How To Play Grace Notes?

What's a grace note and do you play it?

Grace notes are a little tricky to explain, so I will do my best. Basically a grace note is used to, for lack of a better word, enhance a piece of music either melodically or harmonically; or not so much of either.

Here is an example:

Saying you are playing a harmony line [over any bit of music in C major] that contains the following notes in this order; A - C - E - G and it goes something like this:

e:--------|

B:--------|

G:--------|

D:-----5~~|

A:----7---|

E:-5/8----|

Ok, so that sounds kind of cool right? Well, not cool enough. So, I am going to add grace notes to this piece. Just a side note - you would normally only notice a grace when writing music on a staff.


Now my harmony would be: G# - A -B - C - E -F# - G.


Normally, grace notes are chromatic. They are classified as either appoggiatura, which would be usually half the time value as the note being accented or acciaccatura, which one would barely notice a difference in the accented note.

An appoggiatura would like:



But you would play it as:



An acciaccatura would appear as:



and would be played as:




I hope this helps you out a bit. This is easier to be explained through an actual sound example, in person and by a teacher; but I tried.


Rock on!

---

*Don't know why the script didn't work, but I hope you get the point.

Thanks a lot man, but no I didnt get it =(. I mean it sounds like a hammer-on with no time signature.

Hehe. Basically, the only place where a grace note will make you think twice is if you see it on a staff, like the pictures above. If you only read tab, don't worry about grace notes. If you are playing by ear or composing by ear, don't worry about grace notes either. The only time grace notes will become a need to know notation is if you are learning to read staff music.

Rock on!

Ya, that's what I've been told "ignore the grace notes". Well I dunno it's really annoying that I cant figure it out, 'cause I'm playing a song, using a tab and it has a lot of grace notes.

Just remember, grace notes, only affect timing of whatever note they are "gracing". Lets say you are playing in 4/4 and you have two half notes in your first measure. If you add a grace note to the first note [and it is a long grace note] you could end up playing two quarter notes and one half note. A grace note is always attached to another note. A grace will note will use the same time space as the note it is attached to.

This is one measure in 4/4.

  1  & 2  & 3  & 4 

|    |    |    |    |

|  A |  B |  C |  D |

|    |    |    |    |

|    |    |    |    |

|    |    |    |    |

Now here is the same diagram, but with an added grace note. Remember, the spaces represent the timing of a quarter note in 4/4.

G# is the grace note:

  1  & 2  & 3  & 4

|    |    |    |    |

|G#-A|  B |  C |  D |

|    |    |    |    |

|    |    |    |    |

|    |    |    |    |

Rock on!

Okayyy now I get it, so it's nothing just timing =/. I mean the example made it clear thanks man.

It's a but more than just timing. But I think you get the point. Glad I could help!

Rock on!

Ya got your point, but I can't explain it back the way you did.

as a result of SERIOUS WTF?-isms and errant attempts to adress this basic point once not long ago i'm gonna pass...lol

with ONE exeption

The Vernacular/Musical-Lexicon-whatever here in th'South treats these words/terms quite differently at times, esp when dealing with Blues (esp slide)

LOL

RAWK!
Cs

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