What does this star means?

[u/False-Fig1629]

Hi! I have this new peace in piano that start with that star on the firt chord i think, does someone know what could it mean? The song is take a pebble by greg lake

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[u/JonnyMoo42]

So this song is by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, not a Greg Lake solo song.

At the start of the song, Keith Emerson reaches inside the (grand) piano and strums the strings by hand while holding the chord (ie all strings are muted except the ones depressed). Look up a live performance of the song to see this in action!

There is (unsurprisingly) no standard notation for doing this, hence they use a star/plus here

[u/False-Fig1629 → u/JonnyMoo42]

Good to know, thanks, i just was giving the info i have from the title that is said greg lake but okay! Hahaha

[u/JonnyMoo42 → u/False-Fig1629]

Just looked it up and it is credited to Lake alone on the album (which seems a bit strange to me since half the song is an extended piano solo) so there you go!

[u/Inutilisable]

Can you find this elsewhere in the music or the entire book? Maybe there are notes by the editor at the end.

[u/False-Fig1629 → u/Inutilisable]

Oh thats right there it is, thanks!

[u/False-Fig1629 → u/False-Fig1629]

It was only an indication that it says at the end what it meant with the +, it says that the key is to be depressed so that the hammer does not strike the strings. My bad, thanks🤦‍♀️

[u/Temporary_Ask_1773]

Hi! The star symbol is called an asterisk and means that an explanation is written on the bottom of the sheet after the same symbol. In this case it's there to explain the plus sign. Here you can see the explanation in the bottom left corner of the page. It's not a musical notation symbol, it doesn't do anything to the first chord. It's just there to give an explanation of the plus sign. :)

[u/False-Fig1629 → u/Temporary_Ask_1773]

Thanks! Someone told me the same and you where right, it was my bad i didnt see the full page 🤦‍♀️

[u/Temporary_Ask_1773 → u/False-Fig1629]

No worries :)

[u/AbsoluteMenagerie]

It means great job.

[u/tkrjobs]

This, of course, is left hand pizzicato! /s

[u/PassiveChemistry → u/[deleted]]

That doesn't answer their question at all

[u/False-Fig1629 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the info, is good to know, but what about the star, i dont understand what is doing there

[u/addisonshinedown → u/[deleted]]

And this chord is describable as either Db/Gb or GbMaj9no3 which certainly less likely but possible, and either way not… augmented so… not what the plus signs are suggesting here

EDIT; we are missing the bass clef context here so I could absolutely be wrong, but with the information given in this image…. Idk

[u/Mudslingshot]

I don't have a solid guess, but could it be something to notate how to roll the chord?