Notation doubt

[stormx]

Hi !!

i am working on the Petzold-Bach Minuet in G (BWV 114) from the 2nd Notebook of Anna magdalena Bach.

I have a basic doubt, and because i will not see my teacher until next week, i am posting it here 

My problem is on bar 25 (not counting repetitions). In the bass cleff, i have

B (half note, with a pending "quarter note" silence above it  )
D (half note)
B (quarter note)

So, the sum gives me 5 quarter notes in a 3/4 piece, what is obviously wrong. It must be an special notation i am not aware of...

Can somebody explain it to me?

Thanks in advance,
 

[abell88]

Imagine the notes in the bass clef are not being played by your left hand, but are being sung by two singers (bass and tenor). The bass begins on beat one and sings B for two beats. Meanwhile, the tenor rests on the first beat, then sings D for two beats. The bass, after singing his first note, sings it again for one beat.

So the bass line is 3 beats (half note + quarter note), and the tenor line is also 3 beats (quarter rest + half note).  It makes a nice overlapping sound that may take some practice to master.

Alice

[xvimbi]

In other words, you have two voices at the same time (in addition to what is going on in the other hand.) It is not uncommon to have even more voices than that (e.g. triads are often in fact three voices.) The difficulty is that the two voices need to be shaped differently, but played with the same hand (that's not always the case, but most of the time.)

[stormx]

Thank you very much !!

I understand it now.

Being a beginner, i am not much used to play a note while holding another one (same hand), what i suppose is fairly common in more advance pieces.