Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An ornament note that is one half step or one whole step higher or lower than a principal note and is sounded at the same time as the principal note, adding dissonance to a harmony.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In music: A grace-note one half step below a principal note, struck at the same time with the principal note and immediately left, while the latter is held.
- noun More frequently, a short appoggiatura. See
appoggiatura .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Mus.) A short grace note, one semitone below the note to which it is prefixed; -- used especially in organ music. Now used as equivalent to the short
appoggiatura .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music A short
grace note (theoretically taking no time at all), occurring on the beat occupied by the main note to which it is prefixed, one scale-step higher or lower than that main note. (Sometimes equivalent, therefore, to a shortappoggiatura , but in Baroque music interpreted differently and more strictly.) Written as a note lighter in appearance, typically a quaver (eighth note), with an oblique stroke through the stem.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an embellishing note usually written in smaller size
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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My tuppence worth is that I should like dictionaries to reflect both kinds of use IN THIS CASE - it's handy to know how a word is pronounced in the language from which it is borrowed, in a transparent case of highly specific borrowing such as 'acciaccatura'.
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The first section of "Eri tu" is rendered in a splendidly firm, strong-lined legato, the words crystal-clear; it comes to an end with a decrescendo and portamento down from the top F on "guisa," a most expressive turn and acciaccatura on "primo," and a fermata at the end of the phrase.
Conrad L. Osborne: Best Opera Critic Ever Jaime J. Weinman 2004
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On the other examples: I always say 'trayt' and never 'tray', and I have very often heard 'acciaccatura' pronounced the Macquarie way - but that's not the pronunciation given in my Collins English, which I shall post here if someone will point me to an idiot's guide to how to type using the IPA.
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Angela, the Macquarie pronunciation of acciaccatura is just one of many illiterate and confused attempts to transfer the Italian term into English.
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It does not, for example, give anything other than an anglicised pronunciation for acciaccatura.
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Noetica, that's a fairly widespread pronunciation of acciaccatura.
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On the Aussie front, I have the Australian Oxford, which seems to take a good approach; unfortunately it doesn't include acciaccatura.
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Applying this principle to acciaccatura, we would first want a dictionary to give a pronunciation considered unexceptionable by those who know musical terms well and know their Italian pronunciations; and then, if there is room and if the dictionary aims to be comprehensively descriptive, we want it to note that there are alternatives that stray from the Italian original.
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In the second half of the first bar, the _acciaccatura_ was never intended by the composer to be actually sung as printed.
Style in Singing W. E. Haslam
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The _acciaccatura_ (or short appoggiatura) is written like the appoggiatura except that it has a light stroke across its stem.
Music Notation and Terminology Karl Wilson Gehrkens 1928
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