano’s) is to avoid crossing hands? (In the physical sense, I mean.)
Surely without the explicit LH and RH indicators, the risk is that a less experienced pianist tries playing the whole of upper-staff bar 31 on the right hand, and the whole of the lower staff on the left hand, and the whole result is less ergonomic and involves repeated physical crossing of the hands?
That’s a very useful point that I hadn’t considered. It’s a solo piece, but making sight-reading easier seems generally helpful as it probably also helps guard against cognitive dissonance during performance.
I’d already tried to achieve something similar to what you suggest and given up based on how messy my attempts looked. Your example is very helpful in how it places the dynamics and hairpin (and angles the hairpin and beam) to minimize the sense of visual clash. I think I agree with you that now it’s a clearer notation.
My revised version is a little messier than yours because of the tuplet notation, but I think still clearer in terms of what is wanted:
Yes, Charles, I’ve just realised what @joseph.wakeling was getting at; but I still maintain that crossing the hands in this passage will produce a better sound (provided the pianist in question knows how to manage their sound layers)
There is many examples of this kind of crossing in the works by Thalberg or even, Liszt.
Would be very happy to see examples if you have the time and opportunity to share any (doesn’t have to be images, just mentioning piece names will do). Even if it doesn’t affect this piece, it’s always good to learn how different composers have created interesting musical effects!
One of my earlier thoughts was to have just one hand play the whole triplet phrase, and indeed have the hands cross, but I wasn’t sure that would be effective in practice (I was expecting it would make it harder to play legato).
The excerpt is probably too short to be sure (and it also depends a lot on the tempo), but it seems to me that a hand‑crossing here would be quite tricky — and what about the following bar? Keeping the hands crossed would make the ninths almost impossible to play with the left hand in that position (I don’t have a piano at hand, but that’s the impression I get!), and returning to the normal position would mean two big movements in very little time.
Also, playing the “sextuplet” with the left hand alone seems rather problematic in terms of movement and fingering… So yes — if a hand‑crossing were indicated here, I think I’d cheat and simply not cross
