What does a pair of long horizontal lines between two whole notes mean?
While writing out some sheet music from this video, I came across notation I have never seen before.
It is this on the lead guitar parts 1 and 2:
I also found it interesting that it is notated with two semibreves, yet this is a bar of 4/4 time - it doesn't fit!
What I think is being played at that point in the song is something like this, rapid arpeggios of the Cm chord:
But I cannot be sure, so what does the notation actually mean?
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It's a very poorly-notated tremolo: a rapid alternation similar to a trill between the two notes on either side of the two thick lines. In a tremolo, both notes are supposed to be written with rhythmic values as long as the tremolo lasts, which means that it always looks like twice as many beats are happening. These tremolos are shown with both notes as semibreves because the tremolo itself is four beats long.
Better notation would have the measure not be quite so long, and the two thick tremolo lines should be more slanted and less long.
So, at least according to this transcription, one guitar is rapidly alternating between G and Eb while the other guitar is rapidly alternating between Eb and C. The combination of those two things is definitely akin to a rapid, chaotic arpeggiation of a c-minor triad.
Lead 1 plays
and lead 2 similarly for G-Eb. With just one dash you would play 1/8th notes. With three dashes you'd play 1/32nd notes OR "just fast", especially if the word tremolo appears nearby. Similar notation is used for repeating single notes, like in mm. 50 in the video at around 1:00.
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