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Topic: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug (Read 91862 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #50
Quote
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?

I guess most people have no idea how professional chamber music groups operate. There were only two rehearsals - the one in which I handed out the parts, and the final one. The performance was the next day. The piece wasn't scheduled to be performed again, so that was it. What you suggest would make sense for amateur groups, though.

But there's a P.S. About a year later, I had a piano trio performed. Same chamber group - different subset of players. Having learned (I thought) from the earlier performance, I handed them each a full score. They politely handed them back and asked for individual parts. Like I said, you just never know. ;-)

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #51
<snip>
They politely handed them back and asked for individual parts. Like I said, you just never know. ;-)

Ahh mate!  Ya just can't win sometimes, can ya?   :)
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #52
Gentlemen,

   Today I will be addressing core topics, not individuals, so please do not feel slighted if you don't see a reply to a comment of yours here. 

   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.

   I am in no way attacking either NoteWorthy or Eric.  I am only trying to raise the profile of a bug that is surely causing lost sales for this program.  A professional musician observing the result of his choosing "orchestral" for a staff would probably throw up his hands in disgust and move on to the next candidate without discovering how nearly ideal NoteWorthy already is.   And if the product sinks, I won't get any of my suggestions for improvement, which I have hardly started to mention, implemented.

   It is true that, although I have been working with NoteWorthy for seven years, I have only just begun to wade through the forums and scriptorium, but they are full of irrelevant jokes and comments like "I don't know where Eric got his "spec" from, but he must have gotten it from somewhere, so don't criticize what he does."  Or the even more frequent "I recall seeing x somewhere but I'm too lazy to look it up."  These add nothing to the discussion, and make for slow going. And while sneaky tricks may be amusing for those playing with NoteWorthy or using it to format their own compositions, for me they are mostly useless.

   I have been unfocused, and have mentioned some difficulties with the user interface that don't belong in this thread, for which I apologize.  I will not further comment on them until they appear in their own threads, except to say that even minor problems become significant when, as happened to me at the end of August, one has thirty seven pieces of music to NoteWorthyize in three weeks.  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 considered distributing the beta to them under the strictures that they must make all complaints and comments to me and that they promise ; ) to buy the product when it came out, but for a lot of reasons this is a bad idea.  If I don't hear from Eric on this in the next two weeks, I will reconsider the issue and probably not do it, but it may end up as the least of many evils.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #53
Quote
Yes, we should take Dave's advice and
David, not Dave, please.


Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #54
G'day bidderxyzzy,
I won't try to address everything you've mentioned - this is quite a meal you've served up :)  However, I'll try to hit a couple of highlights and see if I can help in some things.


It seems that you already expect quite a bit from your customers.  While I'm quite sure you know them better than I do ;)  I have found that users can often surprise - both pleasantly and frustratingly so I do understand your pain, but I suggest that you may also be underrating some of them.

I say this 'cos if they have mastered as much as you say then they can probably cope with a little more.  But as I said, you know 'em better than I do.  I only mention it because I occasionally must remind my staff that our customers aren't actually idiots - though some can make you wonder...

That said, I agree that simplifying things as much as possible from a user perspective is a good thing.  I am a great believer in the KISS principle.

Quote
<snip another big bit>
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. 

Hmm, confirmed - I've never noticed this as I practically never use the mouse when editing in NWC - too slow.  Nevertheless, using the keyboard does work so this may save you some pain.  I recall suggesting you learn the keyboard shortcuts - you won't regret doing so.

Quote
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.

Sorry 'bout that - I sometimes forget that not everyone has broadband...  Do you know anyone with broadband that can download it for you and burn to CD?

Quote
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.

OK, here goes:
You don't need to learn to program in PHP, or VB or any other programming language to use the user tools.  I cannot cut code - I freely admit it - I'm a glorified user who builds, maintains and services networks and their connected resources.  This is how I and my staff make a living - we have no need to cut code - that's what programmers are for :)

Yet I use user tools all the time.  The "Starter Kit" comes with a grab bag of tools that covers a large proportion of identified needs:
Arpeggiate
Compound Autobeam
Global Modification
Parts
Ranges
Retrograde
Statistics
Transpose Chords
Variable Dump

My personal favourites from this list are Global Modification, parts, Variable dump and Transpose Chords.

There are several others available including a "tripletise" tool for fixing imported MIDIs - 'taint perfect but it does work.  I agree it would be better for NWC to import MIDI triplets natively but until it does, this tool helps.

Enharmonic spelling problems can be improved a lot in the way that I have already mentioned:
Force accidentals
Correct the Key sig.
Audic Enharmonic spelling
Audit accidentals.

It won't be perfect, but it WILL be a lot better.

You can also try transposing to a different key and back, while specifying sharp/flat preferences.

This also won't be perfect, but again, can help a lot when working from a raw MIDI.  I'm not sure how well this can be improved in NWC - it is partly a function of the MIDI spec itself that gives us these poor results, though I'm sure a sufficiently motivated programmer could improve things.  I suspect that it would need more user intervention in the import setup though...  Like specifying the key sig. for the import - bit hard when you don't even know what it was supposed to be...

Barry occasionally mentions a pair of tools: mf2t and t2mf which convert MIDI to text which you can edit and then convert back.  I'm sure this will also help.

Dynamics can be deleted with a global mod user tool command:
Dynamic DELETE
and also tempo markings:
Tempo DELETE

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

No problem, NWC2 now has the ability to export to NWC1.75 - some formatting detail will be lost, like:
Highlights greater than 3 will revert to highlight 3
"hairpins" will disappear - I don't know if there is an automatic cresc. decresc. replacement - I suspect not.
If you use alternative system fonts these will revert to the standard NWCV15

There are almost certainly others but I can't think of them - I never use NWC1 any more - regardless, I'm sure they can be compensated for and still leave you with a reduced workload.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #55
Bidderxyzzy wrote
Quote
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 note length toolbars are greyed because the note values are varied.  So you can't use the mouse to force all the notes to the same value.  However, press the + key a few times, and once all the notes reach the same value, the note length toolbars will be active and available again.  Or you could just press 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 to get the value you want. 

I was wrong when I said dots would disappear.  They didn't just now in my test file.  Pressing the dot key a few times did the trick, though, and since the duration toolbar was active, clicking the dot icon twice did it too.


Quote
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.

Quote
To slow faster works for initial practice sessions, the tempo must be adjusted by edit,
Have your people download the shareware version of Amazing Slowdowner, and they can vary the playback speed with it.  Alternatively, the NWC files are so small that you could produce and send several versions of each, with each version being a different tempo.

Quote
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.
Well, you could make the hidden staff have only one line, and you could make all its notes headless with stem length zero, so if they do make the staff visible, only a single line will show. 

Quote
Or the even more frequent "I recall seeing x somewhere but I'm too lazy to look it up."
You're being snarky again.  At least your correspondent gave you a hint that the information was there to be found, and you can use the search tool as easily as he can. (That may have been me?)

Just out of curiousity, you tried 5 different programs, I think I read.  Have you tried Finale, and why are you using NWC2 instead?



Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #56
G'day David,
Quote
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.

Bidderxyzzy is correct here - mxm2nwc mxml2nwc requires the Microsoft .NET (pronounced "dot net") Framwork (V1.1 IIRC) which is a large download for '98.  I think XP came with it but I'm not absolutely certain.  It is certainly a broadband type download, not a dial-up one...  It is about 23 MB which should be about an hour at 56kbps dialup in a perfect world...  As we know, the world ain't perfect so more than an hour I would expect, but I must say 14 hours seems a bit on the high side - unless there were other bits coming down too.

Quote
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.

More likely 300 baud, which, incidentally is also 300 bits per second.  Unlike the old 1200 bps modems which were also 300 baud IIRC (may have been 600) the additional bps was obtained through better encoding (QAM - Quadrature Amplitude Modulation - again IIRC)

Baud (named after a chap called Baudot) was a measure of change of state from mark to space or space to mark - didn't exactly apply to modems faster than 300 bps...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #57
As a humble sometime chorister I believe that most of us, for most pieces, prefer to see what the other parts are doing, and what the accompaniment is up to, although the piano reduction is probably more convenient even when accompanied by a full orchestra.
All this seems to suggest that we want a notation program which will do all kinds of alternatives for all kinds of people.  But would most of us be able to handle such a complex creation?

Tony

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #58
G'day Tony,
NWC should be sufficient - it almost is...

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?
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #59
G'day bidderxyzzy,

<snip>
   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.
<snip>

I may have a surprisingly simple alternative for you...

Rather than distribute NWC files, distribute MIDIs - bear with me here...

There is a very good MIDI/Karoke player that addresses almost all your requirements and may well be sufficient.  It is called "vanBasco's Karaoke Player".

It can:
  • Pause
  • Vary speed
  • Highlight a selected channel(s) - increase relative levels
  • Mute a selected channel(s)
  • Repeat
  • Has a shuttle you can use to seek and/or replay any section
  • Select preferred MIDI synth/output
  • Display the lyrics
  • Allow multiple lyric tracks (don't know how well this bit works - never used it)
  • Has a channel display where you can see relative pitches etc.
  • Has a display keyboard that aggregates all the notes being played for a "piano redux" type display
  • Has a flexible play list

They can't edit the music as they can in NWC of course so inserting breath marks etc. is not possible unless you also distribute the NWC file.

You may find that they'll be happy with a PDF that they can print out and insert breath marks by hand during rehearsal.

Perhaps not a perfect answer but I think it could be more helpful than not.

However, as I said in a previous post - you know your customers better 'n I do.

You can get Van Bascos here:
http://www.vanbasco.com/

It's worth a look even if you decide you don't like it.  It's only 864kB...

<edit>  I forgot to mention - as vanBasco can select its MIDI output independantly of MIDI mapper or NWC etc. you can advise your users to all use one very common softsynth with vanBasco, and balance your NWC files to suit...

It is the ubiquitous, and rather ordinary, "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synthesizer".  Yes, I know it can be pretty awful to the discerning ear, but from '98 (with DirectX installed) to Vista it is the same wavetable - thus everything will be consistent for all your users (I can't believe I'm recommending a m$ solution... <shakes head>).
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #60
Quote
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?

Since I can't carry a tune in a wet paper bag, I don't know anything about choral music, but if the market is one or more groups of professional singers, I wonder why counting their parts isn't enough? 

Same with chamber musicians.  I played a lot of trios and quartets when I was in school, lo these many years ago, and we always had just our own parts in front of us.  And we were just kids. 

If professionals are expected to perform with the benefit of two rehearsals, I would expect them to be excellent musicians well trained in listening to each other and remembering the nuances of a piece.  And of course, they can always use digital recorderd to capture what they don't remember.

Not important questions/observations, just wondering.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #61
The same goes for me. When I sang the solo-part of the Armenian Oratorium (I think "oratory" refers to bricks and mortar) I had only the sheet music of the tenor part. I had to count the measures where I had to wait. I hated it. At the risk of alienating joke-haters: I am no counter-tenor!
It was much easier for me to read along with a score where nothing was missing. A reduced score would have done nicely, there. Example: in the Messiah, very often it's quite easy to find the bassoon part, even in the piano reduction.

And yes, tenors are hard to find. I am always welcome in (nearly) any choir!

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #62
Quote
Is singing in a choir so different to playing an instrument that you really need that much information?  Or is it a "comfort" thing?

  • 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
  • Choristers would find the idea of counting more than a couple of beats extraordinary. They get their timing cues in the form of words and notes from the other parts and the accompaniment
  • 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
  • Comfort does come into it. Even experienced singers get out with the rest of the choir with both pitch and time (it just seems to be a singing thing) so they have to know how to get back on track

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #63
Quote
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

That's the crux of it. You really do need to able to match pitch with a note from another part, or at least be able to match an easy interval (a third or a fifth) from another part, in order to find your entrance. Hence, you need the other parts in front of you, plus the accompaniment, because sometimes the note you need to match is there instead of in another voice part. This doesn't hold for those with perfect pitch, of course, but they are few and far between in the choral world.

And that's why distributing MIDI files probably won't work for bidderxyzzy's application (although it might if he also distributed printed copies of the score). I've been trying to think of ways that would work without allowing access to all the editing tools, and I'm stumped. If one could change tempo and mute individual lines in Noteworthy Viewer, that would go a long way toward solving the problem, but it still wouldn't help those who needed to mark their scores - and singers need a lot of marks. It looks to me as though bidderxyzzy's particular application of NWC does need to be set up in the way he has done it. The one suggestion I would make, bidderxyzzy, is to trust the singers a little further and go ahead and use the hidden staves for playback. You might highlight them in a different color from the rest of the score so they really stand out if they are accidentally unchecked in the contents box - but that problem can also be minimized if you tell them what that checkbox does, and how to make the score look normal again if they (or their inquisitive children) play around with the page setup functions a bit too much. That, again, is a matter of how far you want to trust their ability to work with the program.

As to professional instrumentalists not needing full scores - they usually don't, but my experience (recounted earlier in this thread) suggests that there are times when they prefer them. Surprised me, too, at the time.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #64
   Well, William, voice-emphasised Midi Files work well for the several Choirs I sing with and prepare music for - hence my Website (http://www.thehoopers.demon.co.uk).  And I'm a rubbish Tenor, too, but still worth my weight in gold-pressed latinum, apparently  [:-)]

   And all the choral singers I know seem to prefer to have the score showing all the voices plus the piano reduction.  On the few occasions when we've been forced to sing from a score showing only "our" voice, it's been bloody awful!

   MusicJohn, 18/Sep/07

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #65
Quote
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.)

Much the same has happened to me.  I try and give a full score to everyone for their edification. And, I've been asked to make large-sized scores for players to follow.

Lawrie: You've never been anything but kind.

Robin

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #66
Wow, what an interesting and educational set of replies!

I now have a much better understanding of the problems facing bidderxyzzy.  I will be very interested to hear his thoughts on using vanBasco and a printout.

In that regard a thought occurred to me - it might be necessary to have multiple versions of the MIDI in order to have each part's lyrics show up independantly - this may well be more of a problem that I realised last night (it was around midnight local when I wrote my last message)

I hate counting long periods of rest too - I have a particular part in mind where I have 40 or 50 bars rest (can't remember the exact figure - may be more - it's broken up into 8 bar blocks) and then have to come in dead on time in a highlighted solo - always makes me nervous I'll miss it as there are no cues in the score and the other parts are somewhat non-descript in the leadup...  :(

That said, I still think cues would be sufficient...  Or at least I think they would be for me.

Robin, thankyou.  I try not to offend but sometimes it's hard to tell.

However, to get back onto the original subject for a moment - There is no doubt that the orchestral staff attribute/properties needs some improvement.  I'm sure we have concensus on this no matter what each of us wish to call the deficiency.

bidderxyzzy, I know others have 'cos I've seen reference in other posts, but have you visited the wishlist to request improvements to this.

My understanding is the the wish list is the only "officially recognised" method of asking for enhancements - bug reports go here in the forum but just in case Noteworthy Software doesn't consider it a bug, an enhancement request won't go astray.

While I'm sure Eric has read over our recent spate of waffle and is thus aware of all the reasons and opinions that have been expressed, a succint "wish" certainly won't hurt.

The wishlist is here...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #67
No need to submit to the wish list...we are well aware of this topic. It is one of my favorites. We have previously acknowledged these issues, and understand the concern.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute - Possible Enhancement/Fix List

Reply #68
I've been thinking about this a bit.  It occurs to me that this is not a trivial change if it is to be acceptable to all so I'd like to start a list of necessary results and possibly some suggestions on preferred methods of managing them.

  • Delineation of groups of instruments - finial at start and finish of group - "group marker" staff?
  • Staves between the group markers to be linked by thick (plus thin) line regardless of staff type - position is the defining attribute
  • Multiple pairs of group markers within a system
  • All staves NOT within a group to be linked by a thin line only
  • The "orchestral" attribute to only define that barlines link between staves
  • Upper and Lower grand staff attributes to be independant of the "grouping" so the bracket still works properly

That's all I can think of at the moment - it occurs to me that the best way to implement this may be as simple as a checkbox that indicates that the staff is a "group boundary" - perhaps with supplementary radio buttons that indicate upper or lower.

There may be some backward compatibility issues here - perhaps Orchestral staves should also provide finials automatically if "group markers" aren't defined..?

<G'day Eric, I notice you've posted while I've been writing this little missive>
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #69
I guess I'm venturing into controversy here.  My scores generally consist of 5 staffs for the reeds, 3 or 4 for trumpets, 3 for trombones, 1 for guitar or banjo, 2 for piano, 1 for bass, and finally 1 staff for a drum kit.

If I understand it correctly, the finials in my score would be on the first reed staff and on the drum staff.  I need an upper and lower grand staff group for the piano right and left hand part.  I need a grouping for the reeds and a grouping for each of the brass families.

So:
Group 1 (reeds):
First staff needs a finial, all the reeds will be connected at the left with a thick/thin double line an the left, and with ordinary bar lines connecting the group.  A standard otherwise blank staff layered under the reed 5 part, to break the connecting lines.

A thin single line at the left margin to connect the reed group to the trumpet group.

Group 2 (trumpets)
All staffs orchestral, connected at the left with a thick/thin double line an the left, and with ordinary bar lines connecting the group.  A standard otherwise blank staff layered under the last trumpet staff, to break the connecting lines. No finial in this group.

A thin single line at the left margin to connect this group to the trombone group.

Group 3 (trombones) - same as trumpet.

Guitar/banjo - standard score, not connected except by a single thin line at the left margin. 

Piano - upper and lower grand staffs, thick/thin double left line (?), bar lines extending to connect just these two staffs.

Bass, same as guitar/banjo.

Drums, same as guitar banjo, except it would have a lower finial at the left.

Alternatively if one wanted to group all the rhythm section, the entire group could be configured as orchestral except piano, which would have the two grand staff braces.


Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #70
G'day David,
actually, the attachment shows, rather poorly, pretty much what I had in mind.

Each section/group has its' own finials with the entire system being joined by a thin line.  Each grouping adds the thick line and finials.

The particular example only shows a single staff for Piano but I would expect the piano staves (upper and lower grand) to have a brace as well - much like what we get now...

You might note that in the Sax group the 2 Alto staves do not have what we call "orchestral" barlines while the rest of the section and most of the other sections do - I especially want this flexibility.  I don't want the barlines to extend unless I specify, hence my slight redefinition of the orchestral staff type.  However, I don't care if the piano (grand) staves have the extended barline or not.  Pianists may have a preference that should be considered.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #71
Also, there may be a grouping within a grouping.  In addition to an orchestral bracket around the strings, there may be an additional bracket around just the 1st and 2nd violins.
Since 1998

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #72
G'day Warren,
how would that work, another thick line joining the affected staves with additional finials?
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.


Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #74
Quote
how would that work, another thick line joining the affected staves with additional finials?

I got curious about that, too, so I checked my collection of orchestral scores. Warren may have a different experience, but what I found was a piano-style bracket outside the orchestral group bracket. That is: orchestra bracket surrounding the string section on the left; piano bracket to the left of the orchestral bracket, enclosing just the violin I and violin II staves. Layering allows us to do this now. Just place an empty set of upper and lower grand staves between the orchestral staves you want to bracket and then layer every other staff. I'd attach a file, but I'd apparently have to upgrade my membership, and I'm too lazy to do that right now. ;-)

....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.


That should do it, I think, although I may be missing something, and there are certainly other possibilities.

(just looked at the link you posted while I was writing this. There are evidently further layers of brackets in some scores, which I haven't run into. My workaround doesn't work for those, and my suggested program modification wouldn't, either....more thought is obviously required.)

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #75
G'day William,
<snip>
....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.

Perhaps, but...
  • What happens when I want a standard staff between the finials?  I.E. it should be part of the grouping but I don't want the joining barlines?
  • Point 2 would go partway to alleviating my problem with point 1 but the finials could get confused...
  • Point 3 might work provided I can override the change within brackets/finials.

...or did I misunderstand something?
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #76
Seems we've been discussing this for at least a year:  https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=5658.msg36766#msg36766
See Reply #3 in particular:
It would be nice if we control over the Starting Bar, just as we have control over the Ending Bar:
Staff Properties...
    General tab
        Starting Bar: Section Close
                          Master Repeat Close
                          Single
                          Double
                          Open (hidden)

    Visual tab
                Style:  Upper Brace
                          Upper Bracket
                          Upper Brace and Bracket
                          Lower Brace
                          Lower Bracket
                          Lower Brace and Bracket
                          Standard
                          Orchestral
                          Open

The last one would be for layered staffs for a single part.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #77
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.

Then again, I wonder if there is a universal standard?  Here, we have one finial in a professionally engraved score: http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=698256421&context=set-72157600610497413&size=l

Here is a hand drawn sheet of music from 163 years ago.  Big brace, no finial.
http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=423811184&context=set-72157594503455058&size=l  And here, no braces, no finials and no connecting bar lines either: http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=423864656&context=set-72157594503455058&size=l

So I looked in The Enjoyment of Music, Sixth Edition, Joseph Madhis with Kristine Foreny, a text used by the Royal Toronto Conservatory of Music.  On page 147, there are 2 examples.  The first has two staffs in the system, with a double thick line connecting them on the left, with finials.  The second is a single vocal line over what looks to be a piano line.  No finials.  Upper and lower grand staff on the piano staffs, but no connection to the vocal line except a thin line on the left edge.  On page 369, five staffs.  The top two are soloists, the bottom 3 are the chorus.  Left end, one single line connecting all five staffs, with the bottom three also having the lines doubled, an upper finial on the top staff  and a lower finial on the bottome staff.

Rattenbury's Duke Ellington Jazz Composer has a full score in example 6.23.  The five reed parts are connected, and on the left connected with a thick/thin double line, finial on staffs 1 and 5.  Staff 5 and 6 are only connected at the left, with a single line.  Staffs 6 to 11 are connected by bar lines and on the left, the thick/thin double with finials on 6 and 11.  The guitar line (staff 12) is only connected to staffs 11 and 13 by a single line on the left.  Staffs 13 and 14 are the piano part, connected with single bar lines only, even on the left, but there's the brace on the left.  Staffs 15 and 16 are only connected by the single line on the left.  There is no finial on the bottom staff.   Elsewhere (his example on page 234 et subs) are for small groups, with four horns and rhythm.  Single bar lines extend top to bottom, connecting them all.  There's a double thick/thin on the left for staffs 1 to 4, with appropriate finials, then there's a braced pair of staffs for the piano, and staffs 7 and 8 are connected with the double thick/thin, upper finial on 7 and lower finial on 8.


For whatever that was worth...

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #78
Thanks for the reality check, David, especially since you seem to be echoing comments I made earlier in this thread...;-) (But you're doing it better because you're including examples.)

However, I think K.A.T. has it right. It would be really, really nice to have the same kind of control over the left-hand end of each stave as we currently do over the right-hand end. Then everybody could have it the way they wanted.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #79
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.


In answer to those who have suggested that I look at xxx, here is a reply, not really part of the thread.


I hit on NoteWorthy very quickly, but over the past seven years, I have examined the following audio/music packages.

Awave Studio – Accepts about 200 audio formats (.wav, .mp3, .wma, .midi, numerous midi instrument fonts, proprietary sound card instrument fonts, etc.) and will translate any to the about 100 formats it knows how to write.  Acts as a midi sequence editor and sound font creator/editor.  Will do wave table rendering of midi files into .wav files.   Does not have a music notation display format.

GNMIDI – An alternative midi file editor.  Will save midi file as a readable text file, print a midi file as a score sheet, write it as a karaoke file, enter a new midi file from the PC keyboard and generate cell phone ring tone files among many other functions.

Igor engraver – Full function professional music engraver.  Too expensive

Lime – Very early music engraver effort started at university of Illinois and kept up to date.  Manual is still a good reference on music notation and engraving.  Display format is page oriented and not suitable for my purposes.

MIDI Editor – Primarily oriented toward use with external midi instruments by YAMAHA, ROLAND, KORG, KAWAI, etc. 

Music MasterWorks – Good for entering new music.  Will attempt to notate from microphone or wav file, or compare mic input with score.  Scrolling display is cluttered and printout very primitive.

Music Publisher – A pure graphical editor.  Does not understand music or provide playback.  Claims to be descended from a DOS program called "Note Worthy".

Music Ease – A lot like NoteWorthy in style but much more complete.  Designed to interface directly with Sharp Eye.  Expensive.

Personal Composer – Full featured engraver with playback.  Allows direct control of graphic page layout.  User control of enharmonic interpretation.  Wonderful set of formatting tools, but interprets them graphically only; there is no check that output makes musical sense.  Scrolls by measure rather than by note.

Finale – At least Finale PrintMusic® required to get scrolling, currently available version requires Windows XP.  Price at $100 per copy thinkable for me, but probably too high for my singers.

Sibelius – Hideously expensive.  Basic product needs costly add-ons to make it fit for my use.  Installing Scorch trashed my font directory; scrolls but no note chase.

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.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #80
G'day David,
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.

If we can get away with the existing staff choices and simply add a checkbox (and maybe radio buttons for upper/lower) to enable finials on a staff this would IMHO be simpler and more flexible.

The example is actually from a Sibelius score - but it does demonstrate what I usually see.

As for not connecting the barlines between staves in a group - I simply prefer this to be optional.

I think it was done in the example to separate the primary voices in the sax section for that work.

Your examples show that any solution is not going to be a trivial exercise.  That's why I made the 6 suggested points above - I think these capabilities whould allow sufficient flexibility to cover a vast majority of requirements - not 100% mind, but maybe 80% plus?

Did you realise that you're your first example shows almost exactly NWC's bahaviour?
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #81
G'day bidderxyzzy,
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.

Whaddya mean "deep end" - you opened this can 'o worms  :)

Mate, you've only expounded one set of rules - that happen to suit you.  If you look at David's very first example you'll see a grand staff brace overlapping the orchestral - and this is certainly not the first time I've seen it... - If I have to have a personal preference here then I would grudgingly vote for no overlap BUT it would be better to be able to have both.

My example shows a situation where barlines in staves within a group are not necessarily connected.  As I said in my reply to David, a checkbox and 2 radio buttons is all that's really needed.

It isn't here for me to quote (I'm at my office, not home - gotta work sometime I guess), but my Alfred's isn't particularly prescriptive - it simply shows a simple example and mentions that the finials mark the beginning and ending of groups of instruments.


Quote
<snip a lot of other products>
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.

Have you actually looked at it?  May be better than you think given that you want people to be able to mute staves and play with relative levels.  Give each sounding channel the right name and there won't even be any confusion.  Plus no difficult training of people in some of the intricacies of NWC which seems to irritate you...

Quote
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.

I'm sure more sales wouldn't hurt  :)

<edits in italics>
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #82
  • 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
That varies with the size of the choir. The smaller the choir, the better the choristers are in reading notation and fitting in with others.
There seems to be a relation between the number of music stands and the general ability to read and understand music. Also, when choir members bring their own tune fork, they are usually very good.
(Unfortunately, buying a tune fork does not make you a very good choir singer overnight.)

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #83
At the risk of offending you again, bidderxyzzy (and just when we were getting along so well, too - viz. my support of your position a few posts back ;-), I have to say that Lawrie is right. There are no rules for the LH end of a system, just conventions, and your conventions may not suit my needs. In my large (though not overwhelming) collection of orchestral scores, almost all use grand-staff-type braces outside (to the left of) the orchestral brackets to connect the first and second violins. The few that don't usually use nested brackets, although at least one uses nothing. This is on the basis of a number of random samples I pulled out just now - mostly Kalmus editions, though one was a Belwin and another (the one that used nothing) was a Heugel.

I do agree with you that if the default was as you suggest, it would be better than the current situation. But we would still need controls to take care of individual needs and/or quirks. This is art, not engineering.

I also agree with you that nested brackets are something for the wish list rather than an immediate need. What most of us who have been contributing to this thread appear to want, essentially, are four simple binary choices: (1) finial/no finial; (2) brace/no brace; (3) thick line, thin line/thin line only. (4) barlines connecting staves/barlines not connecting staves. And since (2) and (4) can be kludged, all we really are asking for is control over the finials plus 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 - which is, I think, the behavior that caused you to start this thread in the first place.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #84
Quote
As I said in my reply to David, a checkbox and 2 radio buttons is all that's really needed.

Lawrie

Your ideas are basically sound but your implementation is too complex. And I got in first and I'll say it again: all you need is an additional Lower Orchestral Staff

This then gives you your groups. That is anything between an Orchestral Staff (possibly renamed Upper Orchestral Staff) and a LOS. In between you can have ordinary staves and Grand Staffs if you want: it actually doesn't matter: it's up to the user.

If you want connecting bar lines then you set the staffs to UOS. If you don't then leave them as Standard. NWC actually has all this bar line capability already - it connects adjacent orchestral staffs but not standard ones.

As an aside the behaviour of Grand Staffs is different. UGS always project downwards and LGS upwards.

Orchestral bar lines don't connect to Grand Staffs but you can layer an orchestral staff with the following UGS to achieve the desired effect.

Essentially, all that is missing from NWC is an instruction to Start/Stop drawing the orchestral thick line which my suggested UOS and LOS do precisely. Every quoted example in this thread is then possible (with a little ingenuity with layering) including all the left hand edge varieties and connecting bar line requirements.

What to do if there is no LOS. Either do as NWC does with UGS without a corresponding LGS and ignore any UOS, or, better, just connect the first and last Orchestral staffs leaving any others above and below as standard.

As to backward compatibility there is a small problem. There's absolutely no reliable indication as to what the user actually wanted since it wouldn't have made any difference once there was one Orchestral staff. But the worst that could happen is that the Orchestral line started only from the first OS rather than the top of the system and finished before the bottom, but perhaps a warning dialogue box when opening an earlier version file would be sufficient here.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #85
G'day Peter,
you're right, that would do it - I guess I just like a little more direct control...

When you first proposed it I thought:  UOS, OS and LOS - too many staff types.  My thought then was - no additional staff types, just a checkbox for finials and change the bahaviour of the OS so that the finials defined the thick line instead of the OS.  You have just corrected that notion - only 1 more staff type, not 2...

Either way the end result should be the same.  Yours just might have better backward compatibility as OS (or now possibly UOS) would still behave the way it always has.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #86
   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.

Lawrie,

   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.  It's just that I have singers [snark alert] almost as clueless as some of the contributors to this forum, 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.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #87
I just reread my post of last night, and I spotted this:

Quote
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

"...all the way to the  bottom of the score regardless of the actual staff properties..." Hmmm. That sounds very much like.....Oh, no! A bug!

Let's face it. If the staves below the orchestral staves were exhibiting the properties we are already telling the program to give them, the problem would disappear (almost - see below). In other words, unwanted and unexpected behavior from the code. The tone of bidderxyzzy's earlier posts (he has improved lately) had kept me from seeing the obvious.

However, there is still the matter of layered staves of other types in order to make the workarounds happen. If the orchestral brackets stop and start for those, we're in trouble. So I think Peter is right - we will need a lower orchestral staff type. 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.

But correcting the staff attribute display is the right place to start.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #88
Quote
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.

That's not really the case. If you examine the behaviour of Grand Staffs there's only the need for two types. You can have as many instances of UGS as you like but only one LGS. The brace then starts from the topmost UGS and finishes on the single LGS. Then you can repeat the whole process lower down.

I'm proposing the same for Orchestral Staffs with (possibly) the OS becoming an UOS to keep the terminology consistent.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #89
G'day bidderxyzzy,

Don't worry about it - gave me an opportunity to be a smart aleck without actually offending anyone (I hope)

Quote
...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.

I still think extra control is needed - there are times when layering sith different staff types comes in handy and I wouldn't like to break that.  But then, I am a bit of a control freak - just a bit... ;)

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

Yup, I know - that's why I suggested the PDF option - or you can still use NWC and let 'em print from that.

I know there would, of course, be no note chase but I was more interested in the ability to highlight and/or mute staves.  I figure they'll be reading from a printout in their performances anyhow...

In any case it was offered as a consideration, not a definite solution.

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

That wasn't quite what I meant - rather it seemed to me that you had been frustrated at trying to teach the less cluey ones in how to use NWC to their advantage - some people really do have no idea at all, but I bet they have other skills neither of us have!

Quote
<snip the snarky bit>
 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.

Don't see him/her (the savvy singer) as competition, but rather as an ally - mayhap with ideas you haven't yet considered - a second opinion is always valuable.

I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #90
A bit late in the day and probably now irrelevant, but a number of modern programs require the presence of Microsoft  "net.framework"   This comes in more than one version and some programs require a specific version. I am on broadband with a rather modest speed, but I do not recollect the net downloads as being very long. The quoted time for dial-up is just under 1 hour.
I am now on XP but I believe I am correct in thinking that net.framework will not run with 98SE

Tony

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #91
G'day Tony,
I just checked and .net framework V1.1 and V2.0 is supported for Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2k3 server, 2k3 server for Itanium, 2k3 Server 64 bit editions, ME, '98 and '98SE, and all versions of vista.

They are both around 22 MB...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #92
Lawrie wrote
Quote
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.



Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #93
Almost, except NWC puts a finial on the lowest staff.
Not if it's a lower grand as in your example...  That's the characteristic that bidderxyzzy first mentioned when getting started on the "bug" thingy...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #94
Well... it is a long thread.

Is it the longest we've had in the forum so far?

 

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #95
Not quite - there are a few longer ones in "General Discussion" - 2 of which are locked, but it's the longest in "NWC2 General Discussion"
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #96
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.)

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #97
G'day bidderxyzzy,
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.)

I don't think that it's so much about catering for a "nonstandard" thing as it is about catering for as many standards as reasonably possible.  As you said "as far as standards exist".  An additional problem in this regard is regional differences.  No matter how much we may want to ignore it, the written language of music has dialects...  At least the vast majority of us (musicians) can understand each others dialects well enough to play together...

Then there's period differences - witness trills...

If the code is going to be changed, let's get it as nearly right as possible - If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right!

In addition, there are so many thousands of works already in existence that it would be irresponsible for NWC to simply change mid-stream without allowing for backward compatibility if possible.

IMHO: In the grand scheme of things, getting the braces "right" is welcome, desireable and an all round good thing to do - It will certainly help the conductor, and probably choristers when sight reading, but as long as their parts can be read without ambiguity it won't actually make the musicians or singers perform any better in the long run.  In any case, the finials aren't absolutely necessary for defining blocks of instruments, most scores I see also have wider gaps between staves at the instrument group changeover.  They're still nice though...

That said, it should still be fixed in the interests of improving the professionalism and therefore acceptability of the product.

As for the "barbershop" comment - methinks you are exaggerating again...

BTW, you never commented about my example that gave you the finial on the lower grand that you asked for...  Surely that small "kludge" resolved a goodly proportion of your problems...

<edit> I added a bit - it's in italics.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #98
Quote
...orchestral braces overlap a grand staff, which I have never seen in any score I have read...
I see it all the time.
Quote
but I say leave it out.
NO!  I've been wanting this for quite some time.  And I do want total control over what goes where.  And I want to be able to do it without layering.
Also, the examples without any bracket are so old that the stems are on the wrong side of the heads, so...

Re: The Orchestral Staff Attribute Bug

Reply #99
Here are a few more examples, including one which doesn't seem to be covered in the discussion above.  In both the Bach Violin Concerto and in Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts there are single staff orchestral markings, which would require a staff to be marked both beginning orchestral and ending orchestral.  I chose 17th century and a 20th century examples to show that this isn't a "flash in the pan".

There are also various nested orchestral markings and grandstaff overlapping orchestral.