Leaderboard

to clarify what it meant where i rambled on about the treatment of "melody", if it's not a straight scale (which you can spell without a gap, which if made up of less than seven tones is omitted where necessary) you just have to spell it in a way that outlines the shape of the ornament. bb because the step movement of a trill on a should reflect on the notation. same goes for any other melodic effect. auxiliary tones are like trills, passing tones have been mentioned by every other follow up post, appoggiatura should be approached by leap and resolved by step, etc. etc. to make things easier, the new tone shouldn't be on the same line or space unless it's an anticipation, suspension, retardation or pedal if not playing the role of harmonic alteration (chord quality for example, in c major to minor, e to eb instead of d#) and things like that. as for chromatic lines it'd help to spell them in a way that the chromatic tones fill up as passing tones between the notes of the scale which have been fixed in place by the "no gap rule". try to allow two unique pitches on the same line/space on a chromatic scale (c# d d# e as opposed to db d d# e). hope you'll find this helpful enough.

Opposite of helpful. I'm well aware of Ferneyhough's existence, also. Thanks

You can't go wrong with reading Chopin's music. Besides being beautiful, they are all teaching pieces. Many of his works are written in all the keys with a good bit of modulation, so accidentals will be all over the place. The ones with six sharps or flats will illustrate chromatic melodies that necessarily use double sharps and flats. Why? Because the idea is to show upward and downward movement from line to space and from space to line. He will use double sharps in flat keys and double flats in sharp keys. So Chopin is good, and see Stravinsky's Firebird, first movement, whose key signature has 7 flats! and is chromatic from the get go. What joy! Again, like Chopin the sharps and flats are mixed to show a clearer up and down line.

I literally just close my eyes and play, no thinking necessary.

Perhaps if you don't respect the composer enough to play his music as he wrote it you shouldn't be playing it in the first place.