how to show dotted rest

[Anders Hedelin]

To nuance this a little: When you do engravings of more modernistic (or "avant-garde") music, it's like you have passed a threshold into another room. There, all kinds of made-up notations may feel relevant as an integral part of the style.

But, syncopated rests, or extended beams in Bach's music? Not for me, thank you.

[NeeraWM]

To nuance this a little: When you do engravings of more modernistic (or "avant-garde") music, it's like you have passed a threshold into another room. There, all kinds of made-up notations may feel relevant as an integral part of the style.

As long as it is coherent as a whole, yes, all can be allowed.
But to get to that level of coherence... that is the true challenge for a composer!

[John Ruggero]

But, syncopated rests, or extended beams in Bach's music? Not for me, thank you.

Amen. As little tampering with the notation of eminent composers as possible. Once the tampering and the resulting distortion starts, there is no end to it.

[John Ruggero]

Here is an interesting example of 12/16 with rests in Beethoven's piano sonata op. 110. Note that he avoids consolidating initial 16th rests throughout. And when this threatens to create a little "rest forest" at the end of the first system, he brackets the final "triplet" "alla Arnstein":

op 110.3 ex 1.png (178.89 KiB) Viewed 5769 times

Yet he has no problem with consolidating initial 16th rest-32th rests into dotted rests:

op 110.3 ex 2.png (93.8 KiB) Viewed 5769 times

This may go back to the fact that they viewed augmentation dots as the exact visual equivalents of tied notes or rests and often positioned the dots against the notes in other voices where the tied note or rest would have been placed.

[NeeraWM]

Great examples, John!
Consolidating the dotted 16th is very clear, but if the rhythm had been reversed (notes before rest, I would have preferred it non-dotted).

For the 12/16 passage above: is this 2/4 time? I wonder if the non-amalgamation of the rests is due to them being triplet-tuplets and not "group of three notes" in compound time. Just wondering.
Had I to engrave this I would still reduce the amount of rests, e.g. in the second picture I would use only one set of rests, since the second set—while technically correct—doesn't add any musically meaningful info.

[John Ruggero]

It's 12/16. The "triplet" marked with the slur in m. 131 is not a real triplet, but just an explanation of the notation since placing a slur over rests would have appeared to be nonsense. He is very creative in the way he uses standard notation in new ways. But never in a surprising way. It's always clear what is intended. As I mentioned, Beethoven almost always shows all three beats in each group when rests are involved in compound meters. And as far I know, no edition has ever consolidated these particular sets of 16th rests. It would change the meaning of the music not to see and feel every beat in ms. 132-133 above.

[Anders Hedelin]

Beethoven almost always shows all three beats in each group when rests are involved in compound meters. And as far I know, no edition has ever consolidated these particular sets of 16th rests. It would change the meaning of the music not to see and feel every beat in ms. 132-133 above.

Absolutely! Apart from not being customary, as you say, a consolidation of the 16th rests in your first example would certainly take something away from the gasping quality of the 32nds and suggest something coquettishly ornamental instead.

(The same 'exhausted' character continues as a reverberation in the syncopes on the second system. Which would look almost strange with consolidated rests.)

[John Ruggero]

Here is the passage when it first occurs in A flat minor:

op. 110.png (123.8 KiB) Viewed 5712 times

The version in G minor, as well as being tonally lower, is even lower in mood and we see the gaps and gasps, as Anders said, in the melody (see example in previous post).

Here is another example, this time from from Beethoven's op. 57. The passage is in 12/8 and the tuplet markings are there to explain the brackets (slurs), as in op. 110.

He felt that the brackets were necessary here because of the then somewhat unusual alternating hands passage in a hemiola pattern. It is interesting that he didn't beam between the hands as any later composer would have done, and which would have eliminated the need for the triplet markings. He seems to restrict beams to notes played by the same hand only. And also cases where he avoided slurring between the hands. In this case, beaming between the hands might have given a misleading impression that the music was actually jumping back and forth between the hands, whereas the effect intended is of the chords being repeated, as in the first measure shown in the example

op. 57.png (86.82 KiB) Viewed 5712 times

[NeeraWM]

His rendition is actually perfectly clear musically.
Plus, it is so expressive!
Rules are there to light our way, not to chain us down!

[Ander]

Maybe it's just me—but I'd use a dotted 1/4 rest only in signatures whose beats were grouped in threes, such as 6/8 and 12/8. In that case, it's obvious that a dotted quarter represents one beamed group of eighth notes. Make sense?