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Topic: Orchestral Parts Notation (Read 3122 times) previous topic - next topic

Orchestral Parts Notation

Hello, I just spent several hours notating a horn part for a performance I have next week. I thought I'd give my feedback for this type of usage:

1) It would be nice to be able to see text that is beyond the top of the displayable area. I added some text that appeared at the top of the first page, but with a placement of '30', you have to guess where the selection box is and get lucky.

2) I would like to have the '^' type accent as a real note type, not just text. It works ok as text, but if there is an accidental, you have to mess with adding spaces to place the note correctly.

3) Cresc, Decresc symbols. I tried the font option, but it's hard to line up the placement correctly on multi-measure cresc/decresc's. I would REALLY appreciate real symbols for this!!!

4) Multi-measure rests. PLEASE ADD THIS TOO! I used text, which works, but then I can't use measure numbers.

5) Add a 'page break' feature to allow breaks to occur where I want them, not where they happen to fall.

If I had items 3 & 4, I would be a very happy camper. As it is, the program worked well, but then I had to hand-write in the cresc and measure numbers.

Transposition was almost flawless- this function saved me a lot of grief!

Keep up the good work!

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #1
John,
do not forget to mention all this on the NWC Wish List :-)

Best regards,

  Marsu

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #2
Done! Thanks- I'm not very familiar with this site yet.

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #3
In regards to the multi-measure rests idea...keeping the correct measure numbers when using the boxmarks multi-measure rest marking is possible. You merely need to insert those measures of rests into the score, and then use the visibility options to hide them. Insert your boxmarks multi-measure rest marking in the middle of the hidden rests, making sure to use 'center' alignment and 'preserve width'. When you print, or print preview the score, it will now have the multi-measure rest marking, but all measures will still have the correct measure numbers. Once you have more than about 16 hidden measures, however, this work-around doesn't look as good. You could always use groups of 16 measures or less if you had a very large number of consecutive rests in a certain part.

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #4
On a similar theme NWC always counts a barline whether you want it counted or not (except interestingly when there are no notes or rest between successive ones), so that Master Repeats and Double Bar key changes appearing legitimately in the middle of a bar are counted when they shouldn't be.

I've already 'wished' that there could be a way of excluding such bars from the count, and perhaps this could be extended so that a bar line can have a user specified barcount increment. Then one could use hidden local repeats to skip the Tacit section.

More radically, perhaps NWC can implement a multi-bar symbol such that the user need not enter anything for that number of bars. The bars would still line up on multi-stave pieces.

Naturally the stave with these skipped bars would (optionally) be suppressed as appropriate on the printed page where multiple staves are printed - thus satisfying another wish too! On single stave printout however they would be collapsed into one repeat bar.

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #5
To see text that has a placement of 30 just increase the upper vertical size of the staff (from the Staff Properties dialogue) to something greater than 30.

HTH

Stephen

 

Re: Orchestral Parts Notation

Reply #6
Thanks! That works, but then I have to set the size back to 16 for printing. This is an acceptable workaround, though.