NoteWorthy Composer Forum

However, I would have thought that for a performance they would have preferred the single parts.  For rehearsal I can absolutely understand but by the time a performance came along surely they would know the piece well enough that their single parts would suffice?

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They politely handed them back and asked for individual parts. Like I said, you just never know. ;-)

Yes, we should take Dave's advice and

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I checked out the suggestion that in NW2, notes of varying time values could be forced to a common value with a single keystroke, but the tool bar still grays out the note length toolbar buttons, so the problem is only half fixed, and this introduces a bug in that the product is now inconsistent with itself. 

The suggested MXML translator requires a fourteen hour download of net frameworks for Windows 98SE, and while I am in the process of converting to XP professional, that will take some time, and I suspect it will need the download too.

The user tools require learning PHP, which is significant even for a multi-lingual former professional, and my time is limited.  Also, for my purposes I must strip most dynamic and tempo markings out of the .nwc files anyway (I am building a skeleton outline of the music containing only the basic tones and rhythms for musicians to learn the notes from), so if the spelling and triplet detection problems were fixed, a midi file would contain most of what I need.

Finally, everything I do must be compatible with NW1, as this is all that is available to my customers.

I checked out the suggestion that in NW2, notes of varying time values could be forced to a common value with a single keystroke, but the tool bar still grays out the note length toolbar buttons

The suggested MXML translator requires a fourteen hour download of net frameworks for Windows 98SE, and while I am in the process of converting to XP professional, that will take some time, and I suspect it will need the download too.

To slow faster works for initial practice sessions, the tempo must be adjusted by edit,

I routinely exclude accompaniment staves from the display, but they pop up anyway in the mute list, and besides, I cannot control what a customer who discovers the page setup button does with it.  It is in this sense that I said there is really no such thing as a hidden staff.

Or the even more frequent "I recall seeing x somewhere but I'm too lazy to look it up."

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The suggested MXML translator requires a fourteen hour download of net frameworks for Windows 98SE, and while I am in the process of converting to XP professional, that will take some time, and I suspect it will need the download too.

Would you please clarify this?  I don't undertand the expression "net frameworks," but I run XP Pro, and I did have Win98 (not SE) and Windows 3.1 after several years with DOS.

I think my first modem ran at something like 9 baud (does that sound realistic? It's been a long time).  I've downloaded and installed a lot of freeware and shareware, and I don't think I've enver encounterd a 14 hour download, even on a telephone modem. The XML conversion file is only 56Kb, and is accompanied by 3 text files that combined come to 6Kb.  Obviously I'm missing something about your setup.

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   As to what I am trying to do with NoteWorthy.  I am using it in a live professional environment to provide practice aids for home study to two choral societies.  I issue, by e-mail, packets of around eighteen works averaging ten to twelve pages each in four choir voices and piano accompaniment, which often requires two staves per hand.  The singers must edit their personal copies to get a proper balance of volume out of the various staves, both because there are two incompatible "standards" for interpreting the midi velocity attribute (in synthesized and wave table implementations, with much variation even within a group) and because each singer will want a different balance between his voice and the others, perhaps starting with the others muted, then quieter than his, then all at full volume and finally, especially for quartet singers, his own voice muted while the others sing out, as he will experience in performance.  To slow faster works for initial practice sessions, the tempo must be adjusted by edit, as there is no tempo slider on the tool bar (that being the one and only advantage Sibelius has over NoteWorthy), and in songs with major tempo changes mid work, the singer must master NoteWorthy enough to find and change embedded tempo indications, which sounds trivial, but often causes trouble.  More advanced singers will want to add breath marks and dynamics, which I cannot put in the distribution because they aren't decided until rehearsals are well underway, as well as correct errors, both mine and those in the original scores I work from.  I routinely exclude accompaniment staves from the display, but they pop up anyway in the mute list, and besides, I cannot control what a customer who discovers the page setup button does with it.  It is in this sense that I said there is really no such thing as a hidden staff.
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I do confess to being a little surprised at how demanding you choristers seem to be - it has never really occurred to me to feel a need to have everyone else's music in front of me - it has always been enough to manage to plow through my own and let the others worry about theirs... 

Is singing in a choir so different to playing an instrument that you really need that much information?  Or is it a "comfort" thing?

Is singing in a choir so different to playing an instrument that you really need that much information?  Or is it a "comfort" thing?

The human voice has no intrinsic pitch so it must get its notes relative to the other parts. So it helps to know what the other parts are singing

When I got to the final rehearsal, I found that the instrumentalists had all gotten together, pasted up their parts into a full score minus soprano, and made copies for each of them. (They could have just asked me or the soprano for a copy of the full score, of course, but that's not what happened.)

how would that work, another thick line joining the affected staves with additional finials?

how would that work, another thick line joining the affected staves with additional finials?

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....but I think you're getting more complex than necessary, Lawrie. Here's another way:

• When an orchestral staff is followed or preceded by a standard staff, the program puts the appropriate finial on the orchestral staff.

• The beginning barline of a standard staff is optional (same set of choices as the ending barline is now).

• Connecting barlines default to the barline style of the standard staff, except within brackets.

Wouldn't our needs all be addressed if we had two more staff choices, upper left finial and lower left finial?

Lawrie, I don't see why you don't connect alto 1 to alto 2 and both to tenor 1, but the point is, it's your score and you have the flexibility to make that choice.  I'm not too concerned if my score meets some degree of perfect presentation, as long as the user can use it easily, which means what I do has to make sense to my user.  A missing twiddly bit here or a variation from a standard might annoy someone, but as long as the grouping is clear and is satisfactory for the conductor, that's all I need to produce.

You guys have gone off the deep end here.  The current dialogue box is sufficient for a basic but correct implementation of the orchestral brace.  The rules are; 1) all and only those staves marked orchestral have the extra line at the left, 2) adjacent orchestral staves are connected, both at the left and by bar lines for the rest of the system, 3) loose ends get finials.  If you must have orchestral braces overlap a grand staff, which I have never seen in any score I have read, you would need extra windows or attributes, but I say leave it out.  Nested orchestral braces are used, but I would call that an advanced feature for the wish list.

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vanBasco's Karaoke Player – Intriguing, especially as it's freeware.  But NoteWorthy minus just a couple of bugs would be exactly what I want, so this would be a distant second choice.

NoteWorthy player – Adding enough to this to make it minimally useful to me would make it essentially full NoteWorthy.  Besides, if my push my guys to buy legit copies of NW1 (most just use the evaluation version), that would help pay for some of the improvements that I really want, as well as help push NW2 out the door.

• Choristers in general are not professional or trained musicians. Few would be able to read a single line of notation and fit it in with others doing or failing to do likewise

As I said in my reply to David, a checkbox and 2 radio buttons is all that's really needed.

an orchestral bracket that stops and starts where the orchestral staves do instead of continuing from the first orchestral staff all the way to the bottom of the score regardless of the actual staff properties down there

And for the same reason, I think we'll need an upper orchestral staff type. We need to be able to designate where we want the brackets to start and stop.

Sorry about the deep end,

...and I agree control over connecting bar lines would be good, but if you think about it there is no need for lower and upper orchestral staff attributes.  Any number of staves (including one only) can be marked orchestral, and any number of staves between be unmarked.  Then all raw ends get decorated, and the direction of curve is obvious from the context. That "backward compatibility" need not really be an issue here is one sign (though not a defining one) that the current behavior is a bug.

VanBasco does not display music notation, and helping the less musically trained singer learn to read is a big part of my objective. 

   I am not irritated at the "intricacies" of NoteWorthy, which is about the simplest music editor around to use.

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 through my conductor (a sophisticated trained musician who earns his keep as a computer analyst), to the group's floating voice leader who sings any voice at sight.  And although he hasn't shown up yet, I must be ready to face the singer even more computer savvy than I am, so I want everything neat and tidy.

Did you realise that you're your first example shows almost exactly NWC's bahaviour?

Almost, except NWC puts a finial on the lowest staff.

You guys can argue about special cases and the possibility someone may want to do a "nonstandard" thing (as far as standards exist) all you want.  I just want to get the thing to work for 85% of the cases that need orchestral braces instead of the 0.1% that get covered now.  (A two staff barbershop rendering is got right, finials and all, but this victory is tempered by the fact that barbershop is usually sung from memory.)

...orchestral braces overlap a grand staff, which I have never seen in any score I have read...

but I say leave it out.