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Double-Whole notes

I don't understand why doesn't Nwc has any double-whole
notes, we can select 4/2, but no double-whole note to fill the measure, if anybody thinks of replying by saying that the measure can be filled by one whole rest will do, WRONG!
To the player it seems as only the half of the measure and I know that because I'm getting a lot of complains in J.S.Bach's Mass in B-, because it looks that only half measure is to be played...
Why can't NW fix this?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #1 –
Artur,
The font boxmarks2 should fix this (for readers at least; you'll need to hide the corresponding two wholes in the score for corect playback).
The current beta version has this double-whole just a bit too small, though usable, and it will be corrected.

BTW, you could also divide all lengths by 2, and write your score in 4/4!
But some readers may be afraid of 32th... ;) ...though they should not be played quicker than the 16th in 4/2!

To do this in NWC 1.70, select the whole staff (End, Shift+Home), and press '-'. That's all. You just have to change the time signatures.
You may not want to re-beam things, as lyric have not changed (typically, different syllables are NOT beamed).

hope this helps!
Dominique

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #2 –
Oops!
Just forgot: you should also change the tempi!
Hint: before changing the Base (quarter, half...), select the Tempo value and copy it (Ctrl-C). Then change the Base (half becomes quarter, in your case), and paste (Ctrl-V) the value back in the Tempo cell (which has been updated automatically) to keep the same real value. Usually the automatic change is helpful, but we're in a special case!

NWCly yours,
Dominique

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #3 –
I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to change the tempo, if Bach wanted 4/2 (which was considered alla breve, so I just hid the 4/2) I can do nothing, the music really changes, it's psycollogical, the player sees it in a different way.
I use boxmark2, but it doesn't have the rest.
The rest is the problem, since the whole rest looks just like half measure and 2 wholes look like too many notes in the staff.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #4 –
In our tests, the whole bar/measure rest handles 4/2 time just as it should.

Double whole notes are not supported. You can tie two whole notes together. If you wish, you can hide them and use work around fonts to get the double whole note appearance.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #5 –
I can do all of that, the whole rest works as a full 4/2 measure, but that's not the point, it doesn't look right, it seems to the player (that only sees he's part) that there's only half of the 4/2 in the measure, and that makes him make a mistake in an orchestra.
I still don't know (and understand) why won't you put a doublw-whole note in Nwc.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #6 –
> I still don't know (and understand) why won't you put a
> doublw-whole note in Nwc.

Perhaps it has to do with priorities. In the three years I've been using NoteWorthy Composer, I personally haven't had the need for "double whole notes" even once. Other users may find it absolutely essential. I can only suggest posting your request to the wish list, the more people that suggest a given feature, the more likely it will be that the request will be considered for a future release. (Also have a look at the "wishes granted" list, to get an idea of just how many such requests have been honoured in the past.)

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #7 –
already done, but thanks.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #8 –
Artur wrote:
> if Bach wanted 4/2 I can do nothing.
I agree, 4/2 and 3/2 are totally different from 4/4 and 3/4.

Noteworthy on line wrote:
> If you wish, [you can] use work around fonts to get
> the double whole note appearance.

Personally I prefer to call them "supplemental" rather than "work around" fonts. ;-)

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #10 –
About reply 5:
Artur, a whole rest takes a full measure, even if it has 3, 4, 5 or 8 quarters in it!!
Maybe your readers should be reminded of this?
I've never seen TWO whole rests in 4/2 measures, so I wonder what the problem is. Except the reader's knowledge in music theory.
About double-whole, I'm gonna edit the "supplemental" font and fix it asap --within the current week.
HTH,
Dominique

PS. About r8: 4/2 differs from 4/4, in "unprepared" minds. But you agree, I suppose, that the tempo remains the same, if you divide lengths by 2, as in r1? just curious :)

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #11 –
NO, you are NOT right!
4/2 DIFFERS from 4/4 OTHERWISE, WHY WOULD BACH WRITE IN 4/2, NOT IN 4/4?YES HE HAD THE POSSIBILITY, BUT NO! HE WANTED THE 4/2 AND I´VE SEEN PROFESSIONAL SCORES AND THEY SHOW A DOUBLE-WHOLE REST! SO IF NW WANTS ITS PRODUCT TO LOOK PROFESSIONAL, INSERT THE DOUBLE-WHOLE REST!!!

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #12 –
so does shouting make you right?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #13 –
possibly

Then again, 4/2 and 3/2 are different from 4/4 and 3/4. In that 4/2 has 8 quarter notes in a measure and 4/4 only has 4. I think what marsu was trying to say is that they're related rather than flat out differning only in "'unprepared' minds."

About the whole rest, it technically only fills the space of 4 quarter notes. Having it fill a whole measure is the convention of the slacker publishers.

- observer 2 (a.k.a. Joseph Sowa)

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #14 –
According to my copy of "Rudiments and Theory of Music", "A semibreve rest is used for a whole bar's rest in any time except 4/2, when a breve rest is used".

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #15 –
>>>Then again, 4/2 and 3/2 are different from 4/4 and 3/4. In that 4/2 has 8 quarter notes in a measure and 4/4 only has 4.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter how many quarters there are. Both 4/2 and 4/4 indicate that a measure contains 4 units; the only difference is how these units are notated. In 4/4, the unit is quarter notes; in 4/2, half notes. As long as the quarter in 4/4 has the same duration as the half in 4/2, the difference between these two signatures is a visual one only.

That said, a visual difference is not necessarily negligible. Unless checked by a metronome, a musician is likely to play music slower if it's notated in "longer" notes. The problem is that notational practice has changed over time, generally in favor of "shorter" note values. (Note, for example, that the English term for "double whole note", the longest note in current use (and that rarely), is "breve", which is from the Latin word meaning "short". All the rest of the notes we use today are shorter than short.) This means that old music may look slower to today's musicians than it did to the composer's contemporaries. For this very reason, contemporary editions of pre-Baroque music are often printed with the note durations cut in half - e.g., 4/4 for 4/2, 3/4 for 3/2 and so on.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #16 –
Thank you Grant, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Much more better explained.

No need to scream for that, Artur!!

A beat is a beat, and a quarter may be a beat as well as a ...quarter(!) of a beat, that was what I was trying to expose.

Now to YOUR problem : if you've seen double-whole rests, then could you send me one (scan or hand-draw), so that I can add it in boxmark2.ttf ???
For on my side, I've NEVER EVER seen one, even (or specially?) on old scores made by old engravers. So I've absolutely no idea of it may look like.

And am I wrong if I say that, at Bach's period of time, noone had ever written 64th? So where would be the problem if dividing EACH note and time sigs? (just teasing, but in fact a serious discussion I already had with music teachers)

NWCly yours,
Dominique

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #17 –
I had no intention to shout whatsoever, but I did so because after explaining my points on and on, marsu wouldn't "get it".
Thanks John, you really understood me!

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #18 –
And is it your contention that typing something in all caps somehow makes it easier to understand?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #19 –
For what it's worth (which is probably precious little at this point), I was looking through the score of Frank Martin's "Petite symphonie concertante" tonight and noticed that it contains one and only one 4/2 measure. In this measure, a whole rest is used to indicate an empty measure; a half measure's rest is indicated by two half rests (I assume because the whole rest is already spoken for).

I don't buy the "slacker publishers" explanation either. This is quite a nicely printed edition by the "Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag" of Vienna (and if the Viennese don't know music, who does?). Does anyone seriously think that the publishers couldn't afford the time and/or ink to engrave an extra whole rest in the empty 4/2 measure if they thought it was the correct notation? In an edition of 150 pages? Pshaw.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #20 –
Finally, where could I see a "breve rest" ? I still have no clue about its shape...

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #21 –
Is it difficult for NW to input a breve?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #22 –
Grant suggested that a half measure rest needed to be two be two half note rests, but in fact NWC handles it quite nicely. If there is only one whole note rest in the bar then it covers the whole bar. If it is there with further notation in the bar then it assumes its correct (ie one semibreve) value.

So a whole (semibreve) rest is sufficient for a whole bar's silence - whatever the length of the bar (from 1/64 to 4/2). But when can we have a breve (double whole note) as a genuine note length? Please.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #23 –
I didn't suggest that it *needed* to be two half-rests. I suggested that it *made sense* for it to be two half-rests, so as to avoid confusion.

The alternative would be to use a whole (semibreve) rest to mean both "a whole measure's rest" and "a half-measure's rest" in different staves of the very same measure. I suppose you could defend this (and I understand why NWC can handle it) - but to ordinary human musicians I think it could be a bit confusing.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #24 –
Honestly I wasn't actually trying to be contentious here, but in 3/4 or 4/4 time (if you halved the time values, as has been suggested above) you'd expect to see a minim rest, so in 3/2 or 4/2 it should/ought/could be a semibreve rest. So Noteworthy in this instance allows us complete freedom of expression. Hurrah!

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #25 –
Wouldn't it look better with a breve?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #26 –
Will Nw do it?

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #27 –
NW almost never makes promises like this, particularly about enhancement requests. You just have to make your wish known and then hope and pray.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #28 –
In reply 20, marsu wrote :
> Finally, where could I see a "breve rest" ? I still have no clue about its shape...

I must check, but I think that a "breve rest" is twice as high as a "semibreve rest" (extends from 3rd line to 4th line), but half as width.

And I think there also are "two-breves rests" (two breves is a long ?) which are twice as high as the "breve rest" (extend from 2nd line to 4th line).

However, I only saw these on the "pre-staff" section of early music sheets, where there is a clue on how the music was originally written.

Re: Double-Whole notes

Reply #29 –
The breve rest may be the same as the 2-measure rest I requested on another thread (https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=1177.msg6020#msg6020).

Various combinations of 1-measure (whole; semibreve), 2-measure (double whole; breve) and 4-measure (quadruple whole; ?) rests are used in parts to denote 2 to 7 consecutive measures of rest (2, 2+1, 4, 4+1, 4+2, 4+2+1).