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Topic: Two Voices on a Staff (Read 10053 times) previous topic - next topic

Two Voices on a Staff

NWC 1.5 goes a long way in supporting two voices on one staff.
The rule seems to be if you chord two notes of different length with stems in opposite directions, you can add notes with stems in the direction of the shorter note until they add up to the time of the longer note.
This is good, but it does not support the case when you have alternating overlapped notes.
Consider this example of one bar in 4/4 time:
Stems up: Two half notes.
Stems down: Quarter note chorded with first half note, then eighth, quarter, eighth, quarter.
The second quarter appears before the second half, but its duration overlaps part of the half.
This sequence should add up to four beats, but currently it does not.

Perhaps the rule should be after a mixed chord notes with different stem directions should be considered to be two voices with posisbly overlapping notes. This sequence would end either when both voices catch up, or at the end of the bar.
The danger here this could cause confusion to someone not expecting this rule, but I don't think so because it would only apply to notes that have a forced stem direction.

Is this reasonable?

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #1 –
Yes, I have had problems with this sort of thing as well. The only way to overcome it is to split your second quarter into two eighth notes and tie them, the second eighth note being part of the chord with the second half note. - Not elegant and definitely not what is usually written, but it works.

As to your suggestion, it sounds plausible but the problem might be if the end of the bar has been reached and the voices haven't caught up with each other ('cause someone has made a counting mistake for example). This would introduce Eric having to program 'forced corrections' into the bar to keep everything that follows in sync. and I don't think he would want to do that. - Not that he ever comments on possibilities of future developments.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #2 –
I have also had these problems, also in putting a rest in one voice and a note in the other. I have had to 'doctor' the notation with specially insterted rest characters (Or note characters) by using the text insertion facility and a 'user defined' font of musical characters. Doesn't play back of course, but looks OK.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #3 –
I've had to do this on many occasions - it's just something
I live with. I'd be wary of having a true second voice on
the stave - Capella has this feature, (it only allows chords
with all the notes the same length), but if you just want
the occasional note, you still have to enter a complete line
of rests up to that point. Better I believe to have the
more flexible arrangement now available, and live with the
occasional tied note adjustment. If the music is to be
printed, then try using the Noteworthy font and inserting
preferred notes as text items.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #4 –
I don't beleeeeve it! Keith must have sent his reply while
I was writing mine! At least we both agree on the use of
text items!

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #5 –
Two workarounds. Split the notes so you can chord them - tedious, looks bad, but sounds right.
Or just draw in the notes with text - looks right, sounds not quite right.
A compromise is to shorten the notes so there is no overlap - looks not too bad, sounds a little choppy.

Richard: I see no problem with reaching the end of the bar with notes out of synch. Noteworthy lets you put bar lines where ever you want. The problem might be when you request automatic bar lines. It would have to stick the bar line in when the notes add up to the count, and leave the rest out of synch. This is no different than any other error of this type.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #6 –
Just to throw my two cents worth in: the answer I believe is the layered staff concept that is in the experimental stage with NWC. What's really being discussed here is the placement of multiple, independent voices on a single staff and not chords. I tend to think of chords as stacks of notes with the _same duration_ and anything else as multiple voices.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #7 –
That certainly is a unique and powerful solution. Playback would be correct; the challenge would be to notate the combined score properly. How do you notate three or more voices properly with only two stem directions. Still, maybe this is the way to go.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #8 –
I think two independent voices per stave would be quite
enough to handle, thank you! It's really only
piano/keyboard/synthesiser scores that require complex
chording - anything else and we can add extra staves. Even
choral settings rarely split individual voices into more
than two parts, and when this is done it is usually printed
as seperate lines - too many parts on one line become
cluttered and ultimately unreadable. But no doubt there are
some skilled keyboard artists out there who thrive on
'squiggly' chords - any comments from them??
P.S. Capella (dare I mention it again - I definitely prefer
NWC) allows no more than two voices per stave.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #9 –
Right after I made my last comment here, I received some music to score that really required the experimental staff layering feature to do it properly.
This is the first time I really used that feature, rather than just played with it. I have the following observations:
It does a dumb merge. I thought I could fill one staff with rests, and only notate the bars I needed to. But it dumped the rests in every staff! So I have to make copy of the whole other staff.
It does not merge with rests, so when I need a chord with a rest, I have to do it the old way, and copy it into both staves. A smart merge would save a lot of notation time.
Tie and slur lines are wrong. Noteworthy points these in the opposite direction of the stems, which is fine for a single voice. For two voices I need the opposite. Either NWC should be smart enough to know this, or we should get control over the direction of slurs and ties.
Except for tie and slur lines, staff merging did the job. It is one of those thing that most people do not need (like me until now), but those who do need it need it bad.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #10 –
I am finding the staff layering to be very useful.

For Rests, would it be possible to have an additional attribute such as "Hidden when Layered" for rests. This would allow you to notate the rests in a separate staff and match the bar lines until it is time to layer. It would also allow a bit more control over which rests are visible if you need more clarity for the singers. Positional placement of rests (or a +/- displacement value) would be an advantage also.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #11 –
Agreed. I think we'll need both attirbutes (hidden + vertical position)

A

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #12 –
I think that the experimental files are very useful... I have the two files for staff layering. Are there any others? If so, where can I find them?

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #13 –
Joseph,

Do you need more files? I believe that you can add or delete as many staves as you like to one of the experimental files to construct a new piece.

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #14 –
You can copy the files (or use "Save As"), delete the contents to nothing, then paste in music from another file. This has to be the only program where the only way to create a new file is by cloning an old one. If they release another "experimental" feature, will be be able to mate the two files if we want to use both features at once?

Re: Two Voices on a Staff

Reply #15 –
I would rather a feature that could split two or three voices on a staff into two or three tracks.
:)