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Topic: Accents and Dynamics (Read 8558 times) previous topic - next topic

Accents and Dynamics

1. The NWC font has an accent ^ but no means of inserting it! Or am I mistaken? You can insert it as a text item, but that's tedious.

2. Fast insert of a dynamic remembers the staff position but I can't get it to remember that the visiblity is top staff only. Am I missing something?

Peter

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #1 –
Regarding 1: You are correct, it is in the font, but not available without using text expressions.

Regarding 1: Fast insert updates properties to be consistent with prior dynamics. These include staff position, preserve width, justification, and placement, but not visibility.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #2 –
That's a pity. Would it be too difficult to implement it, with playback behaviour the same as the > accent? You did the same for diminuendo some time back.

Peter

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #3 –
As I understand it, ^ indicates a sharper accent than >.  If this is true, even better than Peter's suggestion might be to implement ^ with the current behavior of >, and make > somewhat less vigorous than it is today.  I've found that NWC's > is often too strong for my taste, so I end up inserting the > as a text item and implementing the audible accent in some other way.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #4 –
I do the same thing, Grant.
I've noticed that the problem is even more noticeable at lower dynamic levels.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #5 –
The problem is we really try not to change the way something currently works. We really hear about it when we make any kind of change to an existing capability.

That said, we will keep the problem under consideration.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #6 –
I use NWC in conjunction with a midi keyboard to do a lot of arranging and frequently make midi files from my NWC files to try out the arrangements; as a result, I am aware that the default note velocity in NWC is 110 (regardless of the note velocity in any midi file used to open an NWC file), and this increases to the maximum 127 when > is added. Personally, I would prefer a default velocity of around 90, with varying degrees of increase for different types of accent.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #7 –
And I always thought that the default velocity was forte (92), but you are correct. 110 seems to be the go. Of course the easiest way to change the velocity is to set a dynamic. They are as below:

10   ppp
14   ppp with >
30   pp
42   pp with >
45   p
63   p with >
60   mp
84   mp with >
75   mf
105   mf with >
92   f
127   f with >
108   ff
127   ff with >
127   fff
127   fff with >

As you can see, using > multiplies the velocity by 1.4 (limited to 127).
Personally, I'd like to see, as part of a file's setup, a mapping for default values for this SO THAT I CAN CHANGE 'EM! :-)

I think 1.4 would work well for ^, and 1.2 for >
And compress the dynamics to
ppp,pp,p, mp,mf, f,ff,fff = 25,38,51, 64,77, 90,103,116
(except for old files, which should use the old mapping)

A

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #8 –
Something that might solve the whole problem would be to allow the user to specify his or her preferred values for the various dynamic levels with and without accents.  These could be saved in the .NWC file (so that others who play the file can hear what the creator intended) as well as in a local configuration file so that the user wouldn't have to enter the values afresh for each new song.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #9 –
Whilst I agree that all this is very good stuff, my original plea (pretty please) was for a quick fix in 1.75 so that  hats could be put on the notes. (Hence the duplicated functionality and my comparison to diminuendo, which hardly needed (AFAIK) any programming since decrescendo had an identical effect).

Then in version 2 we could have the all singing/dancing enhancements.

Peter

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #10 –
I'm not sure there's a consensus that ^ _should_ be handled exactly like >.  As Reply 5 points out, NWS is (understandably) reluctant to change existing behavior for any feature, so it wouldn't be surprising if Eric wanted to avoid rashly creating new behavior he'd be stuck with later.

I would support the notion of addressing this in a later version.  (At which point I'll start agitating for the upside-down ^ for stem-down notes on layered staves, along with my already-stated wish for the ability to affect the location of articulation marks including >, _, ., as well as ^.)

In the meantime, there are certainly acceptable workarounds.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #11 –
But how would my interim proposal have any adverse effect on your long term one?

The ^ cannot be made any stronger than the existing > because there's not enough dynamic range to do this, and you yourself say it should not be weaker. So any implementation inside the present version implies that they would <have> to start out equal, but at least we would have the functionality.

In the new system the > could be made weaker by default or by user adjustment, but old files would still have to have the old dynamics system - however that had been configured. (This would be catered for in a way similar to lyric alignment).

So the Mark II menu would have two or three choices:
i.  Old method
ii./iii.  New Defaults/User Defined

So in short I don't see that there is any conflict.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #12 –
You have a point, but I can't help imagining the complaint being made that "^ and > used to mean exactly the same thing, and now they don't".

I'm just saying that if it were up to me, I'd make this part of a more comprehensive package.  Obviously, though, it's not up to me.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #13 –
Consider the dffect of NOT having ^ available as a choice of articulation.  I just finished taking 3 trumpet parts of a hand-written big-band chart and moving them to NWC for clarity.  When they were printed, I had to go over them individually and add about 20+ "hats" in the appropriate places to each trumpet part.  Besides the problem of making an erroneous entry, all those marks in pencil destroy the visual effect of the otherwise "clean" hardcopy.  And I will have to make "excuses" when I hand them out.  Not having ^ as an option is a serious drawback, at least VISUALLY.

The option of adding all those ^'s as text involves getting all of them to line up above the notes where desired, and that can change depending on the final formatting of each line -- it's time consuming and frustrating.

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #14 –
If you use "Justification - Center" and "Alignment - at next note/bar" the little hats should line up just fine, regardless of printer settings and other variables. Give it a try!

Fred

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #15 –
Funnily enough I was having the same nightmare/Headache as PeterJ, which prompted this thread. Certainly it can be done, although vertical alignment is not so straightforward, but there is no musical effect on playback. And I hate different staves for vision/playback and avoid them if I possibly can.

No, select a group of notes and tell NWC to put their hats on is the way for me.

Peter

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #16 –
I understand your reluctance to use multiple staves.  Have you considered using hidden dynamics or MPC's on your visible staves instead?

For that matter, would it be so terrible just to use >'s?

Re: Accents and Dynamics

Reply #17 –
About different velocity boosts for '>' and '^':

In a future release it would be possible to have a song file property about the increase in velocity of both accents. I second +20% for '>' and +40% for '^', already proposed by Andrew in reply 7.

As for backward compatibility with old files: The program could have as a default the present value of +40% for both accents when a song file doesn't include specific user selected values (this will preserve old files as they have been prepared) but it should comply with new values if they are present. The drawback would be that this entails still another internal format change in NWC files, but perhaps this is the unavoidable price of progress.

On another related matter:

The range of specific internal duration of notes (in what is called Performance Style) could be enlarged as well. At present I think we have only three internal durations: staccato (less than 50%), normal (about 85-90%), and tenuto/legato (100%).

It would be welcomed to have visual markings connected to a wider range of internal durations. I propose "'" (staccatissimo), "." staccato, marcato, normal, "-" tenuto and "(bow)" legato, with durations of 25%, 50%, 75%, 90%, 95% and 100%. This wider range would certainly enhance the usefulness of NWC to achieve a better phrasing and articulation when playing back songs. I hope this will be possible.