I regularly create charts for several transposing instruments that are identical except for the transpositions (C, Bb and Eb usually) but this is the first time I activated playback of the Chordplay objects on all staves.
Very often I make use of Chordplay but very rarely, if ever, used the play option, so I was unaware of this problem.
I have to investigate what can be done. I think it can be corrected. Maybe Mike already knows a solution...
Last post by Lawrie Pardy -
Hi peoples, especially @Flurmy and @Mike Shawaluk, do any of you regularly use Chordplay, and if so, do you use it to create chords for transposing instruments? Today I tried to do something a little different to what I usually do* in that I activated playback for chordplay chords on a staff for a Concert pitch instrument. This has always been fine. Then I copied that entire staff to new one and transposed it for a Bb instrument (+2 semitones) with playback transposition checked. The cacophony was dreadful. The staff was playing back at concert pitch, as it should, BUT the Chordplay objects were not. Unless I'm badly mistaken it appears that Chordplay ignores the staff playback transposition.
Has anybody else noticed this? Or do I have something very unusual going on. This enquiring mind would like to know.
FYI I also tried my unedited copy of Chordplay.nw and it was the same.
* I regularly create charts for several transposing instruments that are identical except for the transpositions (C, Bb and Eb usually) but this is the first time I activated playback of the Chordplay objects on all staves.
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Last post by Mike Shawaluk -
You might be wondering why the tremolo beams are positioned so high on some of the notes, especially the eighth note (quaver) in measure 2. The object sets the default vertical position of the beams/strokes differently for single notes with plain stems, single notes with flags, beamed notes, and whole notes. The position is a small offset from either the end of the stem, the tip of the flag, or the inside edge of the beam closest to the notehead. In general, the preferred way to adjust the vertical position is to increase the note's stem length, but if you don't care if the tremolo beam collides with the note's actual beam or flag, you can use the Offset parameter, which I see you have already done in a few cases.
Last post by jonnotes -
Yes, but quavers (eighth notes) and smaller already have one or more beams/tails which now become part of the tremolo, and are not additional to it.
To be honest, I'm not sure I explained myself clearly, either!
Attached is a more explicit demonstration of what happens when you apply the object over a whole phrase - you need to hear it to understand my view.
In fact, I don't foresee many situations when I shall need to tremolo-ise whole phrases like this, but at least I now know what to do!
Onwards, upwards (as they say) with some serious score transcriptions and probable arrangement work for 'The Chimes' which I have volunteered to MD in December...
Last post by Mike Shawaluk -
This is the relevant page from "Behind Bars". Perhaps I didn't state things clearly, but it seems to agree with what Wikipedia says. Namely, each tremolo beam (which Behind Bars calls "strokes") has the same effect as an additional beam, regarding the duration of individual tremolo notes.
Last post by jonnotes -
Gentlemen - once again, many thanks for your diligent attention to my questions...!
Nevertheless, I take issue with the idea of adding the note's beams and tremolo strokes to calculate its duration...(?) I don't think this can be right - for me, the audible effect is the bottom line - and I cannot recall an instance where the composer intends the speed of tremolo notes to increase merely because of the number of stems on the note. As hmmueller says "Of course, the tremolo speed is the same everywhere in a phrase.".
I don't have access to Behind Bars, but I took some assurance from the Wikipedia article on tremolo:
"Commonly, for example, the duration used will be demisemiquavers (thirty-second notes). In this case, there will be three strokes through the stems of the notes, except on notes which already have beams or flags [my emphasis]: quavers (eighth notes) then take two slashes, and semiquavers (sixteenth notes) take one."
The effect of this is to make all the tremolo notes the same (thirty-second notes or demisemiquavers). The notated example in Wikipedia shows just that: a tremolo phrase of mostly crotchets (quarter notes) where the one quaver (eighth note) has just two additional beams (=tails) to bring its total (as for every other note) to three.
As I say, the effect of the object can generally be mitigated by adjustments to individual instances of the tremolo.
Once you're aware of it it's not absurd, but maybe changing it to take care of the already present beams would be more intuitive. In this optic, there is also the problem of manually lengthen the note stem to make room for the tremolo.
There's not much I can do on that account. A user object can't tell NWC to draw (or change the playback of) its notes differently. If this were possible, it wouldn't be necessary to mute notes for effects that have playback. Perhaps if there is ever a "next generation" of NWC, it will allow for this sort of interaction between objects and native notes.
At least now it is easier to lengthen/shorten note stems on the fly, using Alt+Up/Down arrow.
Last post by Flurmy -
Once you're aware of it it's not absurd, but maybe changing it to take care of the already present beams would be more intuitive. In this optic, there is also the problem of manually lengthen the note stem to make room for the tremolo.
