Question of accidentals- do they apply to 8va?

[allchopin]

An accidental is applied to a note on a normal staff.  In the same measure, the same note (without specific accidental markings) is written but with an 8va canopy above.  Is the accidental to be carried to this note as well?

[faulty_damper]

I'm pretty sure it is.  Yes.  it's on the same line as the accidental so it should be played as such.

[allchopin]

Thanks.  Is that really the only requirement?

[faulty_damper]

lIf the composer wanted it not to be an accidental, he would have marked it natural or sharp/flat, etc. after the accidental note to cancel it out.

And harmonically, if you play the accidental and then play it an octave higher, it would sound "right".  But if it was played without the accidental, it would sound off.

[rachlisztchopin]

actually ur wrong allchopin, the accidental is not to be carried to that note also...thats why u usually see another accidental when 8va appears on that note unless the music is atonal or something

[faulty_damper]

I'm sure that the accidental should be carried to that octave.  Some editors do mark it as accidental, some don't when the 8va is used.

Some editors don't bother to write a # to both notes an octave apart - it's implied that both notes should be sharped.  But then sometimes, it is meant that one note is sharped, the other is not which leads to some confusion.  But the prior could have just been an editing error.

[MikeLauwrie]

No, I'm pretty sure that the note that is indicated to be sharp is the only one that is sharp, and any others in whatever octave have to be sharpened seperately. If in daubt though: listen to a recording!

[ayahav]

What is this piece? Do what sounds right to you... If the accidental fits the melody play it with the accidental, if it doesn't, don't... (although it usually would make sense that both were accidentals, unless you're playing atonal music...)

[allchopin]

What is this piece?

Chopin's Heroic Polonaise- very end.

Do what sounds right to you... If the accidental fits the melody play it with the accidental, if it doesn't, don't...

Uhh, I am not going to accept this answer, but thanks for the attempt.  
I was actually looking for musicians who knew the answer unequivocally who could help me....  Ibecause i really doesn't matter if it sounds right to me, because I did not write the music.  In the recording I have, it's quite fast and I can't tell for sure.
Please provide data or a reference for any answers you may have (ie, websites, etc)...

[ayahav]

there's no rule. it's an ambiguity that the composer could have fixed. just remember that you are interpreting the music and you have the executive decision.

[faulty_damper]

You should just stick to my answer.  Play the accidental - this is the right one.  If it wasn't meant to be played accidentally, then they would have cancelled it out.  If they didn't cancel, and it's on the same line, then it should be played accidentally.

Ayahav wrote:
"there's no rule. it's an ambiguity that the composer could have fixed."

It's not ambiguous.  That's the rule: whenever there is an accidental marking in a measure, any note on the same line after it must be played accidentally unless it is cancelled.

How do I know this?  Because I didn't know that accidentals had that rule and if C was sharped, the following C on the same line I played was back to natural.  Horrible.  And horrible sounding.

[ayahav]

but the 8va isn't technically on the same line. It's short-hand for an octave above...

[faulty_damper]

No, it is on the same line.  To sharp a note again is to double sharp it (x).  If no marking is specified, then that means it should be sharped as before.  Even though it's marked 8va, it still applies.  If, however, it was meant to be canceled, they would have marked it natural under the 8va.

You can't interpret which notes to play, just how to play them.  If I interpreted which notes I played, I'd make everyone cover their ears.  

[Rach3]

The passage being reffered to is RH arpeggio m. 171 and m. 173? It's the only relevant 8va I see on the last page. C-flat a D-natural accidentals continue into the 8va, its just a normal diminished 7 (the LH f-flat changes it at the top to a (german?) augmented 6th). My Paderewski edition writes the accidentals again in the 8va, its very clear.

[allchopin]

Ok guys- I'm check now.  Thanks for everyone's input!

[aileigc]

Well, let me just join in. Surely, an accident prevails for all equal notes in the same bar, after the accidented note. But sometime, I have in the same bar, and in the same tempo (in a chord), say a C#3 and C4 (natural). However, when I listen, the C4 is meant to be sharp. I don't know if this is conventional. I think my old Music Theory book said that certain countries had adopted the convention that all notes in the bar, no matter their octave, inherited the accident of an equal note, so in the example above, C4 should really be read as C#4. I'm tempted to say this omission happens mostly in German music.
Am I confusing everything up? It's that I've seen quite a lot of inconsistencies across different partitions. I'd consider that C4 natural until proof in contrary (which would be my ear, of course. From the outset, C#-Cnatural sound very bad, as we all know).

Alex

[allchopin]

Hmm, I'm starting to think that I didn't state the original question very clearly. Let me try again:

You have a measure where C is not inherently changed with any accidentals (not in the key signature).  Then an accidental is applied to the note.  Later, in the same measure, an 8va marking is applied to an equal note lacking the accidental marking.  Does this second note retain the properties of the first?

[ayahav]

The proper statement of the rule should be that "the accidental applies to all similar notes, including intervals of unison, an octave, two octaves or more, within the same voice." Therefore, in a Bach fugue for 4 voices, if the accidental were in the top middle voice, it would never apply to any note in the top voice. But in your case, since it's the same voice, I'm 99.99999999999999999999% sure that it applies.