NOTATIO

I think the question how to notate the difference between a rather fast, unaccented beginning of a broken four-stop on a string instrument, and a more accentuated one, remains unanswered. John's comparison, interesting as it is, doesn't say much about string notation. While four-stops, notated as ch...

I'll go with Michel here. For a score of this size, tempo indications at the top only seems good enough to me. In every part there'd be tempo indications anyhow. No one would risk missing anything. The space problem might possibly be resolved by further diminishing the size of the staves, and draggi...

David Ward wrote: ↑27 Oct 2023, 15:39 [About Berg's Wozzeck] ... there was a score in the music library at the boarding school I was at, although I suspect that if the staff had studied it they might, in those days at least, have blocked my access to it.

!! I'm glad they didn't.

The point I'm making is that there probably is a psychological difference in notating and/or playing with or without a key signature. Possibly this isn't the kind of psychological difference you had in mind, David, but anyway I found this example of a key signature in an othertwise no-signature con...

Key signatures, if used, aren't just to minimize accidentals but to convey a tonal center. ... I always use a key sig that conveys the actual tonal center, whether major or minor, and then show the mode by using accidentals. Perhaps that's more appropriate in music with a more stable tonal center? ...

Thanks for your extensive reply, Fred! I have a question, though. As I understand modal key signatures, in fx E Dorian there would be two sharps etc. Now, wouldn't a key signature with F sharp and C sharp be quite unproblematic, regardless of which scales and harmonies there are? Or, have I misunder...

In my experience this came especially from percussion players who asked for a different instrument disposition or staff usage in parts. Yes, percussions are special. In their part I use to combine them all in a percussion score (usually without Timpani). This gives the players a lot of cues from th...

Now I’m going to ask more performers and experienced copying colleagues about this to see if I come across a general preference. In a number of healthy discussions here on how to write for musicians, I've often heard something like "they haven't complained". Which obviously sounds like gu...

John Ruggero wrote: ↑20 Oct 2023, 17:41 Is it possible that only engravers are concerned about the "rules" of stem direction?

Good point.

... I find some phrases read more easily with the stem up. I suspect that many copyists today default to stem-down because that’s what their software does by default. When I've tried to be "more flexible" about stem direction in my engravings, I've come to the rather banal conclusion that...