Re: MusicXML representation of "additional" staff

On 4/22/2016 12:06 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> On Fri, April 22, 2016 2:55 pm, Christina Noel wrote:
>>  From what I can tell of the original pasted image that sparked this
>> discussion... does it have a semantic meaning at all?
>
> [...]
>
>> What meaning does this particular clef symbol actually add to the
>> music?
>>
>
> This is not unique to Debussy. Attached is an image of a score I'm currently
> setting for a composer. You can see multiple clefs on one staff, similar to
> the Debussy.
>
> Dennis
>

OK. It is not unique to Debussy. But what does it mean? Perhaps another 
sample was intended to be enlightening, but it didn't actually answer 
the question asked.

If I were to try to actually play that, what notes would I play, and 
would I actually obtain help from seeing those extra clef symbols, and 
what help would they give me?

As a very first step in the explanation (and without seeing the clefs at 
the left edges of the staffs in your sample, which, since you omitted 
them I can only assume to be treble clef for the top staff and bass clef 
for the bottom staff), I wonder, seeing the 15ma kind of grabbing the 
notes mostly surrounded by the dashed lines with funny angles at the 
bottom, whether the first note to the right of the treble clef intruding 
on the bass staff, should be interpreted as a middle C&D raised two 
octaves, or a treble A&B raised two octaves?  The latter interpretation 
would sort of bump into my interpretation of the notes on the treble 
staff being treble FG&B raised two octaves, so I would conclude that the 
interpretation intended is probably middle C&D, and then I'd further 
conclude that the treble clef is more confusing than helpful, in the 
sense that its presence only confuses the interpretation of the pitch of 
the notes on the bass staff, although one can argue that it assists in 
realizing that the 15ma applies to these notes (but that seems to be 
what the dotted line is also doing, so the treble clef becomes 
redundant, confusing, or, as Christina seems to be arguing, without 
semantic meaning [because it doesn't affect the interpretation of the 
pitch of the following notes]).

There's certainly not a lot of time to figure out the interpretation of 
all that stuff while playing the quarter note before it... definitely 
not a piece for the faint-hearted to sight-read at first exposure.

And it is not at all clear why, if those notes are intended to be 
interpreted as middle C&D raised two octaves, why they are attached to 
the bass staff, rather than being placed just below treble staff in its 
middle C&D positions?  The shown placement seems to overaccentuate the 
tonal distance between the notes.  And if they were placed relative to 
the treble staff, there would be no need for all those extra clefs to be 
redundant, confusing, or semantically meaningless.

In the Debussy sample, it also seems to be confusing: the clef does not 
appear in the proper position to help avoid counting leger lines. It 
should be two staff spaces higher to help with that.

Glenn

Received on Friday, 22 April 2016 20:21:54 UTC