Notation question: staccatos

[HS Teoh]

I'm working on a piece where 99% of the 8th notes are staccato. What's the best way to notate this? I thought of writing sempre staccato but not all notes are staccato, only 8th notes (and not all of them, though the overwhelming majority are). Longer notated notes than 8ths are to be held normally.

Perhaps write sempre staccato and then tenuto marks on the non staccato notes? Does that make sense?

[David Lilly]

I agree with what you've suggested here already. Typically, the less cluttered you can make a score, the better—as long as you're not sacrificing clarity. A good example of this specific situation is the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 15th piano sonata. If you browse through the IMSLP database of scores, you'll see several versions that utilize sempre staccato. When there's a variation from this, a slur or tenuto marking indicates the deviation. Some versions do, in fact, mark every note in the left hand, which makes things look a bit messy.

Mind you, modern notation standards have changed since then. The current 'bible' most engravers refer to is Gould (and no, not Glenn Gould).

Gould suggests that the use of sempre staccato is a valid way to indicate that a particular note value should consistently be played staccato throughout a passage or piece. She emphasizes the importance of clarity and minimizing unnecessary repetition of articulation marks.

When not all notes of the specified value are staccato, Gould recommends marking the exceptions with an appropriate articulation (such as a tenuto mark or slur). This is where my agreement comes from, rather than just ambiguously agreeing with you.

[HS Teoh]

Haha, I actually have Gould's book. Should've just looked it up.  But thanks for the confirmation and the lovely sample.