TromboneChat

I feel like I should know this but I don't. (maybe I did once and have forgotten, that happens a lot at my age)

This week in a local community band I played Cave of the Winds by Dett, arranged by Perna. It's a 6/8 march, not one I'd seen before.

There are several places where the last eighth count of a measure is an eighth note stem with no head, marked with an accent, and a gliss mark into a quarter note in the next measure. This is in a section I'd call a Trio though it is not marked as such. That section also contains a number of eighth note to quarter note half step glisses.

My first thought was a ghost note, but then the accent doesn't make sense. Maybe the intent is a long gliss to contrast with all the other half step glisses, but then why not designate the starting note?

After years of playing the same tired old marches it's nice to see something new.

Response removed. Sorry I overstepped.

Start on a random note far out, same partial as the target note of the gliss. Articulate the random note and don't articulate the target note. This type of notation is usually used for indicating "random/approximate pitch"

Sounds like you are describing a "plop"

Just a drop into a note.

In jazz it doesn't have the little grace note stem thingy.

https://steinberg.help/dorico/v2/en/dor ... ons_c.html

Just listen to a tasteful performance of the piece and you can learn a lot. Chances are that your edition has sloppy notation and those are just grace notes that you are seeing. Take a listen to this performance:

I found a band arrangement and a string arrangement on youtube. The band (highschoolers) were playing glisses and the strings a triple acciacatura.

Most of the sites discussing Robert Nathaniel Dett did not mention Cave of the Winds, but Obscure Music Monday did. (This site is not related to Mousetrap Monday, https://mousetrapmonday.com/, which is an interesting site in its own right, but off topic here.)

Cave of the Winds was originally a solo piano piece, written in 1902 when he (Robert Dett, not Shawn Woods) was 20. I found a recording of Clipper Erickson playing it, and the figures notated that way in the band music are clearly a quick triplet before the note on the beat. However the figures notated half step gliss in the band music are quite different. They're a sort of grace note too, but with a discord - two simultaneous notes a half step apart. I don't know enough theory to know what you call that. I couldn't find a score.

Here's the piano piece:

Looks like we both posted at the same time. Thanks for looking for that.

The original score is on IMSLP:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Wind ... Nathaniel)

There is a professionally-produced recording of the Perna band arrangement on the Pepper Music site:
https://www.jwpepper.com/Cave-of-the-Wi ... CRx0tLMLQ0

Thanks!