NOTATIO

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...

Thank you JJP, for your detailed and enlightening reply! It seems quite obvious the way you put it, but then, you have to know before it's obvious to you!

I wonder if notation got simplified for business reasons. As JJP said, sight-reading this asks for mistake, and especially in the film industry, every mistake costs a fortune. In classical music, a performance should never be at sight-reading level. I believe we should keep conventions separated by...

I recall trying this for a job I had and discovering there was a surprising difference between two possible ways of hiding the noteheads: Headless staccato A.JPG Headless staccato B.JPG The really surprising thing was that the difference ocurred not when changing the noteheads as you might have expe...