RH & LH on grand staff - are there actual rules?

[lettersquash]

Hi, we're usually told that on the grand staff or great stave - piano music's twin staves - the top one is where the notes go for the right hand, bottom for the left, unless we see notes indicated specifically "L.H." or "R.H.", but is this not really a rule, just a vague guide or default?

The following is the fourth bar in Goldberg Variation No.1, which seems impossible to play according to the above (due to the span from the F# to the bottom D), and breaking that "rule" seems obvious, especially as the movement is written in two parts each playing a single note throughout, so the chords would seem out of place.

The same issue comes up again in the fourth and fifth bars of the B section (also attached).

Is this just something you figure out like your own fingering (which I guess it is!)? Why, assuming this is a faithful rendering of his own notation, did Bach choose to do this here, when he's not reluctant to pop a bass clef in the RH for two notes (I just cut off the following treble clef in the second example), or where the RH crosses the left to add two F#s and again for two Gs (not shown here).

I watched Glenn Gould playing this, and I think he plays more than those F#s and Gs with the crossed RH, but it's a bit hard to follow. This is the point... (Edited to add: for some reason the time value in the video link isn't working. It's at about 3:18 in.)

Actually, now I watch the rest of that, it looks like he's not playing much like the score I've downloaded - I'm sure he's playing triads at least in that (I'm ignoring the singing). 

[lettersquash]

<deleted>

[getsiegs]

I think the direction of the stems and distinction of voices is more important than which staff. In that first example, the RH dips into the bass clef for ease of reading but the stems and voices are still clearly separated. For the second example, in m.53 the LH comes up to the top staff since it's still under the RH voice. However, I think the RH has that brief shift to bass clef because those few notes would be under the LH so trying to notate that as one unbroken line from the top staff to the bottom staff would look pretty terrible.

[lettersquash]

So there's no hard and fast rule I'm not getting - it's just coping with the contingencies of note placement on the stave, and a bit of figuring out which hand to use. Thanks getsiegs.

[anacrusis]

G clef = right hand and F clef = left hand is a good rule of thumb to get beginners started. But notation is not an exact science but also an art form. Sometimes the composers will treat the grand staff as a canvas to put notes on and indicate which hands to use with beam direction, and sometimes not at all.

Bach in particular notated the music in terms of what notes he wanted to be played only, and then the player had do figure out a hand distribution that was convenient for them. In most cases it is reasonably obvious what works best.

[lettersquash]

G clef = right hand and F clef = left hand is a good rule of thumb to get beginners started. But notation is not an exact science but also an art form. Sometimes the composers will treat the grand staff as a canvas to put notes on and indicate which hands to use with beam direction, and sometimes not at all.

Bach in particular notated the music in terms of what notes he wanted to be played only, and then the player had do figure out a hand distribution that was convenient for them. In most cases it is reasonably obvious what works best.

Thanks, that's very useful, especially the detail about Bach.

[j_tour]

The following is the fourth bar in Goldberg Variation No.1, which seems impossible to play according to the above (due to the span from the F# to the bottom D), and breaking that "rule" seems obvious, especially as the movement is written in two parts each playing a single note throughout, so the chords would seem out of place.

I think your question has been thoroughly answered, but to belabor this specific point, I have seen at least once person rewrite (or maybe just rethink) that particular spot in the Var. 1 (§A) where the hands cross in a way that there's no hand-crossing.   I don't have a link or anything, just something I saw once.

However, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do it otherwise than crossing hands, and I never questioned it as a kid learning some of these.  Although I admit it's trickier if you try this very quickly indeed, more like the first studio recording of Gould:  I have to roll up my sleeves to not get accidentally caught by loose fabric!

It's not exactly just in Bach where one sometimes has to figure out divisions between the hands:  sometimes you'll see in scores "supra" or a similar notation indicating which hand is meant (maybe by the editor, or possibly the composer) to go on top when the hands are right on top of each other alternating notes.

Fortunately in Bach's case, there are so many different student editions which have slightly different visual indications of how the editor envisions playing a given passage (whether by giving fingerings above or below the note, or putting things in different clefs and so on) that it can be rewarding to compare these different editions and decide for yourself what's easiest for your hands and perhaps sensibilities.

[lettersquash]

I think your question has been thoroughly answered, but to belabor this specific point, I have seen at least once person rewrite (or maybe just rethink) that particular spot in the Var. 1 (§A) where the hands cross in a way that there's no hand-crossing.   I don't have a link or anything, just something I saw once.

However, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do it otherwise than crossing hands, and I never questioned it as a kid learning some of these.  Although I admit it's trickier if you try this very quickly indeed, more like the first studio recording of Gould:  I have to roll up my sleeves to not get accidentally caught by loose fabric!

It's not exactly just in Bach where one sometimes has to figure out divisions between the hands:  sometimes you'll see in scores "supra" or a similar notation indicating which hand is meant (maybe by the editor, or possibly the composer) to go on top when the hands are right on top of each other alternating notes.

Fortunately in Bach's case, there are so many different student editions which have slightly different visual indications of how the editor envisions playing a given passage (whether by giving fingerings above or below the note, or putting things in different clefs and so on) that it can be rewarding to compare these different editions and decide for yourself what's easiest for your hands and perhaps sensibilities.

That's really useful, j_tour, not belabored from my POV. I was thinking things were more set down than is the case, and that there would not be many different editions, if any. I suppose if there's an original, it might indicate at least how Bach or another composer played it, which might influence the direction editions will go in.

I take away that it's basically like fingering and I can figure out myself what works best for me. I've just remembered I was puzzled first by my edition of the Bach Prelude No. 1 in C from WTC1, which had just the bass note written on the F clef, leaving - as I first thought - the right hand to play the rest of the arpeggio, first four notes, then three, an interesting exercise in mental and finger discipline, but clearly more awkward than two left, three right. I didn't think to ask the question until I met the GV1.

Ah, and fingers from either hand interspersed playing different or the same notes - that was a good reminder of things to come.

[brogers70]

I think there is sometimes a tension between two purposes of music notation. One purpose is to record the composer's intention as to how something should sound, and the other is to provide instructions as to how to produce that sound. Extreme examples would be an organist reading Bach's Art of the Fugue as Bach wrote it in open score with each voice on a different line and using a different clef. The musical intention is very clear, but the organist has quite the job to figure out how to play each voice. Or, the opposite situation, a lutenist playing from tablature, quite detailed instructions as to what to do with the fingers, but no instant view of what's happening musically in the rest of the ensemble.

An even more extreme example would be the notation of early Baroque violin music with scordatura; the strings are tuned to a non-standard tuning and the music is notated to show you where to put your fingers as if the tuning were normal. So you know what to do, but if you look at the score, the notes you hear are not the notes that are written. (For example, if the A string is tuned to Bb and the composer wants the sound of C natural, he'll write a B natural, because when you put your finger in the place that would produce a B natural in the normal tuning, with the scordatura you'll produce a C.)

In less extreme forms you get the kind of issues you are asking about. Giving each hand its own staff falls into the "clear instructions for how to produce the sound" category, but it may obscure the musical intention a bit. Some composers, Beethoven is a good example, wrote all over the grand staff largely without regard to which hand does what and it makes the musical intention clear, but may require a bit of thought to figure out how to play it. Other composers, like Chopin, use their notation to help out the pianist a bit more than Beethoven did.