RE: MusicXML representation of "additional" staff

On Fri, April 22, 2016 4:50 pm, Paul Lombardi wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
> My Gardner Read, Kurt Stone, and Elaine Gould notation books all say that a
> clef change should affect all notes in the stack of notes on a clef. I would
> be curious to hear more about what Debussy intended in his example because it
> doesn't make sense. I bet the note is Eb1. When I get home, I'll get out the
> score and see if there are any other clues and listen to some recordings.
>
> Regarding the example Dennis attached, Elaine Gould discusses specific
> instances when dashed lines following ottava symbols may deviate from the
> horizontal. I don't think the composer's example qualifies. Also, from a
> practical standpoint, there are ways to notate the same music so that it would
> be much easier to read. Any musician playing that music would have to spend
> time deciphering it, and probably wouldn't play what the composer intended
> without asking him. It looks like the time signature is probably compound
> quadruple. There are tenutos in some layers but not in the corresponding notes
> in other layers. There are unnecessary courtesy accidentals, and courtesy
> accidentals that should be required accidentals. The small clefs are not
> aligned with the right lines on the staff. The dashed line collides with an
> accidental. The six-octave leap in the left hand would be impossible to do in
> time unless the tempo was really slow, but if the tempo was that slow then the
> music should be notated differently. The notes on the fourth eighth of the
> measure are not vertically aligned. It looks like the slur on top connects a
> sixteenth note in one layer to a note ending a tie in another layer. If this
> is written for piano, it should be written on three staffs.

I did mention that this is currently being set. None of the alignments are
finished yet.

As for Gould, her work is highly conservative and often suspect because of
that. Bartok wouldn't pass her prohibition on rhythmic beaming. So who ya
gonna believe? Yeah, not Gould. :)

By the way, the renowned pianists who premiered and recorded this work from a
pencil manuscript some 30 or so years ago had no trouble grasping what was
intended.

As for how something should be notated, the composer is the final arbiter.

Dennis

Received on Monday, 25 April 2016 13:41:37 UTC