Pause in music: description, title and writing features

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The creation of musical rhythm involves both sounds of various durations and pauses, peculiar moments of calm. They have a special duration (like notes), designations and names. From time immemorial, composers, emphasizing or obscuring individual moments of a work, have used pauses.

The sign, which indicates the duration of temporary silence, also has the name "pause". Music theory divides pauses into simple, compound and orchestral. By duration, they are very scanty (sixty-fourth) or very long (brevis). How pauses in music are designated, how long they last and what they are called, we will tell in this article.

Musical punctuation marks

A pause in music is a kind of punctuation marks. They separate phrases or individual sentences in one work. Such pauses are called caesuras. But it happens, for example, that pauses separate sounds in one musical sentence. Thus, the composer shows, as it were, intermittent speech, which characterizes excitement. Or, on the contrary, it represents a sharp, fast andemotionally sharpened musical cue. This method can often be found in vocal art.

Everyone knows the theatrical pause. It is used to show painful reflection or tense silence before a serious issue.

Instrumental music is also not complete without pauses. Here, caesuras often accompany moments of emotional release or tension in a musical sentence or phrase. Sometimes it happens that the author deliberately delays the pause, forcing the situation. Or it happens that the entire musical line is simply torn from the inside by caesuras. This is a special artistic and musical technique. Whatever one may say, without well-placed pauses there is neither musical nor artistic beauty.

Division of pauses by duration

The duration of a sound or its absence is one of the main concepts of the musical world. The duration of a sound is the time interval of vibration of the body that makes the sound. There is relative duration and absolute duration. The latter is measured in terms of time (for example, a beat or a second). Relative sound duration affects the expressiveness of a piece of music and is the link between the complex logical parts of the piece.

Expresses absolute duration in meter and rhythm. A sounding note cannot be compared with an absolute duration. The duration of its sound can only be compared with the duration of other notes. The duration of a pause in a musical composition or vocal work corresponds tothe musical notation from which the rests are named. The duration of a musical punctuation mark can be increased by resorting to special notation, fermata. They are usually placed below or above the pause icon.

Simple pauses

Simple pauses are half, whole, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, etc. In the musical environment, they also use such concepts as longa and brevis. The duration of the first is four whole, and the brevis is two. Both of these pauses were used in musical notation of early music. They are not used today.

There are pauses - stops: backlash and caesura. The latter is used in orchestral music. Its duration is set by the conductor. Depicted as two dashes inclined to the right, crossing the top line of the staff. Luftpause is used by musicians playing wind instruments. It does not affect the sound of the piece. Denoted by a comma above the staff.

Pause whole

A pause, called a whole, coincides with the note of the same name, respectively, is also called. Its duration is four counts (times), or pulse beats. On the staff, a whole pause in music is indicated by a black rectangle suspended from the fourth line of the stave. Sometimes it is shifted down or up and even recorded separately. But in any case, it should hang on the line of the staff, even on an additional one.

Half pause

The duration of a half pause corresponds to the duration of the sound of a half note and lasts twocounting or heartbeat. It is indicated on the staff by a rectangle, similar to the whole pause sign. Only half is written on the third line of the stave. If you need to shift or record a half pause separately, it is simply depicted above the line.

Often, the topic “Pause in Music” is difficult for beginner musicians because of the similarity of the designation of whole and half pauses. Experienced musicians suggest using a hint: a half rest is placed on the third line of the staff - exactly on its half!

Quarter break

Quarter rests in music have the same duration as a quarter note. The count of this pause is one, or one beat of the pulse. Drawing a quarter pause is quite difficult. The scheme is as follows: through the third and fourth line of the stave, dashes are drawn with a slight slope to the left. Then they need to be connected to make lightning. Now a comma turned inside out is attached to it. That's it, a quarter-sound pause is ready.

Eighth pause

This pause corresponds to the eighth note. Writing it is easy. A slash is placed through the three rulers of the staff. A comma is added to its upper end, lying with its convex part down. The tail of the eighth rest is the flag of the note itself.

Pause sixteenth

What is the name of the pause in music corresponding to the sixteenth note? By analogy with the previous ones - the sixteenth. It is indicated on the staff as the eighth, only it has two tails.

If there is a need to indicate even smaller pauses in musical notation, then the number of tails will increase at the pause sign. So, for example, the 32nd pause will have three tails, the 64th will have four, etc.

Compound pauses

Pauses lasting more than a brevis are called compound. Pauses in music, their name and spelling depend on simple pauses. If compound notes are connected by a league, then compound pauses on the stave are composed of simple pauses. There are three rules for writing such characters:

• Simple pauses as part of compound ones should be recorded according to the grouping of intra-bar characters.
• You should try to express a compound pause through a smaller number of simple pauses.
• Long-lasting compound pauses are indicated by the sign of an orchestral pause.

For example, a pause lasting seven musical measures would be recorded in the following chain: four brevises, two longs and one whole pause.

Orchestral pause

If there is a need for a pause that lasts several musical measures, then you need to use the orchestral one. What it is? An orchestral pause in music is indicated on the stave by a bold line located on the third line. There is always a number above it, indicating the duration of musical downtime during performance.

Use an orchestral break most often when performing a polyphonic musical composition. Sometimes in the vocal part there are moments (lasting several measures) of the lack of demand for the voice. A pause that lasts more than onemeasure and applies to all members of the choir, ensemble or orchestra, is called the general.

Score of musical breaks

Musical composition always flows without stopping. Therefore, pauses should flow smoothly from measure to measure. They are considered similar to the notes whose names are:

• whole pause: one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and;
• half: one-and, two-and (or three-and, four-and, depending on the measure);
• fourth: one-and.

Further decreasing.