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Topic: chord member properties (Read 4394 times) previous topic - next topic

chord member properties

Hi.

I want to perform a trill, but on the other hand to  leave the score notes as they should be properly look like
( with a "tr" from above and without seeing the actual notes of the trill ).

one way to do it is with a hidden staff.
that seems a bit wasteful.

if I try it with some hidden notes - I come across with the problem of the original note still being sounded.
when I add this original note a chord member of the same pitch but with a shorter duration - I come across two problems :
1) I can't mute just the original one.
2) I can't hide just the new shorter one.
3) the hidden notes are damaging the beeming.

is there a way for me to handle this problem better ?

ori

Re: chord member properties

Reply #1 –
No.  Hidden staff it is, wasteful though it might be.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #2 –
You can use the behaviour of grace notes to achieve what you want.

A grace note (of whatever length) has a playing duration of a demisemiquaver (1/32) and it takes this time from the following proper note. You can put the whole trill into hidden grace notes before the trill note itself. If you want longer trill notes then tie grace notes together.

If the trill length is shorter than the duration of the visible note then it will sound for the balance of its duration once the trill has sounded, but otherwise you will need to mute the visible note, because in that situation it sounds along with the first note of the trill!

This is not ideal since you are restricted to multiples of 1/32, and not even triplets have an effect on grace note playing lengths :-(

If you want an appoggiatura then leave one of the grace notes visible.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #3 –
Peter's method works well.  I apologise for getting it wrong.  As well as the trilled note as grace notes, you might also need to have the untrilled notes also as grace notes, in chords - one for every note of the trill - and all tied to the next, with the last one tied to the visible note in the original chord.  If you do this, you prevent the time-delay of the non-trilled notes.  As Peter suggested, all of the grace notes should be hidden.

If you have an appoggiatura, the printing is going to look messy.  All of the notes in the first grace note chord will appear, some with ties.  This is similar to your original problem (2).  I don't know a way around this unless you use a wasteful hidden staff.

If your music is going quite fast, you might be able to get away without the tied grace notes.  It will all depend on the hearing ability of your audience, and the sensibilities of any timing police out there.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #4 –
Hi, Peter !

My problem is that the trill should be "alla brava"
( I think this is the expression - but I'm not sure ... )
I mean - you go ahead with the trill only after the real note start had started -
and perform the trill on the expense of this note
( and not of the expense of the previous real note ).

it is actually like that :
a dotted 8th with a trill - followed by two 32ths.
and keep in mind that I want the printed version to stay the same.

ori

Re: chord member properties

Reply #5 –
and perform the trill on the expense of this note

That's exactly what the grace notes do. They take time from the following note.

So, if you want to sound the note and then trill on it, tie the right number of grace notes together to get the note started, and then insert the trill.

Essentially the printed note is being replaced by the sequence of grace notes, so, within the limits mentioned in reply #2 (NW are you listening?) you can interpret/replace any note with your desired sequence.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #6 –
Ori:  There is one other way to do it. If what your after is a proper "sound" and you're not concerned with printing, you can simply write the trill out completely using the fastest note value available.  I recently transcribed portions of a Rossini aria to create an accompaniment for myself to practice with.  I used 64th notes and it worked beautifully. I simply wrote in the proper amount of 64th's to equal the total value that I needed. If you're concerned about printing and not really worried about playback, you can simply add the tr. with the text command at the appropriate point. To work the problem out for both printing and playback Peter's method above is probably better.
Pete P.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #7 –
I don't think grace notes are the best way to go, Ori.  Try layered staffs.

On the top staff, use the text symbol for the trill (sort of like tr~~~~ found in several userfonts) and write the note as it should appear (half note, quarter note, whole note, whatever...).  Mute it.

On the other staff, write what you want to hear, a series of notes that alternate a full tone, using whatever note value gives you the playback you want.  Since you want to end the trill on the same note it started on, you'll have to adjust the length of the last note to avoid having the wrong beats in the bar.

You might want to accent the first note of the trill, and perhaps use dynamic variances to give a pleasing playback effect - a strong attack, diminuendoing but then crescendoing again.  You will have to insert hidden dynamic marks between the dim. and the cresc., and again after the cresc. so NWC knows how far to vary the volume.

You might also want to vary the tempo of the trills, you can do that with judicious use of, say, 16th notes, 32nd notes, and perhaps triplets.

Make the notes on the trilling staff invisible, and then layer the staffs.  Now you have both the visual (muted) trill and the trill sound (hidden).

Re: chord member properties

Reply #8 –
Something I should mention - using a layered staff may seem wasteful, but the feature was introduced precisely to overcome the limitations of this incredibly elegant, inexpensive and easy to use program.

Use the layering for "workarounds" - that's why NWC gave it to us.

Re: chord member properties

Reply #9 –
Using grace notes removes the ability to tweak note lengths as Ori points out in Post # 4. I suggest that the best way to do this is to do what Ori sort of rejected in his original post: have one staff that LOOKs OK but is muted and another one that SOUNDS OK - with the trill written out - but which is hidden.  I'm not sure I see the point in layering the staffs as David suggests in Post #7.  This seems to do just the same as hiding the sounding staff by layering the visual one on top.

In Ori's original post he says that he thinks the hidden staff solution is "a bit wasteful".  Well, it maybe lacks a bit of elegance but really a) wastes very little space because NWC seems to be generally quite efficient in its file sizing and b) wastes very little effort - all that is required is to (i) duplicate the staff using select all, copy and paste, (ii) write out the trill in the appropriate place on one staff and hide that staff and (iii) insert the tr~~~ as a text item on the other staff and mute it.  Leaving out the effort of writing the trill which needs to be done anyway, duplicating and hiding/muting requires perhaps 10 seconds and a dozen key strokes.

It might be possible to suggest ways that NWC could be modified to allow a more elegant way of doing what Ori wants - for example allowing individual muting/hiding of chord members but the hidden/muted staff approach solves this and so many other "problems" that it seems hardly worth the effort and added complexity to implement the umpteen "special case" solutions that might be needed to get everything onto one staff.

Stephen

Re: chord member properties

Reply #10 –
The problem would disappear if we were able to specify the playing length of a grace note. Then we could interpret trills and ornaments as precisely as we wished.

If we could also specify whether they came before or after the beat, and whether they were actually appoggiaturs or acciaccaturas then that would be a worthwhile addition to the programs capabilities.

Layering of course is pointless here (a hidden staff is much cleaner) since layering is to do with appearance and getting the score to look right.

There are other potential ways of trilling. For instance a muted note chorded with an invisible sounding note would let you write out the trills in proper notes.

But whichever way it's done in-line notation is simpler and more intuitive than separate staves for look and performance. And if you have to staves then you have to keep them in synch with key, clef, dynamic, channel, volume, transposition, instrument etc. A right royal pain!