Piano Guidance
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What is the shortest note ever?

1024th note Anthony Philip Heinrich's Toccata Grande Cromatica is an absolute joy to sight-read – slightly hungover – on a Sunday morning. The piece contains the shortest note value ever used in a published work – a 1024th note.

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6 times the music you're reading makes you go :-O

Those alarming times that a 1024th note, a thrice-sharpened F or a 'prestissimamente' tempo marking creep up in the score

A mid-bar change from Johann Sebastian Bach

In number 26 of the Goldberg Variations, JSB thinks it's just fine to change time signature in the middle of a measure. The simple triple (3/4) moves to a compound triple meter (18/16) at an alarming speed, and makes our head hurt a little bit.

The triple F#

Yep, it's a rare thing, but it does exist. You'll find a thrice-sharpened F near the end of the last movement of Reger's Clarinet Sonata, Op. 49/2. F### - that's more hashtags than a One Direction fan account that's just been followed by Harry Styles.

The 1024th note

Anthony Philip Heinrich's Toccata Grande Cromatica is an absolute joy to sight-read – slightly hungover – on a Sunday morning. The piece contains the shortest note value ever used in a published work – a 1024th note. It's actually notated incorrectly as a 2048th note – but after that many tails on a note, who's really counting?

Any prestissimo

Beethoven was eager in those sonatas. As fast as possible? Steady on, old chap.

In fact, anything in Beethoven's fair hand

He was a messy one.

Alkan's Le Chemin de Fer ('The Railway') in D minor

Right-hand sixteenth notes with a half note equalling 112 on the metronome (224 quarter notes per minute). You do the maths.

Take a listen (with mind-bending score)

Alkan's Comme le Vent

It's two honourable mentions for the virtuoso composer/pianist. Here's the first from his set of Etudes in all the minor keys Op.39. It's marked prestissimamente (eighth note = 160), is in 2/16, lasts over 4 mintues and contains perpetual triplet demisemiquavers. Yeah, have fun with that.

This graphical score.

Ok, now we're getting silly. Antosca's stave-less One Becomes Two has that feeling of stepping into an elevator shaft, when there's no elevator.

But sometimes there are nice surprises.

Cheers, composer (for once)

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I knew I wasn't going to be a classical pianist – my hands are too small and I wanted to be a rock'n'roll player,” Elton says. Oct 14, 2019

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What makes a 9th chord?
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In music theory, a ninth chord is a chord that encompasses the interval of a ninth when arranged in close position with the root in the bass. The...

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Join almost HALF A MILLION Happy Students Worldwide
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Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.

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Is MuseScore good?

Though there are many known notation programs on the market, we've done our research and found Musescore to be the best of the best. So, if you are looking for the perfect music composing software and scorewriter to start writing your beautiful musical compositions, Musescore is just the application for you.

Written by Ramsey Brown.

Just like how an actor reads a script to play a role, musicians often read sheet music (or a score of music) in order to play their instruments. Music notation let’s a musical performer know what notes to play, how fast or slow to play them, and gives overall instructions on performing the piece of music. Any good music composer understands that the key to setting music onto paper is precise efficiency. Music notation is a very mature and complex skill that requires much labor -- that is until now. Luckily, technology always finds a way to make difficult tasks easier. With advancements in music notation software, creating high quality sheet music is now easier than ever. Though there are many known notation programs on the market, we’ve done our research and found Musescore to be the best of the best. So, if you are looking for the perfect music composing software and scorewriter to start writing your beautiful musical compositions, Musescore is just the application for you. Their interface offers amazing features that easily gives them a competitive edge over other music notation programs. If you’re wondering what exactly Musescore is and how it works, then you’ve clicked on the right article. We’re going to review Musescore’s features, the paid pro version, pricing, and the pros and cons of the online music composing and sharing platform.

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