Single note-measure placement

OCTO · Post by **OCTO** » 16 Aug 2016, 11:24

There was a discussion about placement of the

in the measure (centring it), here in Messiaen we have a similar idea:

: shot 2016-08-16 at 13.22.42.png (28.57 KiB) Viewed 2849 times

: shot 2016-08-16 at 13.22.37.png (24.25 KiB) Viewed 2849 times

Quite interesting!

tisimst · Post by **tisimst** » 16 Aug 2016, 11:44

Is the excessive shift to the right caused by the repeat-ties? They seem to be present in both images, and although one could argue for how long those ties should be (I think they're fine, but could be shorter), I wonder if the engravers would have placed them at the same position in the bar had there NOT been any repeat-ties...

MJCube · Post by **MJCube** » 16 Aug 2016, 15:52

Some 20th century engravings (especially French) appear to be reproducing the spacing of a composer’s manuscript much more than 19th century engravings ever did. I can’t argue against the clarity in Messiæn scores, but that amount of space for a half note or quarter note does seem wasteful to me.

OCTO · Post by **OCTO** » 16 Aug 2016, 17:57

tisimst wrote:Is the excessive shift to the right caused by the repeat-ties? They seem to be present in both images, and although one could argue for how long those ties should be (I think they're fine), I wonder if the engravers would have placed them at the same position in the bar had there NOT been any repeat-ties...

Very interesting thoughts, I haven't considered that.
The overall spacing is very wide. Interesting, since the German music looks so different from that time (or earlier, for instance Strauss - zip packed.)

tisimst · Post by **tisimst** » 16 Aug 2016, 18:03

OCTO wrote:The overall spacing is very wide.

I agree. The amount of actual space given to those measures seems unnecessary, though perhaps in the greater context it isn't as obviously large.

John Ruggero · Post by **John Ruggero** » 28 Aug 2016, 01:47

The space both before and after the notes in the Messiaen example seems excessive to me. However, I think that the old engravers were correct to indent the note and narrow a single note measure.

I now follow the following procedure for handling this situation: I move the note one note-head to the right from its normal position and narrow the measure until the note head approaches the center. However, only in very narrow measures would the note-head be exactly centered, which can appear sterile. A single note in the final measure of a piece might be a case where exact centering is best.

It would be nice to be able to automate this procedure in Finale.

: Single note measures.jpg (79.68 KiB) Viewed 2769 times

MJCube · Post by **MJCube** » 31 Aug 2016, 11:02

Yes, this is exactly what I’ve been doing in FInale and Sibelius for about 25 years now.

John Ruggero · Post by **John Ruggero** » 31 Aug 2016, 23:14

That's very good to know, MJCube. I may pose this as a possible plugin at the MM forum.

John Ruggero · Post by **John Ruggero** » 05 Sep 2016, 12:39

I did pose this at the MM Forum, and HaraldS kindly provided an excellent JWLua plugin that will change the single-note indent and measure width for selected measures.

http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=484156

MJCube · Post by **MJCube** » 06 Sep 2016, 17:36

Just curious (as I don’t use Finale for work any more): Does the plugin find candidate measures in the selection too?

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