Blind octave

Blind octave passage on C major scale.  Play (help·info)

In music, a blind octave is the alternate doubling above and below a successive scale or trill notes: "the passage being played...alternately in the higher and lower octave."^[1] The device is not to be introduced into the works of "older composers," (presumably those preceding Liszt).^[2]

Blind octave passage on C major scale followed regular two octave passage (with blind octave notes in red)  Play (help·info).

Alternately, a blind octave may occur, "in a rapid octave passage when one note of each alternate octave is omitted."^[3] The effect is to simulate octave doubling using a solo instrument.

Sources

1. ↑ Apel, Willi (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music, p.97. ISBN 978-0-674-37501-7.
2. ↑ Sir George Grove, ed. (1910). Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Volume 3, p.735. The Macmillan Company.
3. ↑ (June 1, 1907). The Musical Herald, Issues 706-717, p.188. J. Curwen & Sons.