Richard, Jumping off from what’s above, I discovered your trill page. Wow. What a work! Thank you.
One question: Much music has a “+” above the staff that I’ve always thought to be a trill indication, yet you don’t mention that symbol in your exhaustive website. Have I got it wrong that it’s a trill, and (if it is a trill) is there a preferred way to play those?
Again, thank you. — k
Ken, you sent me scurrying to my books! I have always thought of the + sign as meaning “do some ornamentation here” (hopefully appropriate), not necessarily a trill (which would be notated with the standard “tr”). Looking in Ken Wollitz’s book “The Recorder Book,” it says, “The tiny cross ( + ) so often seen above notes in Baroque music, whose meaning is simply to insert an ornament of whatever kind appropriate, can often suggest an appoggiatura, and the ornament can be introduced where there is no sign at all.”
A trill is basically an appoggiatura on steroids, so sometimes editors will use the + sign instead of “tr”. I have never seen sheet music that uses BOTH (but it should be possible). I think that this is because trills are so ubiquitous that they are really the ONLY ornament that editors put into music editions, so they just pick one symbol for it and stick with it. I mean, I have never seen an edition showing a plus sign where you might want say a passing or long appoggiatura, because they just don’t notate that type of thing. The musician is just supposed to throw them in where they feel like it (and make a mess of the music!). Love it!
Glad you like my website. I haven’t mentioned it much because one of its main features is the software I wrote called Recorder Digits (for Windows). It still works fine, but I don’t support it anymore, so I worry that people might report problems or ask for enhancements that I cannot make. For example, one of the last changes I made was because a college student (Oberlin, I think) requested that I have it display fingerings for non-standard recorders (e.g. alto in G). So I did that (at great effort), but then the programming software (Microsoft Visual C++) got too expensive to buy and I was into other things anyway. But it does still work and I use it myself.
Of course, the rest of the website, devoted mainly to TURNED trills (and alternate fingerings for such animals) is still fine. It does also have regular trills and turns and alternate fingerings for each. Again, glad you like it! 🙂