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Home/Library/Fingering & Technique/Big or Small Gracenotes?
📄 LessonAll LevelsFree Preview📅 Posted April 8, 2014· 3m

Big or Small Gracenotes?

The Short Version

Gracenotes should be as small as possible, not as big as possible. You'll find conflicting advice online, but every top player I've listened to and watched plays gracenotes the same tiny way.
I prove it side by side: the same phrase with small gracenotes sounds clean, and with big gracenotes sounds sloppy. I demonstrate this on the first part of The Judge's Dilemma and again on the first line of Scotland the Brave.
Small has a limit — a gracenote can disappear if you make it too tiny. The goal is a gracenote you can barely hear as a separate note, just enough to decorate the melody without stepping on it.

⏱️ In this class

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About this class

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