Mordent (upper mordent / short trill)
In common modern usage this unstruck short-trill sign plays main note, upper neighbour, main note. Bach's 1720 ornament chart in the Clavier-Büchlein writes the signs out as notes and labels the lower-neighbour figure Mordant, showing why modern names cannot simply be projected backward.
The sources do not fully agree about this sign. The explanation above says where they part company.
- Ornaments and grace notes
- Above the note
- A wave or squiggle
Do not confuse it with
The lower-neighbour mordent has a vertical stroke through the zigzag; this upper form has none.
What the sources say
- Steps to Music Theory — Compound Meters
Ornaments have changed meaning throughout the centuries; a mordent in 1750 may not be performed the same as a mordent in 1880.
- Music Theory Online — Ornamentation
This is sometimes called a 'lower' mordent to distinguish it from the nineteenth-century ornament ... called the 'upper' mordent or Schneller
- SMuFL — Common ornaments
ornamentShortTrill — Short trill ... ornamentMordent — Mordent
- Explication unterschiedlicher Zeichen — Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Table of ornaments ... Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach ... Autograph manuscript, dated 1720.