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Topic: Toooo Staccato? (Read 5894 times) previous topic - next topic

Toooo Staccato?

Does anyone else find the staccato produced by NWC a tad on the short side?

My musical dictionary tells me that staccato notes are "detached". As I see it (and play it), the note duration may vary according to context and style. Perhaps I could put a wish forward for variable length staccato i.e. the fraction of a written duration a staccato should be. Options for implementation include:

1 a global definition - i.e. all statccato notes in a file have the same fractional duration which can be specified in a menu somewhere.

2 a marker (style mark?) which can be inserted in the staff to change the fractional duration from that point forwards.

3 definition of more than one staccato style simultaneously (with appropriate notations) to allow staccatissimo and ... (what is it called when you have a staccato dot and a tenuto score on the same note?) and staccato within slurs as well as plain vanilla staccato

Any comments?

Stephen Randall

Re: Toooo Staccato?

Reply #1 –
After some exporting and importing (with very high precision on note lengths), I found a quarter note will:

on staccato, come back as a 16th note (ie note's length is quartered)
on slurred staccato, come back as 9/64ths (ie note's length is just over half)

One can also here differences when playing back slurred and unslurred (sounds right to my ears, well for piano, anyway) though import couldn't pick up the difference (maybe that it automatically simplifies what it's reading... I dunno).

I agree, it'd be nice (and I would have thought easy) to make these settings (staccato, staccatissimo and slurred staccato) at least globally definable. Another for the wish list.
I THOUGHT (but can't remember where I read it) that staccato made a note play half its written length.
Anyone know for SURE?

Andrew

Re: Toooo Staccato?

Reply #2 –
I agree. One composer's staccato is another's detache. The articulation signs often have a meaning known only to the composer. This applies also as you say to tenuto, marcato and sforzando. There needs to be a look-up to tell the computer what each should mean in a given piece of music.

Re: Toooo Staccato?

Reply #3 –
I think I always learned that staccato called for about half the length of the original note. It was only to be detached. Of course, A string detahced is much longer than a wind instrument, since the decay is longer. Midi staccato is actually short, it seems, which only actually is called for in contemporary music, where, more often than not, it's downright ugly. As well as loud and strident.
The tenuto marking WITH a staccato should make it better, but shouldn't be necessary.

Re: Toooo Staccato?

Reply #4 –
Agreed, I often find staccato is too short. I would like half to three quarters duration but a variable facility would be nice.