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Messages - melismata

1
General Discussion / Re: Figured Bass
      The "Rules" for realization seem, on the face of it, to be quite simple - see, for instance

   https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/figured-bass/


The difference between Text Chords like C7 or Em is that they always contain the same specific notes.  With figured bass, the notes , say in a 6 - 4 figure, would depend both on the note being figured as well as the key of the music being played.  Realisation will therefore be trickier for sure.

Also, if you are not using the latest version of NWC, then I suggest that you upgrade as you are missing quite a lot, both through the native upgrade itself as well as to the add on tools by 3rd parties.

Enjoy!

2
General Discussion / Re: Figured Bass
   Does anyone know whether anyone - and Rick would have been the obvious man -
has done anything to let NWC read/write figured Bass?  I can guess that the figures would be inserted as a lyric, and that they could then be read and converted, possibly in real time, as the Score is played, to the relevant notes (which could perhaps then be inserted in ordinary note format into the Score).

   MusicJohn, 30/Jan/22




Possibly, if not quite probably as well,  it can. 

There is already a user tool, called ChordPlay.nw, that allows one to insert chords like C7 etc and plays them as well in real time.  Figured bass is essentially a chord text (numbers) configuration built on a bass note.

Probably it simply requires somebody with the skill and time to do it.

However, ChordPlay.nw is read and play only.  Writing script that works the other way round, ie writes figured bass or chord symbols from a score, is another kettle of fish and may be more diffident to achieve.

3
General Discussion / Re: Favourite/preferred Soundfont(s)
I use NWC with VirtualMIDISynth  to drive Sinfonia_36.sf2 soundfont.

If I need to produce and MP3, then I export to MIDI and use Synthfont2 to render MIDI to MP£.  I use the same soundfont with  Synthfont2.  This software can use VST plugins but I never bothered to explore in that direction as my needs are satisfied just using the sf2.

Results are quite passable for, say, adding background music to a holiday snaps video.
6
Announcements / Re: Forum/Server Upgraded (August 2020)
Since a few days ago, online synching for objects has stopped working.  Has anyone else experienced this?  Is this related to the forum update?  Or is it something else, totally unrelated?

Thank you,

Noel Ciantar
8
General Discussion / Re: Best wishes to all here
Covid19 may be present in many places, including tears, sweat, faeces etc.  They also tell us that it can be found on soles of shoes, survives on clothing, plastics etc.

However, (any) virus(es} require what is called "a viral load" for one to be infected as well as the right point of entry.  For Covid, the Respiratory System (nose and throat) are the point of entry and the easiest way for this virus to spread is via aerosols - there is both the viral numbers (load) and the mode of entry (nose and mouth for those who breathe through the mouth).  Against this, only specialised (N95) masks a good protection for the wearer as these fit exactly on the face and leave no opening.  In fact, to wear them correctly, one has to do a "fit test" to check which is the correct size to use.  Also, having a beard is not a good idea is it might leave gaps.  These are best left for the Health Professionals on their job

Other face masks, like the green surgical masks and other fabric masks do not protect the wearer at all as they leave gaps around the face and nose but help in preventing aerosols should the wearer cough or sneeze.  They may help in protecting 3rd parties but they may also lull the wearer into a false sense of security.

PROPER hand hygiene is the second most important step in the fight against the virus and is also the MOST important step for the people at large as opposed to health professionals.  It is rather unlikely that that the virus found on plastics, clothes, faeces etc gets into one's nostrils and with an adequate viral load.  Generally such contamination happens when there is poor hand hygiene and one touches the face, especially the nostrils or the mouth.  Good hand hygiene (with an emphasis on the word "good") acts as a barrier.

The second most important defence against Covid19 for the people at large is social distancing and avoiding crowds.  If you are alone or living with an uninfected person, then nobody can infect you.  If you stay at least 2metres/6feet away from others, even if they sneeze, the chances that the droplet that you may inhale from that distance will have the viral load necessary to infect you are very low.  Not impossible of course and quarantine and isolation is even better than social distancing.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there, as well as scaremongering and even people taking advantage of the situation to make money.  Effectively, to protect yourself all you need to do is practice good hand hygiene (soap and water IS enough as soap dissolves the virus fat-capsule) and practice social distancing as much as is humanly possible if not isolation.  And in the meantime, try to eat well (veg, fruit, nuts etc) to fortify your immunity and exercise at home (even simply, like walking up and down the stairs say 10 times a day) to keep your muscles toned.

In the long run, we may never get back to our pre-Covid normal until a vaccine is found.

By the way, I am a (practising) Medical Laboratory Scientist by profession and a NWC dabbler in my spare time.  The two are not mutually exclusive, you know!  8)  8)  8) 

Keep well!


9
General Discussion / Re: grace note slurring problem
You have to highlight the last-but-one note.  Highlight up to the E and the slur will link the D (of the grace note) as well.  Why this should be so is a mystery to me but that's how it works.
11
General Discussion / Re: Possible bug with Wing Dings font?
If it is lower than 1.1 then you have an older version that may not include all the glyphs.

Dear Lawry,

Thanks for the tip.  Yes, the version(s) that I was using in the pack were labelled 1.0.  I updated the pack using the remover and installer from your link above and now it works like it should.  Took me just three minutes flat to sort out!

Thank you all for your input and apologies for originally missing the "S" in the font name as it threw people off the track.

melismata
14
General Discussion / Re: Possible bug with Wing Dings font?
So, if I might ask a (potentially) stupid question: why are you using the Dings font for drawing a marcato symbol? (As opposed to just using the built-in marcato.)  Are you running an older version of NWC that doesn't have marcato?

But I AM using the "built in" marcato, Mike!  But with the Dings font as the default font, the in built marcato font shows this anomaly.  Essentially, why should something work differently when used on adjacent notes with the stems in opposite direction?  (BTW I am running that latest version of NWC 2.75a.2 but not the more recent beta version)

15
General Discussion / Possible bug with Wing Dings font?
I just love using Wing Dings font!

However, I just discovered that with the  Marcato sign, it works well only when the note stem points downwards.  It does not work well when the note stem is pointing upwards.

Is there a workaround?  (Mind you, I can live with it!)

Thank you

17
User Tools / Re: Updating User tools
Just a small observation, NWC's update mechanism is for User Objects, not User Tools.  Warren's suggestion re: tools is valid, OTOH, Objects use the online synch button in the <Ctrl+J> dialogue.

Yes, you're right.  I had the User Objects in mind when I submitted the original post.  My mistake.

But the question remains the same:  Does the synch update button in NWC scan for  Objects that have not been actually installed, perhaps by oversight, in the first place?

Thank you
18
User Tools / Updating User tools
While NWC has an in-built mechanism to update user tools that have been changed by the author, does this also download user tools that  (inadvertently) have not been downloaded and installed by the user?

If not, how can this be done short of checking the list one by one with what is on the site?  This may also be an idea for a new user tool (wish, wish ...)

Thank you,
19
General Discussion / Re: Beginner Tuba range
Interesting delivery  ;)
Some comments:
  • I ... <SNIP>>(this is how I started on trombone, and the books I used had the same approach for Euphonium and trumpet)

I hope this is helpful.

Of course, the big difference being that non pedal notes on a trombone are produced using the slide mechanism while notes on the tuba are fingered.  Hence, that approach would be probably the best way for the trombone. 

However I suspect that it would also be the best on other instruments too.  Keeping such a composition limited to a few notes in a restricted range of notes for a newbie, as Lawrie advised would be the best for any instruments.  I would also suggest avoiding large skips, even within the restricted range, for the very first lessons.
21
General Discussion / Strange music typeface
I am in the process of transcribing a piece of music into Noteworthy Composer.  It is a Te Deum, by an obscure Victorian composer that was written round about 1849 for a particular event.

The score that I have is PRINTED in some strange music font which, however, does not actually look unpleasant at all.  It looks quaint. The minims ALL face to the left, even when they are on the middle line (B or D, depending on the clef) and above.  At the end, the music ends in a squiggle. There is also the word “sym:” at places where the voices rest for a bar or two – which I could not find out what it means.

I was wondering what sort of typeface it is and if there are music fonts that reproduce this typeface.  They would look nice if used on music from that era.

My grandfather was a drum major in the British army and he used to copy parts for the band (fo ha’penny per page, go figure!).  I still remember seeing some of the music that he had copied  using that convention for minims and also ending the lines with a squiggle.

An takes  on this?  (See attached)
24
General Discussion / Spacing between lyric lines - Revisited
Is there any way to increase the spacing between lyric lines?  The only previous discussion that I found on the boards was from 18 years ago and further back in time.  NWC has evolved since then and maybe something new has come up which I am not aware of.  Work-arounds with layering or using alternate lines are not quite suitable IMHO.
25
General Discussion / Re: Playback problem in Linux
Goeff,

I am using Linux Mint version 19.1 ("Tessa") and NWC 2.71a and had the same problem.

I found this solution to play midi through NWC (provided that you have Timidity installed, which you said that you do):

1.  In TERMINAL, copy and paste into terminal the following line and press Enter:
             timidity -iA
2. Then, run noteworthy composer in WINE  and choose the "MIDI Through Port 0" in Options/MIDI

It works for me.

Noel
28
General Discussion / Re: An idea
Hmmeuller, I do believe that NWC needs (nay, deserves) a book/website as you are suggesting

But there is a huge problem:

With the advent of scripting, NWC is becoming like a chameleon - it is changing continuously.  The basic program remains the same but the number of add-ins is increasing rapidly making a book outdated as soon as it is published.  A website might be the better option.

It is not that I don't like the add-ons (thanks to people like your good self).  In fact I have a number embedded in my standards templates.  This include, for example, the winged repeats and melismatic amongst others.

My gripe is that if they are so easy to include as add-ons with scripting, why on earth were they not included in the original standard program?  Do you remember the work-arounds for the scissors for crescendo and diminuendo?  Now they are embedded within the standard program.

With a standard program that has standardised features it is possible to write a good book that lasts for a while.  Otherwise, go for the website and prepare yourself to update frequently.

Also, is it legal  to publish a book about a 3rd party  propriety program without the programmer's consent (I don't now anything about these legal things) ?

Footnote:  For all add-on programmers, please do not take this as an insult but as a plea for a standardised program.  Please keep the add-ons coming as, with the absence of in-built features, they are a boon to those who really want  good-looking and neat scores.   Maybe this can help NWC programmer(s) understand what we users want and maybe incorporate the stuff in a new version of the updated program.

There, I got it off my chest finally.  I hope that I have not let the cat amongst the pigeons.
29
General Discussion / Re: Printing to PDF
Thank you everyone. I have downloaded the free version of PDF creator and I am able to get single documents but I cannot get the Merge feature to work and I would like to include a bio and a cover page. I am submitting some composition to a contest!

First thing:  If "nothing happens" when you press the button to print as you said in an earlier post, the dialogue might be hiding behind some open window.  Check your task bar.

Merging with PDFcreator is fairly easy and I have done it myself several times.

Print BIO to PDF but press MERGE rather than save.  DO NOT PRESS CONTINUE but go on to print the next document
Print your COVER PAGE: this will go automatically to the merge group.  DO NOT PRESS CONTINUE but go on to print the next document
Print your NWC score: again this will go directly to the merge group
If you are ready, PRESS CONTINUE and continue with the usual dialogue as if you are printing a normal file.

Save the (combined) file to whatever location and with whatever name you desire.

Note that this way you can print a mixture of documents from different sources (eg text, pictures, spreadsheet and, of course, NWC)

Hope that this works for your needs.
30
General Discussion / Re: Recording video and sound from NWC playback
This is the method that I use:

*   Save/export the nwc file as midi
*   Download Synthfont freeware (the paid version costs €15 but the freeware version will do just as well)
*   Download the sound font of your choice and load it into Synthfont  (I use synfonia36.sf sound font for orchestral pieces).
*   Open your midi in Synthfont and press the record button.  You can choose to save as MP3, WAV etc.

The sound quality depends on your choice of sound font of course.
31
General Discussion / Lyric line spacing
Is there a way to alter the spaces between lyric lines? 

This would surely be a useful option for printouts if it is not there already (and I cannot see it)
32
General Discussion / Audit Note Stems
Is there a shortcut/keyboard combination to run /tools/Audit/Audit Note Stems  (or any of the other Audit functions for that matter) ?  This is a frequently used function and it would be quite convenient to have it as a button in the menu.
33
User Tools / Re: Number notation tool
I looked at the Wikipedia link and was intrigued.

I also looked at the Wikipedia article but I was not intrigued.   I was bewildered about how anyone could come up with such a system and peddle it as an alternative to traditional notation.  Looking at the score submitted, it looked like a complex collection of numbers and dots.  Why go for this method when the traditional method withstood the test of time (about 1000 years or so).  And what about the huge corpus of music available in traditional notation?  IMHO, this numeric system may be OK to teach newbies the first concepts of time and pitch but that's just about it.
35
General Discussion / Re: Midi (as is) to .wav
I use Synthfont in combination with Sinfonia36 soundfont.  But you must export to midi first before importing to Synthfont.  In combination with the soundfont (s) of your choice, you can make MP3s or WAVs with the sonority that you desire.  An analogy would be like this:  a midi file is like a music score, telling you what to sing in terms of pitch duration etc.  Your soundfont would be as if you're getting the musicians of your choice to render that score.  Like I said, for orchestral music I use Sinfonia36 soundfont.  With Synthfont, one can use different soundfonts of their own choice for the different instruments in the track.  It is really very simple to do and you can play around with different soundfonts until you get the right sound that you desire if you want to.
38
General Discussion / Re: Downgrade to 2.5.5
It can be done if you kept a version of the previous 2.5.5 installer (uninstall and reinstall the older version).

But why on earth should you ?  The basics of 2.75 are the same as that of 2.5.5 but the added goodies are way beyond belief.  I have been converted to 2.75 and would not go back even if you paid me!  My suggestion would be to continue using 2.75 and simply use what you are used to using - those things have not changed at all.
39
Object Plugins / Re: WingedRepeats.fso (version 1.2)
I am finding some problems with this otherwise excellent object.

After executing a "print preview" on a piece of music that has this object running, I get two error messages (see attached) - "Execution limit exceeded" followed by "The WingedRepeats.fso object plugin has been suspended".  The wings disappear from the score.  The only way to recover the winged version of the score is to exit nwc and restart the program and load the file afresh.

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong ?
40
User Tools / Re: TransposeStaffs.og
I cannot get this to be seen/loaded into nwc.  All other lua scripts install and work fine and update regularly.  This one cannot be "seen" by nwc.  Am I doing something wrong ?
42
General Discussion / Re: What does it take to get real support?
If you download it, you don't get a CD.  I find the need to find a letter that would have been received about 5 years ago as annoying as the original poster.

I bought my ncw as a CD rather than as a download.  Whenever I buy software, I always go for the CD version first and only go for the download version if there is no other option.

Even then, I burn the downloaded copy to CD and licenses and receipts as pdf files as well, That apart from writing the license number on a sticker and fix it to the CD cover as well.

It's never an overkill to protect your software.


43
General Discussion / Re: Song templates in 2.51
That feature appears to have been removed.

Yes I noticed and I too find it a bit of a pain.

I used to put the templates folder under "My Documents" and it got backed up with the rest when I used to carry out backups of My Documents.  I have a number of fine tuned templates that suit my exact needs that I don't want to lose.

Putting this folder under the Noteworthy folder in Program Files is awkward to say the least for backing up purposes.

What I cannot understand is why remove such a useful feature unless of course there is a technical reason for doing so.  The same goes for the "dynamics" buttons which have also disappeared.  In this sense, NWC is now a bit poorer than the previous version.

Is there a possibility or at least a hope of getting these two features back ?


45
General Discussion / Re: Orchestral Scores
Peter, my tuppence worth:  (etc)

Haymo,

It's uncanny but I use exactly the same metrics that you do: 20 pt for the parts, 16 pt for the score, abbreviated names, printing the score and parts to pdf etc.  I don't use spacers much however - maybe I should and I will look into that.

And yes, larger measure and page numbers (especially page number) would be a boon.  Even more so if size can be selected by user.
46
General Discussion / Re: Difficult Notation
Boxmarks & Boxmark2 are strictly text only.
If you want to have it sounding correctly,
(at present) in NWC you would have to mute the printing staves and create hidden staves,
where every single note is notated.

Of course, you are right Hymo and thanks for pointing this out.  Having seen the attached picture, my mind immediately went into "printing" mode and forgot all about the sounds!
47
General Discussion / Re: Difficult Notation
There are two issues here and these can be resolved separately

You have notes in a chord where the lower note has it's stem pointing upwards while the higher note has it's stem pointing downwards.  This is resolved by using different staves and then combining them into one using the technique called layering.

The second issue is the tremolo markings (you describe this as "the instrument making buzzing sounds").  This you can resolve by installing the "Boxmark2" font freely available from the Scriptorium and insert the mark as a "text" entry.  There may be other fonts on the Scriptorium that have these marks but these are the one that I normally use.

50
General Discussion / Re: Printing Title Info on a Separate Page
Maybe a "Bug Fix" in the next update can be a checkbox that pre-pends a blank title page so printer drivers automatically generate the correct pagination in duplex mode.  (The actual title page would be created on a word processor) Just my 2¢.

Actually this already exists.  From the Page Setup menu in NWC you can define what page number printing should start with, provided that it is 1 or greater.  This means that you can start page numbering on 2, 3, 4 etc.  Combined with blank pages,  I think that you can easily achieve what you desire.