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In chorale style I know you have vocal limits but with keyboard style you can move lower and higher as needed. However, in keyboard style you play the upper 3 voices in the right hand and write them on the treble clef. I am doing an exercise where my upper 3 voices are coming down very low (4 or 5 ledger lines ) and I wanted to know if this is ever a problem or can you really go as low as you need with the right hand?n

  • You might want to consider putting the right hand in bass clef. – phoog Dec 12 '21 at 19:37
  • Oh I never thought this was possible. So would all the notes then be in the bass clef? If you have anything I can look at please share it so I can get an idea because I have no samples in my textbook and did a search online. –  Dec 12 '21 at 19:48
  • There’s plenty of piano literature with both hands playing bass clef. Also plenty with both hands playing treble clef. There’s a famous prelude by Rachmanninoff where both hands range over the treble and bass clefs. Try doing a web search for “famous piano pieces” and review them to see what has come before. – Todd Wilcox Dec 13 '21 at 02:07

2 Answers2

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In continuo practice (which is essentially what keyboard style harmony exercises are), it is obviously not ideal if the lower notes of the right hand end up lower than the bass. So this is the absolute lowest you should go (and even for exercises: your example should remain comfortably playable: if you're not sure, take a piano and try!).

Some theorists (but not all, and some explicitly allow going lower if necessary or for other musical reasons [ex. accompanying a low voice]) recommend, more explicitly, staying generally within the treble clef (they also suggest not going too high, either). Keeping a reasonable space between both hands can be achieved by an occasional jump (within the same, or between two different chords where voice leading allows it).

AlexJ
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'The rules' of 4-part harmony exercises refer to vocal-range SATB writing on two staves.

You (or some textbook you're using) haver invented something called 'Keyboard Style' which seems to consist of three notes in the right hand, one in the left.

OK, if there are specific rules laid down in your textbook, follow them. But in more general musical terms, there's no reason a keyboard part can't be all below Middle C (except that, on piano, close harmonies can get muddy if placed too low) but it seems silly to write lots of ledger lines when a bass clef can be used. And keyboard styles don't always stick to a fixed number of voices (though be aware of how it sounds when moving between 2-voice texture, 3-voice, 4-voice etc. It's not BAD to do this, but changing density willy-nilly can sound odd.)

This is SATB:

enter image description here

These (and I could suggest many more textures) are all 'Piano Style'. (I'm not too keen on the last one, though you'll see it a lot in piano music for beginners, and playing it would probably make a keyboard with an auto-accompaniment feature do what you wanted.)

enter image description here

Laurence
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    "Keyboard style" here clearly refers to the specific voice-leading-theory-exercise form related to baroque basso continuo practice (something which is not unique to a particular textbook, although the exact terminology used may not be universal). and not to a general "as it could be played on a keyboard instrument in a non-specific style". – AlexJ Dec 15 '21 at 19:09