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Messages - Cyril Alberga

52
General Discussion / Re: Timing or Mathmatical Problem
It seems to me that worrying about stem directions (particularly of whole-notes/semi-breves) is something I could do without.  In these cases, I simply layer, let the stems point as they may, and then flip them all in one operation.  But, that aside, the original question involved notes following a chord with multiple length notes.  Now, all of those notes have a stem point in the same direction, so how do you match the following notes to the correct one of them.  You can't count on vertical position, as voices may cross (which is likely to throw the stem direction clue into a cocked hat).

In addition, there are a lot of more-than-two voice cases, particularly in Bach and friends.  Some of the English suites have three and four voices in a single staff.  There is no way to write these without layering.  Why lumber the program with a kludge (that probably won't be correct a lot of the time) when it is only solving part of the set of problems?  After all, this is exactly what layering was built for.

Cyril N. Alberga
53
General Discussion / Re: Timing or Mathmatical Problem
I'm not sure that there IS an algorithm which could decide where (in the time stream) the next note goes, and still make everyone happy.  So, we have a chord with a quarter and a half note.  We now enter a quarter note.  On what basis do you decide which of the two notes in the chord this should follow?  Sure, once the notes are in place you can READ them correctly, but I don't see any way to figure out what is meant during the entry process. 

I would be glad to be proven wrong, but I would really like to see a set of rules that would result in what the user wants.

We still don't have "Branch on intent" in the machine architecture!

Cyril N. Alberga
54
General Discussion / Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug
Here are a few more examples, including one which doesn't seem to be covered in the discussion above.  In both the Bach Violin Concerto and in Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts there are single staff orchestral markings, which would require a staff to be marked both beginning orchestral and ending orchestral.  I chose 17th century and a 20th century examples to show that this isn't a "flash in the pan".

There are also various nested orchestral markings and grandstaff overlapping orchestral.

55
General Discussion / Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug
Of course, the original "bug" was the moth that Grace Hopper removed from a relay in the Harvard Mark 1, and taped into the log book.  A little before my time, though if the "my first computer was smaller than yours" food-fight is still going on, I claim a IBM 650, 2000 10 digit signed decimal words of storage.  One that I worked on even had floating point and three index registers.  [Unless you count board-wiring on tabulators and 101 Statistical Sorters.]
56
General Discussion / Re: swinging notes
One minor addition.

If you select a group of notes, the "." key will cycle them through no, one, and two dots, but will also get them in sync, with repeated key strokes resulting all the notes have the same number of dots.  Then, the "+" key increases the note values until they reach whole notes (semi-breves), and repeated uses will force all the notes to semi-breves.  Finally the "-" key will reduce the note values to what ever you want.

Perhaps APLish, but very fast.  (I didn't know there were any APL programmers still around!  Ken Iverson invented the notation in order to give a formal definition of the S/360 architecture, and then he and Aidian (sp?) Falkoff coded up a interpreter for a striped down version (no sub- or superscripts, etc.) using a selectric typewriter terminal with a custom designed type ball -- I may still have one in a box somewhere.)   I think I still have listings of some of my APL code -- drawing contour maps, using a different custom type ball, for one.

Cyril
57
General Discussion / Re: Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
Yup, that's what I was looking at.  I'm afraid I've hardly been home since I posted my query, so nothing has been done.  I did look at the Opus suite, but wasn't ready to use a for-purchase font, as that would seriously limit the use of the score.  I know that I saw a free font with most of the ornaments some years ago, but it seems to have evaporated from my disk/cs (hard and optical).  I will be entering a stay-at-home period shortly, so perhaps I can get back.  Right now I am reconstructing my operating system/customary set of applications after a WinXP melt-down.  Don't even ask!

Cyril
58
General Discussion / Re: swinging notes
Ain't nothin' new under the sun.  Look at "Baroque Music: Style and Performance" in Google Books, "Inequality' starting on page 42.

http://books.google.com/books?id=esNueLupa1IC&printsec=toc&dq=dotted+rhythm+baroque+notation#PPA42,M1

"Throughtout and even before the baroque period, and through all national traditions, evidence is founed for an expressive practice now commonly described as inequality: the unequal performance of notes notated equally."

So "swinging" has a long history, and if you want someone who knows all about it, try an early-music expert!

Or a fiddler: I should have remembered that hornpipes are notated as even eighth or sixteenth notes, but played as dotted eighth, sixteenth or dotted sixteenth, thirtysecond.
60
General Discussion / Re: HELP! NEWBIE TRYING TO RETREIVE UNSAVED STUFF!
There is a high pedant quotient around here (myself included at times), but don't worry to much.

The worst flames you'll get will be spelling or grammar correction, and if this 73 year old can follow you, I suspect most people can.

Do remember, though, that there are a fair number of non-native-English speakers here, so try to be kind to them.

You will (almost) never get a flame about content -- unless you run seriously off topic.  (The only flame-war -- and not to serious at that -- I can remember was on the newsgroup, when some one started to proselytize.)

It's nice to hear a young, and enthusiastic voice

Cyril Alberga
61
General Discussion / Re: Insertion Point/Selection Confusion
I have a Logitech which almost matches yours.  It doesn't have the side-sensors, but it does has seven small bottons on the left, two where the thumb (right-hand) can actuate them, four (one a rocker, so I counted it as two) along the side of the left button.  I must confess that I've never used any of those, though.  I may have installed some software for it on my desk-top, but on my laptop, running XP Pro, I just plugged the antenna in and away it went.

Cyril
62
General Discussion / Re: Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
To Rick G.:   Sorry for not getting back sooner (I'll answer more fully in a day or so) some houseguests had just arrived as I was reading the last set of posts.  I'm just grabbing a moment now.

To Warren Porter:  I haven't had a chance to look at them yet, I'll get back.

To William Ashworth:  I do know the time-line.  My only point was that it was the printed score I was worrying about, not the composition, and I have to assume that the score my have been influenced by the standards of the 1850s, not the 1700s.

Sorry to be so brief (although some might count it a blessing).

Cyril
63
General Discussion / Re: Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
No, they are a mid-eighteenth century composition.  I'm working from the Dover facsimile of the editions from Bach-Gesellschaft.  The Dover volume has bits from 1852 & 1863 volumes and I'm not sure which the variations were in.  I have no idea what the original printed score looked like, although I do know that it was one of the few Bach works printed during his lifetime.
64
General Discussion / Re: Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
As to the two sided beam, I have gotten that to work rather well (at least in the case that I need).  You do have to look at viewer preview, as the composer display is monumentally ugly!

Quote
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.0,Single)
|Clef|Type:Bass
|Rest|Dur:16th|Visibility:Never
|Note|Dur:16th|Pos:4|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=4,Beam=First|Visibility:Never
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:4|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=4,Beam=End
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

Quote
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.0,Single)
|Clef|Type:Bass
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:-3|Opts:Stem=Up,StemLength=4,Beam=First
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:-3|Opts:Stem=Up,StemLength=4,Beam=End|Visibility:Never
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

Of course, I don't know how it will look with stuff happening on other staves -- next test, I guess.
65
General Discussion / Re: Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
Thanks to all.

I'll search of Opus fonts.  I thought I had Scorch, but it seems to have evaporated -- perhaps on an older machine?

I'll play with the differing signatures (I'm ashamed to note my self contributing to that thread).  There will be problems with signatures on new systems, if one wanted to print, wouldn't there? 

I'll see if I can find the discussion on beams, and will play a bit in the meanwhile.

Comments on clefs noted.  (Almost let that slip through as "clefts"!)

Cyril
66
General Discussion / Several question vis-a-vis a Bach score.
Having just heard a preformance of Bach's Goldberg Variations (live, on a two-manual Steinway piano!) I went and looked at the score, thinking about entering it.  But I ran into several road-blocks.

The major one is in variation 26, where one staff is in 18/16 time, and the other in 3/4.  each quarter note (crotchet) in the second staff matches six sixteenth notes (semiquavers (?)) in the first.  Is there any workable work-around for this?  Remember, this is a copy of a mid-nineteenth century score, not a modern experimental work!

There as also a number of ornaments which do not seem to occur in any of the fonts I currently have.  These include trill-like symbols, but with angles, not curves, with and without crossing vertical lines and various hooks at the front.  Does anyone know where to find these.

Finally, there are standard bugaboos such as notes on either side of a beam, and (as in a current thread) smaller clefs, some in the middle of beamed groups of notes.

Any ideas, anyone?  Other than fugedabotit.

Cyril
68
General Discussion / Re: I Need Some Help With Transcription
Ever seen a score by George Crumb?  Or John Cage?  Not much easier!

http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2006/10/29/crumbs-graphic-scores/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebpaquet/1659162/

In one on a record jacket there are piano chords with instructions to hold the chord without sounding while playing a measure of so -- I suppose the idea is to have the strings free to vibrate sympatheticly.

http://www.mnt-aq.it/english/cianciusi_aria.htm

Scroll down to figure one, then sing your heart out.

We saw/heard a concert in which the score was a set of line tracing of the illustrations in a particular edition of Thoreau's Walden.  This was with the New York Philharmonic plus innumerable additional performers, each doing that ever they thought the "score" meant.  Cage himself happily bowed to the booing.  The title was "Apartment Renga 1776" (possibly misspelled, it's from memory 29 years old.

And, no, I don't thing the "scores" in this thread are meant to be played -- but I could be wrong!
71
General Discussion / Re: similar notes sound bad
A question, from almost total ignorance.  As I understand it, a synth can't start two notes at exactly the same time.  Could the delay between the start times cause some kind of wave interferance that would effect the tambre?
73
General Discussion / Re: Dynamic effects for multiple staffs?
There is one thing to watch for, if you have two (or more) staves assigned to the same channel.  If the same pitch (say middle C) occurs at the same time on more than one such staff, and if the note on one staff is shorter than the note on the other, then the note will end with the shorter note, the longer one being "cut off".  This is because (most, at least) sound cards will not pair the two "note off" events in the midi stream with the two "note on" events, and the first "note off" will cancel both "note on"s.

Hope this is clear.
74
General Discussion / Re: Lyric Flow
Of course you can just move the offending words to lyric tab 1.  Yes, I know that could be confusing to someone editing the file at a later date, but so are most layering hacks.

A related hack is the case where you have several verses and want the (identical) chorus to be centered vertically with relation to the verse texts.  I've done this with layering, with a muted/invisible staff holding the chorus whose lyrics are adjusted vertically.  The visible staves have no lyrics for the chorus, the chorus staff none for the verses.  You could also fix the repeat by layering and throw the confusion that way.
75
General Discussion / Re: "Long" Notes
Not always.  I have seen cases where breves are treated in the same way as semi-breve rests are now, that is they "fill the measure" in the absence of any other notes in the same measure.  In at least one case, however, two forms were used, with oval breves have a fixed duration, and rectangular breves being variable.
76
General Discussion / Somewhat OT, but perhaps of interest. Slowing things down.
ARTS / MUSIC   | January 24, 2007
Around the Clock, Beethoven Magnified
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Never has listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony required so much attention: Leif Inge, a Norwegian who calls himself an “idea-based artist,” has digitally elongated the work to last 24 hours.

HTTP://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/arts/music/24stre.html?ex=1170392400&en=e65b520c05d8599a&ei=5070&emc=eta1

77
General Discussion / Re: Wishes...
Sorry that this is an NWC1 file, but how does this differ from what you want?  Is it that the word is "held" over different notes?  Even if this it the case couldn't a variation on it work?
78
General Discussion / Re: Wishes...
I support most (hell, let's say all) of the original suggestions.  I'm assuming that "beaming crotchets and minums (halves) refers to the normal tremulo notation, with beams between the stems, but not quite touching them.  If it doesn't, then I will add that.

AND BREAVES!!!!!!!

Besides the alternating time signatures, how about compound signatures?  You know, 3/4 + 2/4, to indicate the grouping of beats in a measure?

More control over the grouping of staves, to separate families of instruments.

Etc., and so forth ---
80
General Discussion / Re: When is NWC going to support Unicode?
First, I don't read any of the alphabets/syllabarys on the two web-sites linked to in the last post, but I have a question about them.  When I look at them I see a large number of dotted (or dashed) circles with what look like diacritical marks over them.  Is this what the pages should look like, or do I have something misinstalled (or just plain missing) on my machine?
81
General Discussion / Re: A heated argument at last night's music practice.
Off topic, a bit, but it is about music.  Besides, that is an old and hono(u)red custom around here.

As to the speed, I've danced quite a few, and some are moderately fast, and some are not.   Some are quite "stately".  I'll attach a few of different tempos, all as I have been used to dancing them.
82
General Discussion / Re: A heated argument at last night's music practice.
One correction, and one additional link.

The only edition to be called "The English Dancing Master" was the first, 1651.  All others were simply "The Dancing Master".  The last was in 1728 and was the 4th edition of volume 2, preceeded by the 18th edition of volume 1 probably in the same year.  See "The Dancing Master" in Wikipedia.

Also, to see what the playford books looked like, see:

http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/playford/index.html

The music is scanned, the text transcribed, but there is a full page scanned from the original here:

http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/playford/original.html

(I know, I said one link, but they are both to the same site.)

CNA
83
General Discussion / Re: A heated argument at last night's music practice.
Personally, as to tempos, I'm just thinking of my own experience in a contemporary ECD group in the US.  In his arrangments Sharp doesn't specify tempos for the Playford dances.  (These are the tunes from the Country Dancing Master, published by John Playford from 1651 until 1709 - the latter being the 14th edition.  I'll have to check to see if there were any later editions, I don't know off the top of my head.)   I will give a few links on the matter, probably more than you want to know about ECD.  I'm also attaching an image of a CD booklet, to give an idea of what the dancers (may have) looked like.

http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/~winston/ecd/history.htmlx

http://www.bobarcher.org/dance/uk_us_comparison.html

Finally, a set of "abc" notated dances with the modern tempos used by one dance group.  I don't really know how to read "abc", but the tempos are the "Q:" item.

http://www.larkcamp.com/MEEnglishDanceTunes.abc

Enough!
84
General Discussion / Re: A heated argument at last night's music practice.
"Longways for as many as will" specifies a line of couples, facing each other, extending down the hall.  Looking from the head (usually where the musicians are) the men are on the right, the ladies on the left. 

I haven't danced this particular dance, but the tempo is typical for English Country Dancing.  Note that the tune is from ca. 1700, but the arraignment is from 1922 or there about.  Cecil Sharp was busy reviving English Country Dancing at the time.

Note also that, contrary (pun intended) to some opinion, the French Contredanse is a corruption of Country Dance, from when the style was introduced to the continent.  A number of authorities claim the reverse, but check the Oxford English Dictionary.
87
General Discussion / Re: Serious bug in length of Whole Notes (But Not Rests)
Just conjecture, but since NWC grace notes always "borrow" from the following note, it doesn't make any logical sense for them to be alone in a measure, or to be tied/slurred to a note in the next measure.

Of course, if the oft wished for "forward borrowing" grace note is ever added then this might make sense (but are such graces notated in a previous measuer/bar?).
89
General Discussion / Re: Really dumb question from non-music major
Use the "local repeat" bars.  These are NOT standard musical notation, but they do have a "number of repeats" value (which you can set by selecting the bar -- sweep the cursor from one side to the other with the left key depressed -- and the right clicking and selecting "Properties" from the drop-down menu).

If you are not planning to let the score out where people (other than you) will see it, just use these.  Other wise you can play tricks with making some things non-visible. 
90
General Discussion / Re: Bizare behaviour
I assumed you did, but other posted seemed less experienced with NWC.  I was just trying to make things clear to everyone.
91
General Discussion / Re: Bizare behaviour
But the example at hand (from the image posted by Use111 -- thanks, by the way) is piano music, where the notation is indicating the the note be held while the rest of the 1/16 notes are played.  In that case (as there is only on key per line or space on the staff, ignoring sharps and flats, which wouldn't be invovled here) you do want the shorter note muted.

GIVE ME A SPELLING CORRECTOR -- please????
92
General Discussion / Re: Bizare behaviour
Yes, and the "louder than usual" effect will occur in my layered example as well.  (Note, the playback can't be right, as I have no idea what the key signature should be -- clearly lots of #s, given tha there is an accidental on a "B"!)  The solution (which only works in the layered case) would be to mute the sixteenth note which is overlain by the quarter note -- thats demi-quavers and crotchets for those across the pond from New York.

Damn, I wish here were a spell-check option on this board!
93
General Discussion / Re: Bizare behaviour
Re Use111's last post:

Ah Ha! I didn't notice the notes which (effectively) overlap the bar-lines.  The only way I can see to do that would be with layering and invisable (or missing?) bar lines, like so.
94
General Discussion / Re: Bizare behaviour
First, to the immediatly preceeding post, isn't the Chopin just a case of "implied triplets"?  (Or, in this case, sextuplets.)  Or is that what you mean by "Crossed time"?

To the last "This is bizar(r)e", I'm afraid I nether hear nor see anything strange in the NWC-viewer.  Could you explicate?
95
General Discussion / Re: tempo
Note that you need not put a tempo indication on each bar.  A tempo indication will remain in effect from where it is entered until another tempo indication occurs.  Also, you need only place the tempo indication on one staff, it's effect (as it must be) will be applied to all staves.
96
General Discussion / Re: Staff Properties
Without seeing you current file it isn't clear to me which staves should be combined.  If you wrote right and left hand staves across the window, then added new right and left hand staves, you should be tacking the contents of staff 3 onto the end of staff 1, and for staff 4 onto the end of staff 2.

Of course, we all may be missunderstanding the problem, in which case you would be better off joining the newsgroup and posting the .nwc file for inspections.  (And you may have done this, as I haven't looked at the newsgroup for some time now.)
98
General Discussion / Re: New Forum - Nice look.
Well, now, on exiting the Noteworthy site and returning the books are closed.  But there were no "new" flags when I came in before but the books were open.  And, there was no "new" for my previous post.
99
General Discussion / Re: New Forum - Nice look.
Has something changed?  I find that the headers in front of the links to the various fora are now all in the "there's something you haven't seen" mode, even though there are no "new" flags showing.  I'm sure this wasn't the case a couple of days ago.  Am I missing something?  (Quite possible!)
100
General Discussion / Re: Partial layering
That only works if you don't have any repeats, changes of time signature, changes of key signature, double bars in the middle of measures, changes of clef, etc. and so forth.

In general one whacks in some random number of whole-rest bars, then goes back to the beginning and scans for mis-matches of bar lines between the to-be-layered staff and the new staff, fixing things as one goes.  Including getting the dynamics correct at the point of the layered bit.  All in all, not that simple.

I guess you could leave out the clef and key signature changes, but then you still have to hunt backwards to find the ones which are in effect at the time of the layered measure.  It's simpler (IMHO) just do them while you are doing all the rest.