How to write separate instructions for piano hands
Apologies for the very newbie question (I’ve never had any real lessons): On a piano grand staff, how do you (as the composer) properly annotate that one hand should play differently than the other?
For instance, in one piece, both hands are playing at mp loudness, yet at a certain bar I want the left hand to start playing leggiero (but not the right hand). So far I have this marked as “l.h. leggiero” on the lower staff, but I’m guessing that’s not how it’s actually done (and it doesn’t seem to alter playback in Sibelius 8).
Seems like this would be simple to find an answer to online, yet I’ve spent an hour Googling and rifling through piano scores without finding a clear answer. Any help would be very appreciated.
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Position the dynamics so that it's clear what stave (or even what voice within a stave) they apply to. There's no strict 'over or under' rule.
If Sibelius playback is an issue, there are various options. For instance, dynamics may be assigned to a single one of the four available voices, or may be set as 'all voices'.
Put instructions that only apply only to one staff above the top staff, or below the bottom staff.
Put instructions that apply to both staves centered vertically between the staves.
The fact that "Sibelius doesn't play this properly" is irrelevant, so far as notating it for humans is concerned. The fix is simple - don't use Sibelius if you want to get serious about computer playback, use a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) app instead!
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