Marcato vs. Martele - how???

OK. Tomorrow's the deadline for my string quintet piece, so I really need some help here.

Certain passages I want the performers to play accented/marcato, but in the more extreme passages I'd like to get the Martell

Where have I seen this thread again? ;)

I, very personally though, am in favour of plain articulations as opposed to words. Then again the very basic idea of the v along with the word Martell

Where have I seen this thread again? ;)

I, very personally though, am in favour of plain articulations as opposed to words. Then again the very basic idea of the v along with the word Martell

I've uploaded the "experiment" on http://www.mmmusic.dk/FrPhrPhrThr.pdf

Please a response on whether it's understandable.

Mathias

Typically in string playing a marcato is a dot, just like a staccato, although sometimes with an instruction (marc., or marcato) if a confusion could arise as to whether to play staccato (on the string) or spiccato (bouncing off the string). Martel

Thanks for letting me know.

I just came across this website - VERY explanatory: http://http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory21.htm

I'm going to use the reversed v + - (so it will be played martell

Well, if you want a very specific technique, by all means write it out (with words), unless there's a universally accepted sign meaning that and only that technique. You can write it out on the first occurence together with some recognizable articulation mark, and then just use that articulation mark where it reoccurs, but be unambiguous about it.

After all, your main goal is to convey to the musicians as efficiently as possible what you want them to do. This doesn't necessarily mean either the most space-efficient articulations or the most complex directions. The neat direction in my avatar ("Take it home", from the drum part in a recent MTI revision of the musical "Fame"--it occurs simultaneously with "Wild organ solo" in the piano/conductor part) is pretty non-standard, but makes the point really well (although it did evoke some laughter when we first encountered it). Would "pi

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd post in here: I am writing a piece in which a viola repeats one note for a bit, and I want each note to have a slight accent at the start of it's duration (to emphasise the attack) and to be held for most, but not all of it's duration. However, the dynamic level is p. Is marcato the direction for this, or would it imply a more sfp accent?