Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 26: Ornamentation Basics — Grace Notes

  • Play an appoggiatura and an acciaccatura, and hear the difference.
  • Add a grace note to a melody where the style invites it.

Ornament is not decoration. It is melody made local.

A grace note is a small note that decorates a larger one. The appoggiatura is a long lean taking half the main note's value; the acciaccatura is a crushed, instantaneous flash. A slash through the small note's stem marks the acciaccatura.

Appoggiatura — a lean

The appoggiatura takes half the value of the note it ornaments: a grace before a quarter plays as two eighths. It is a leaning dissonance that resolves.

Play this as A-G, A-G — each grace eighth followed by an eighth on the written note.

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Acciaccatura — a crush

The acciaccatura is fast and percussive, flicked just before the main note. Less leaning, more flicker.

The grace is an almost imperceptible flick; the main note arrives on the beat.

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Play: an ornamented melody

An Irish-style air with a single grace note per phrase.

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Now play these

Danny Boy
Add a grace before each phrase peak.
The Blackbird
Built around grace-note ornaments.
The Minstrel Boy
Grace notes on the stronger downbeats.

When you can place an appoggiatura at the cadence of Danny Boy three times in a row with the main note arriving exactly on the beat, move on to Lesson 27.