Notation question

[derschoenebahnhof]

Hi,

In "En avril à Paris" by Trenet / Weissenberg (transcription by M. Yokoyama found on the Internet), bar 33 (see attachment), what is the double slash?

Thanks,
CG

[Bob]

I don't know the piece, but I'd think it's something like a full cutoff or a complete break. 

If it's for separating the 8va's, it's kind of redundant.  Then again, so is the 8va's on the lower staff....   

I guess it's being a little sloppy or informal about notating it.  I don't think those 8vas and the break are standard.  At the least, I'd say it's a brief pause, like a breath, and then maybe a change of style/tempo, etc.  It could be a full pause though too.

[derschoenebahnhof]

I don't know the piece, but I'd think it's something like a full cutoff or a complete break. 

If it's for separating the 8va's, it's kind of redundant.  Then again, so is the 8va's on the lower staff....   

I guess it's being a little sloppy or informal about notating it.  I don't think those 8vas and the break are standard.  At the least, I'd say it's a brief pause, like a breath, and then maybe a change of style/tempo, etc.  It could be a full pause though too.

Ah ok, the pause / break makes sense. It clearly appears in the piece where the main theme starts again a fast run.

Thanks!
CG

[nystul]

My grade school band director used to refer to those slashes as "railroad tracks" and say something like "You better stop and look before you cross the railroad tracks."

[Bob]

And then the college director threatens to crucify anyone who calls them 'railroad tracks.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesura

[Bob]

I'm going to disagree with myself above.

The 8vas are because the composer is being precise about the notation.  My first instinct is to put all that in the same octave, but it doesn't look like that's what they mean.

The caesura is so you don't expect to keep playing it in time.  It would be more like taking a breath.  Which could be longer if you stretched the idea or wanted to let it ring.  If the composer wanted an actual pause, they'd put a rest with a fermata over it.

[mjedwards]

     I'd take the parallel lines to indicate a slight but distinct break in the sound, but without delaying the rhythm - or doing so only very slightly.  Any short silence would be subtracted entirely or largely from the time allotted to the final note before that parallel lines, and none at all from the succeeding note.
     It's not too uncommon - maybe slightly more common on popular music than classical.  A comma above the staff is sometimes used, as far as I can tell, to mean much the same thing - and that would be more in classical scores.

     As to the 8va signs - I think they should be indicated separately for both staves - that is, assuming all notes written are intended to sound an octave higher.  As I understand it, it is not standard to assume that an 8va sign above the upper staff applies also to the lower one - even if it is in treble clef also, and even if beams join notes on both staves together.
     I have occasionally seen music (I tend to associate it with French impressionist music) where the 8va sign appears only above the upper staff, but the structure of the music seems to imply that it is intended to apply to the lower staff, too.  But I consider this non-standard, and certainly quite ambiguous.  (If you have to analyze the structure of a score to see whether *this* or *that* is intended, there is something wrong with the notation somewhere.)
     I have occasionally seen passage work alternating between two treble staves and a single 8va sign at the top - but the dotted line which extends from it weaves up and down, going form the upper staff to the lower, and back again, according to the alternation of the notes on the two staves.  Again, I think French composers of a certain period tend to do this.  This is better, although still looks odd to me.  At least it is quite clearly applying to both staves here; but I would still prefer separate 8va signs, each one dedicated to a single staff - as is done in the piece under discussion here - quite correctly, in my opinion.

Regards, Michael.