Musical turn

Usually: upper neighbor, main note, lower neighbor, main note.

The main note is the written note being decorated. Its neighbors are the next steps of the scale, so they are not automatically a semitone away. This small melodic figure is an ornament: a way to embellish a melody without writing out every note.

Fit the turn into the time available for the written note. The sign alone does not prescribe four equal note lengths: tempo, placement and musical style guide the rhythm.

An old shorthand, with changing performance traditions

Stylized ornament signs appear in manuscripts from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; an Italian ornament table published in 1600 helped explain such shorthand. A turn can enliven a sustained note or connect a phrase. Composers can also write its notes out individually.

Older notation was not uniform: some traditions began on the main note or the lower neighbor. When playing historical music, follow the edition’s ornament explanations rather than treating the usual modern pattern as a rule for every period.