Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all Show Posts made by this member. Note that you can only see Show Posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Cyril Alberga

1
General Discussion / Installing on a Netbook
I have seen some discussion about this, but have not seen any resolution.  I have a Netbook, i.e. no disc drive, which is NOT networked with my other computers (it is running Win 7, the others XP, and I can't get them to play nice).  I tried to "rip" the installation CD to an .iso file, but the program I used wouldn't do it (it did work with Corel WordPerfect) so I can't transfer the .iso and mount it as a virtual drive.

Is there a way to get NWC installed on this device????
2
General Discussion / Re: NWC is good. Will it become great?
I think that
Quote
the difference regarding how things should sound
refers to things such as:

Should a grace note take time from the previous or the following note (depends on what centary the music is from)
Should a trill start on the written note or the one above (or below), and should the alternative note in the the trill be above or below the starting one.
Exactly what did the composer mean by the funny symbol over the note?  The meaning of "mordent", "turn", etc. has varied over time.
And a lot of other disagreements involving ornamentation.

Having the symbol available would be nice, but you would wind up having to have one or more options on almost all of them if NWC were to generate the sound.
6
General Discussion / Re: Hiding Accidentals on Layered Staff
Currently, you can pass a file from the Viewer to the Editor.  The unfortunate thing is that this closes the viewer and there is no way to pass the file back (at least that I have found).  Would this be what you are asking for?  I would certianly like that.
7
General Discussion / Re: Vertical line in between to staves
Ah, quite possibly my misunderstanding, and if so I apologize for stating the obvious.  I will say that in my, somewhat limited, experience I've never run into systems which weren't at least connected on the left.  In a score with varying numbers of staves when one is "blank", (as most symphonic scores are) how would you know which staves belonged with which?  Labels after each system break?
8
General Discussion / Re: Vertical line in between to staves
There are a number of "flavors" of staves, which can be set in the Staff Properties dialog box.  These include upper and lower grand staff (usually used for piano) and orchestral, all of which have bar lines which connect.  Then there is standard which does NOT have connecting bar lines.  Further, an upper grand staff only has bar lines connecting downward, and an lower grand staff, upwards.  So, look at the attached snippet.  The top and bottom staves are standard, the middle two upper and lower grand staff.  Additional standard staves (other than between the grand staff staves -- hum, I didn't try that, but you could -- will be disconnected. 

The same thing is true of orchestral staves, but you don't get the little hook on the upper and lower ones when there are other staves above and below them.  Deleate the bottom staff in the second example to see what happens.
10
General Discussion / Layered staff with accidental collision
This has probably been hashed over, but I could recognize it in the search.

See the attach snippet.  This is a pair of staves, layered.  Is there any way to let a bit of air between the G and the following accidental?

11
General Discussion / Re: Never mind--stupid error on my part.
Anyway, here is the whole thing.  Drop the flow directions from the second (layered) staff and things go wonky.  BTW the key change is after the double bar because that is how the score I transcribed was printed.
15
General Discussion / Re: Sound Card Question -- semi-OT
I'll keep you posted.  The machine isn't supposed to ship until the 5th, and then I'm going to be doing a bit of swapping and upgrading -- moving at least one HD from the old machine and installing a third new one, etc.  So it may be a little time before I can get to the sound cards -- besides I normally don't use sound fonts, but I'll try it for the record.
16
General Discussion / Re: Sound Card Question -- semi-OT
When I check I started with the "for home use" machines, and they did have XP as an option.  I had to switch to the "Small business" group to get a reasonable number of PCI slots, and still had the XP choice.  They do say that they will stop shipping XP on (I think) June 17th. 

The oddest thing, however, was the pricing.  I had configured a machine that came to around $1200.  I sent the details to a friend who builds computers and maintains small business networks (freelance).  She wrote back that the configuration looked good, but the price seemed to high, and gave me a URL to a somewhat different setup, which she priced at $909.  I ran it, and it came to $899 for no obvious reason.  Then I called Dell, and the saleswoman did the same conf. and was back up the $1200!  I e-mailed her the URL and lo and behold, she got $899, which she gave me!  My friend says that Dell is infuriating, because you can get different prices for the same machine, depending on what route you take through their site.  Go figure.

Anyway, I'm safe from Vista for a while now, and have decided to ditch the digital daughter card (the CT4660) and just use the basic Sound Blaster Live! with the driver from the site that Rick G. posted.  I've go a dedicated digital capture card in the old machine which is better than the Creative anyway.
17
General Discussion / Re: Sound Card Question -- semi-OT
Good, I'm on my way.  Actually, Creative has a driver update which claims to support 2000/NT/XP, but the driver which it specifies as a base doesn't seem to be on the download list.  I won't have the machine for about a week, so it will be a while before I can report back.

BTW, I think there is still about a two week window while Dell will still ship XP -- that's why I moved now!
18
General Discussion / Re: Sound Card Question -- semi-OT
Thank you for the run down, and the URL which I will check.

Yes, I'm getting a desktop, a Vostro 400, with WinXP (which I'm going to up grade to XP Pro).  My old machine, a Dell Dimension is going to be my main capture machine, I've got a out-board A-2-D converter and a digital audio card from Midiman, plus a video capture card.  It can sit in a corner and listen/watch audio and video while I do other things on the new box  (right now I'm working on scanning the 50 odd years of slides from before we both went digital -- negatives to follow).

So, Vista isn't in the picture, nor is audio capture, but I would like to listen to stuff on the new machine.  I'm not sure that creative will talk to me about an eight year old card, but I'll check Usenet for a news-group.  The big question is what driver to use.
19
General Discussion / Sound Card Question -- semi-OT
There seem to be more helpfull sound-card mavins here than any place else, so I'm dropping a question on the forum.

I have just ordered a new computer from Dell, which only comes with an integrated sound device.  The box will have a couple of free PCI slots.  I also have a quite old box which is mostly empty, the motherboard having died.  It has (had, I just pulled it out) a Sound Blaster Live! with the digital piggy-back cardlet.  The main card is model CT4620, the add-on is CT4660.  These were running under W98, while the new box will have XP on it (I just beat the dead-line, Dell will stop offering XP on June 17th).

Does anyone know if this card would be better than the built-in, and if it will run under XP?

I found a patch on the Creative site, but it says that it needs the drivers which were posted on July 17 2002, but the site doesn't seem to HAVE that package!  There is nothing that seems relevant to the 4660, either.

Any advice will be welcome -- including advise to chuck the thing.

20
General Discussion / Re: Real Music Composition Software
Total agreement here.  Fred wrote that the fractal generator turned out dozens (hundreds?  I don't have his original comments to hand) of sequences from which he winnowed a few to work with.  He had a CD, Fractile, with thirteen of his fractal-based compositions.  I don't know if it is still available -- Google google --

Well, Dogstar music seems to be gone.  Part of the material on the old site is at:

http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/

but I don't see the music itself.  Lets try the wayback machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20051210101030/http://www3.telus.net/dogstarmusic/index.htm

which seems to have the music files -- at least the NWC files, I didn't check the .mp3 files.

That is the last full copy of the dogstar site.  The only later one is a single page, the link for which fails.

I don't know if everything there is on the Scriptorium, so perhaps one needs to grab it now before it totally evaporates!
24
General Discussion / Re: notating tuplets so that the audit bar lines feature can be used.
One point, at least as I understand it.  The OP wants the score for printing.  But isn't it true that the use of an invisible time signature causes the following systems to lack any time signature?  Will he/she not have to hand-insert a visible instance of the "true" time signature in the first measure(s) after the next system break?  Or is there an easy work around?
25
General Discussion / Re: Printing
On the Page Setup dialogue box, under Options, do you have a check in "Extend Last System"?
26
General Discussion / Re: Windows Vista and Help files
First computer (other then reading some manuals) -- 1958, an IBM 650, a really fancy one.  Besides 2000 ten digit (decimal) words of storage on a drum there were THREE index registers.  Plus lots of vacuum tubes.  Later, when some tape drives were added they came with 60 words of ferrite core memory.  I came in one morning and found that the air conditioner had died, but being winter in Wisconsin we just opened the windows and that kept it cool enough for the tubes not to start melting.

I didn't seen a non-mainframe (IBM 709, 7090, 1410, 1440, 7010, 7044, then to S/360 including model 67, S/370, lots of models) until we started using the first PC in place of 3270 dumb terminals.  I had one at home, with a 300 baud acoustic  coupler so I could dial into the lab.  I dabbled in RISC machines, then retired and had to actually BUY a computer!

Almost never used BASIC in any form.  Started with assembler, and continued almost to the end (but never learn it for PCs), with some FORTRAN, PL/I, APL, SNOBAL, and lot of LISP.  Never used a non-IBM computer until I retired (IBM Research, 31 years) and had my own PC.

I still miss assembly language.  To quote someone (forgot who) I liked being barefoot and feeling the bits between my toes.
28
General Discussion / Re: strange sound card behavior
For a few year the New York Philharmonic had plastic sound-shields in front of the brass section, but they abandoned them a while ago.  I'm not sure if it coincided with a new music director or not.  Now the just have the brass "up against the wall", with a rather wide space between them and the next rank forward.  Unless they are playing Mahler or one of that ilk.  (And I know that is an improper use of "ilk", but it sounded okay.)
29
General Discussion / Re: strange sound card behavior
The thing is, with simple sine waves (which flutes approximate -- well the sum of two or three at most) unless they are exactly in phase there is a cancellation effect which produces the same sound, but at a lower volume.  The "ups" of one and the "downs" of another can add up to a lower volume than either one alone.
30
General Discussion / Re: New icon for newsgroup
Peter may have a URL-shortcut on his desktop, to bring up the browser with the forum in the window/tab.  The answer then is to use tweakUI (which is somewhere on the µ$ site -- use Google) to eliminate the little arrow.  I say this with some reservations, because it doesn't seem to work in all cases, and I haven't figured out the whys and wherefores.

Cyril
31
General Discussion / Re: Heart Of Oak
Never mind, I pulled the address from your profile.  The file is in the mail.  Let me know if it is what you need.
33
General Discussion / Re: odd drum notation
Just to muddy the water a bit.  I did some Googling, and turned up an on-line copy of the 1932 Durand score for Bolero, at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/249977/Ravel-Bolero-Full-Score-Durand-1932

In this, the notation under discussion does not seem to be used.  I don't know the history of the score, so I can't comment on where this sits on the time-line, but is seems to be only four years after the first performance.

I'll keep looking, but don't know if I'll find anything else.
34
General Discussion / Re: odd drum notation
If you throw "flat flam" into Google you will get a bunch of hits (pun unintended), with some differences as to whether it applies to two drums hit together as well as a single drum.  One citation give "French flam" as an alternate name.
36
General Discussion / Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament
This isn't an answer to your problem, but it seemed like the best place to post this as it is related.

I just found the following site:

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/warped-canon.html

It has the Pachelbel canon as midi files in every tuning you can think of, plus others that you never would.

Enjoy?

PS: Looking around I found that nTET (e.g. 12TET) = n-tone equal temperament (12 tone being a diatonic scale).  Perhaps known to most, but not to me.
37
General Discussion / Re: Entering three note chords with individually timed notes
Quote
I think 1611KJB's example is correct musically, but probably should be notated on two staves.

Not really, the last bit reads:

Quote
finishing the measure with a third chord of high D 1/8 note/high B ¼ note/F 1/8 note.

To me, at least, "chord" implies that the three notes start at the same time, not the B followed a half beat later by the D & F.

39
General Discussion / Re: Entering three note chords with individually timed notes
Threre are several problems here, at least there seem to be for me.  I've tried to reproduce your example and cannot do it.  The two staves, unlayered, have different numbers of beats in them!  Assuming one beat per quarter note, the first has four beats, the second four and a half.  As a result, the closing bar lines don't line up.  Could you post the .nwc file so I could examine it?

But there is a deeper problem.  First, and trivially fixable, example doesn't match the description, as there is no mention of the lone C in the second beat (the OP just mentions three chords).  However removing it doesn't help the mismatch in the timing.  I can't really tell what is wanted here.  Perhaps there are really three voices, where the they start on a chord, but then go their own ways.  I've tried notating this possiblilty in two ways, but neither is very attractive.  The first is probably the more correct, as the voices are kept distinct.  But in both a .5 extra note spacing is needed to keep the "chords" visually together.  Sorry I couldn't do better.
41
General Discussion / Re: Overriding lyric standard rules
Personally, I think the layered solution is preferable.  The problem with the big offset is, that in case of some change, such as adding an above-the-staff item (such as a flow direction) one may have to go back and fiddle with the value of the offset - and on a staff not tightly associated with the modified staff.  I feel that keeping things that can interact as closely tied as possible makes later adjustments simpler. 
44
General Discussion / Re: font with circled numbers?
Here is the link to download the WordPerfect fonts, which given the price (free) are at least worth looking at.  They have a full set of accented characters as well as almost any symbol you would like, including circled numbers 1 through 10, both black one white and white on black.  (Look in WPIconicSymbolsA.) 

[ftp=ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/WordPerfect/wpwin/9/wpfonts.exe]ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/WordPerfect/wpwin/9/wpfonts.exe[/ftp]

45
General Discussion / Re: Teaching Trumpet
You might also use lyrics, assuming you have a font with open and solid circles.  There are some floating around -- mine is from WordPerfect, but I thing those fonts are downloadable even if you don't own the program.  I can check that if anyone is interested.  If you just want things printed, use three lyric lines, one for each valve.  If you want note-chase, then you have to layer three staves (two muted) with the same notes, each with it's lyric line offset appropriately.  This means you don't have to insert three text items for each note, and they are automagicly positioned under the notes.
46
General Discussion / Re: Input Methods
I have NUMLOCK always off (in fact I jiggered XP so it is turned off on start-up).  Rather than use the number keys for selecting the note value I use the + and - keys, at the top right of the number keypad to run up and down the notes, just as the up and down arrow keys run up and down the staff.  This keep my hand in one position as long as I don't have to dot or accent the notes.  I'll have to watch myself and see how I do that, I don't seem to think about it, just do it.  Possibly I shift the left hand away from the TAB key.  The left hand is in charge of shifting, CTL-SFT, etc., and TAB and SPACE.
47
General Discussion / Re: Lines and controllable slurs - a suggestion/request
Quote
Also, can a piano do a glissando, or is that simulated with an arpeggiated chord or chromatic run?

I think that what a piano does IS a glissando.  What a trombone or violin does is portomento.

From the Harvard Dictionary of Music:

Portomento [It/. carrying] A special manner of singing, with the voice gliding gradually from one tone to the next through all the intermediate pitches.  A similar effect, frequently but erroneously galled glissando, is possible on violin and on the trombone....

Glissando [F. Glisser, to slide].  The execution of rapid scales by a sliding movement.  In piano-playing, the nail of the thumb or that of the third finger is drawn rapidly over the white keys. ... [the definition then goes into details of glissandos in thirds and octaves] ... Glissando is much used in the playing of the harp.  On the violin the glissando is a difficult virtuoso effect produced by a rapid succession of minute distinct movements of the hand.  This effect should not be confused with the portamento, which is easily produced by a continuous movement of the hand.  The so-called glissando of the trombones practically always is a portamento.
48
General Discussion / Re: A little mistake in the helpfile.
In the 1980's I was part of a team creating a LISP system for the IBM mainframes, partially based on SCHEME, and on the so-called spaghetti stack.  As we were finishing LISP-VM the Common LISP effort started, leaving us with a system that deviated from the (still incomplete) standard.  We presented a paper on our design and one of the LISP and functional programming conferences, entitled "Experience with an un-common LISP".  For quite a while we were receiving re-print requests from speech therapists!
50
General Discussion / Re: Timing or Mathmatical Problem
Quote
there seems to be no ambiguity to serious and educated keyboard players how music should be read.

Using this as an argument that there is no ambiguity in how it is written makes no sense. 

I truly think that it is equivalent to a trap-door cypher, where having a program to read the encoded message gives you no information as to how to create it, and vise-versa.