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Topic: new barline type? (Read 11682 times) previous topic - next topic

new barline type?

I would like NWC to be able to do dashed barlines, which are useful in transcribing early music (where the original barring may be inconsistent, and where an editor often wants to differentiate between the barlines in the original and the barlines he has added) and in many modern scores (where dashed barlines are often used to group beats in complex measures). It doesn't seem like this would take much, just one extra option under barline type. In most cases, dashed barlines shouldn't figure in the measure count, but we already have the ability to remove them from that.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #1 –
Seems simple enough to be done, and, as you said, quite useful...

Re: new barline type?

Reply #2 –
Just using the default TNR text, I used the logical OR symbol: | to produce a line which covers just the two middle spaces.
Since 1998

Re: new barline type?

Reply #3 –
You can achieve the same effect by layering a three line staff with actual bar lines.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #4 –
Here is another way.

Carl
Carl Bangs
Fenwick Parva Press
Registered user since 1995

Re: new barline type?

Reply #5 –
Very clever Carl, and it leads to the attached solution to a nagging problem - a Fine in the middle of a bar. A user edited system font with a near-zero width notehead would tighten up the spacing. The notehead could even be designed to be a small vertical and not use the dots. It has playback implications, but I'm working on that.
Registered user since 1996

Re: new barline type?

Reply #6 –
Thanks for the suggestions, all of you. I particularly like Carl's way, although you'd have to put it on a layered staff to avoid affecting the playback (unless Rick comes up with something).

But these workarounds, useful as they are, can't do all the tricks a real barline can. I've attached an example, from Noah Greenberg's Elizabethan Songbook (1955). A few things to note are the way the dotted barline crosses multiple staves, the spot where a dotted barline in the lute part lies against a regular barline in the voice, and (particulaly) the system break that comes at a dotted barline. All of these things can be worked around - some more easily than others. A "broken barline" type would take care of all of them, without any significant change in the programming.

So - yes. We can get along without it, thanks to NWC's wonderful flexability in performing workarounds. But it would still be nice to have a real dotted barline.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #7 –
I don't think any one can hear the rhythmic distortion in this.
Carl Bangs
Fenwick Parva Press
Registered user since 1995

Re: new barline type?

Reply #8 –
Hi Carl -

I agree that the rythmic distortion in your second example is minimal. But there is still a detectable pause, even when you place a slur across all four notes.

I'm not knocking the technique - it's a great workaround, and I intend to use it, and thank you very much. It's just that a new barline type would be so simple to implement, and so useful....

Re: new barline type?

Reply #9 –
G'day all,
umm, what's wrong with the one in Boxmark2?  Or in my suites for that matter...

Being text it doesn't affect playback, though I do agree that there would be advantages for a "real" one.  However, it would have to be possible to flag it as able to be ignored in a barline audit...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
what's wrong with the one in Boxmark2?  Or in my suites for that matter...
  • 4 diamonds cluttering the Editor
  • The dashes cross the staff lines irregularly
  • The Fine crosses the pseudo barline
  • Needs to be redone if the Sysfont size changes
  • Needs to be redone if the staff vertical size changes

NWC2 would be improved by adding dashed barlines. They are common enough to warrant support.
Custom text fonts are not the answer when the object needs to span varying musical intervals and/or staves. The needs here are the same as for an arpeggio. Grace noteheads in a custom system font are much more stable. If workarounds must be used, the Map object that I proposed in the beta newsgroup a few months back would be ideal.
Registered user since 1996

Re: new barline type?

Reply #11 –
Greetings, Lawrie -

Rick said it for me, except he didn't mention the difficulty Noah Greenberg would have had creating the system-ending barline in the example I attached a few posts above. Doable, but difficult. And we already have the capability to exclude barlines from the measure count - nothing new needs to be added there.

But thanks for the input. Still haven't tried your symbol suites....too much going on in my life....gotta slow down somewhere....

Cheers, Bill

P.S.: just noticed that the two staves I called the "lute part" in that example are actually a piano part. Oh, well - it started out as a lute part, so I feel partially justified.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #12 –
G'day guys,
well, I did say that a real one would be better...  ;)

Rick
  • I know you don't like clutter in the editor, but it doesn't worry me if it has a purpose.
  • I agree the dashes cross irregularly, perhaps I could have spent a little more time lining things up.
  • OK, it was a quick and dirty, I needed to hit the road on my bicycle, and I didn't bother to move the "Fine".  My oversight there...
  • If the sysfont changes size, then you would normally need to change other font sizes to suit anyway...  Especially boxmarks


William, the one at the end of the staff is doable this way, place a normal, hidden barline with a sysbreak there and then the text one centred at next note/bar just before it. 

It wasn't the barline count that I was concerned with, but a barline audit, which would remove it.  The same barline audit would bugger up the one at the end of the staff in your example.  Perhaps another barline parameter would help - "ignore in audit".

All that said, I still agree that a real one would be best, but in the meantime...

I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: new barline type?

Reply #13 –
Attached is how I would edit this for publication. I used modern capitalizaton standards throughout. I also changed the TimeSig to 4/2. Alla Breve + [2/2] might have meant something a few hundred years ago, but today I think it just confuses things. The dashed (dotted) barlines make no sense if the piece is not 4/2 or 8/4.

For real publication, I would use a modified system font with  "|"  replacing the diamond notehead, but since I can't attach fonts here, dots will have to suffice.

Note that there are no SysBreaks on the pseudo barlines. The way the song is progressing it doesn't look like any will be needed. One would only do that as a last resort. Of the hundreds of songs I have done (hymns excepted), only one has SysBreaks mid-barline. That piece is Schubert's Ave Maria, which NWC requires 14pt to get 2 bars/line. I get angry just thinking about it. When I have a spare 3 days, Schubert is going into (the) LilyPond ...
Registered user since 1996

Re: new barline type?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Rick G. –
<snip> When I have a spare 3 days, Schubert is going into (the) LilyPond ...

Yeah, we really could use better note spacing controls...  Already discussed elswhere...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.
 

Re: new barline type?

Reply #15 –
Very nice job, Rick. The dotted barlines look good done in this manner. I think we agree, though, that it would be better to have real ones. As to the system breaks, I am currently transcribing a piece I wrote for piano around 1965. As you may recall, that was an era when everybody tried to get "creative" with notation, and I was no exception. The piece is written in 1/4, so there is a barline every quarter-note equivalent, and all of them are dotted except the section breaks. Of course, I was a student, and students exaggerate everything; and since it's my piece, I'm going ahead and changing all the dotted barlines back to solid ones. But I've seen other pieces that do similar things. Check out Harrison Birtwistle's Ritual Fragment some day - every one of its barlines is dotted. (Try to do that without a system break on a dotted line!)

You are probably right about the 2/2 time, unless you are trying to keep everything the same as it was in the original insofar as possible, which Greenberg was (he was the founder of the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, and he was a bear for historical accuracy). The 2/2 was Greaves' time signature, but he hadn't put all the barlines in, so Greenberg added some - in dotted lines so performers could tell them from the originals.

Anyway, thanks for the input. With all the workarounds possible, this is probably not a high priority item. It's just that it seems so simple to add....