Stem Direction question

[Fred G. Unn]

So, JJP's idea of asking the performers themselves isn't a bad idea. How many of you colleagues have actually done that?

Sure! That's where I've learned a lot! I'm a fairly active performer myself, so in addition to my own preferences, I see what others pencil into their parts, and hear what they gripe about. A couple of experiences stand out ...

1) My teacher in college had taught me hand copying so when I got to NYC I would at least have a skill while I was trying to find playing gigs. I got hooked up as one of the hand copyists for the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in the 90s, and those guys were all very experienced and very vocal if they didn't like how their parts were laid out! Festival Productions (George Wein's company that owned the band) made the switch to requiring Finale the next year, which was fine as I had already learned it in grad school. When Jazz font came out I used it on exactly 1 job, as everyone in the Carnegie band hated it, said the noteheads were too small, the lettering and numbers were illegible, etc. I still think that might be the only time I've ever used it. Even jazz players who had spent their whole lives reading hand copied parts hated the Jazz font. (I personally dislike almost all "hand copied" music fonts.)

2) I know I've mentioned it here before, but I was one of the woodwind players in the "house band" for the BMI Composer's Workshop in the early-mid 00s. As each composer only had 20 minutes to rehearse the band (who was seeing the music for the first time) and try to get a run-through, it was really fascinating notationally as well. There are lots of things I still do based on complaints, mistakes, or other gripes I heard there. The band was all pros, including a lot of Broadway players, so they were all pretty comfortable about telling up-and-coming young composers what to do or not do with their parts. Off the top of my head: always use "late" instrument changes as the key sig change helps if they missed the "to" indication, don't cue into the bar where the entrance is, use backward repeats for a repeat that goes to the beginning even if not technically needed (someone will inevitably ask "where do we repeat back to?"), never use modal key sigs as brass players in particular hate them, obviously plan for logical layouts so as a composer make sure to include time for mute or instrument changes, etc.

IME, performers are either pretty vocal about their preferences or are in the "whatever, I'll read anything, just put it in front of me" camp. Gripes sometimes get passed along to the section leader as to not have the whole ensemble speaking up at rehearsal. The section leader often hears them in the form of excuses too, like "sorry I missed that line in bar 47, but look at how effed up this is written," LOL!

[NeeraWM]

That seems like a good approach. I'm wondering of Dorico would make it easier or harder to do since it is oriented toward players rather than instruments.

Yes, Dorico makes this easier to create multiple layouts with different players allocations.
Also in Sibelius you can create new parts with more or less instruments (not players) included.

[Anders Hedelin]

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 misunderstood you?

[Fred G. Unn]

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 misunderstood you?

Key signatures, if used, aren't just to minimize accidentals but to convey a tonal center. I'm a woodwind player, so if I don't hear the note properly in my head before playing it, it will just be a little out of tune. But if a brass player doesn't hear it correctly, they miss the note. Modal key signatures mess with brass players' heads as they aren't conveying the tonal center and pitch relationships that they are used to hearing, so they make it more difficult to play. (At least the brass players at BMI used to gripe about it.)

Model key sigs often lead the players to second-guess what's written too, increasing the chance of error. If I'm playing in F mixolydian with a key sig of two flats, when I get to the V7 chord and see an E written, is that really supposed to be an E natural (the 3rd of the chord) or is it Eb (enharmonically the #9) because of the key sig? Using a key sig of 1 flat conveys the tonal center of F (or D minor) and eliminates that guesswork. For tonal music, I always use a key sig that conveys the actual tonal center, whether major or minor, and then show the mode by using accidentals. Or just skip it and use open key.

[Anders Hedelin]

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? Modal harmony in classical/contemporary music appears typically in neoclassicist works, where the tonal centre frequently is rather 'shifty'. And perhaps more often than not it's also written with an open key signature.

I haven't given much thought to key signatures in (newer) modal music before, because I don't use them myself when composing, but now I'll have something to mull over. Thanks!

[David Ward]

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.

… … … …I haven't given much thought to key signatures in (newer) modal music before, because I don't use them myself when composing, but now I'll have something to mull over. Thanks!

I've rarely used key signatures, unless for pastiche stage music &c. However, very recently I've used a C minor key signature for the final verse of an eight and a half minute duet song after initially writing that verse with the same open (ie no) key signature as the rest of the piece. I added the key signature for what I judged to be ‘psychological’ reasons (and it does eventually end in a rather bleak C minor). The duet is due its first performance on 17 November as part of the London Song Festival https://www.londonsongfestival.org/concerts-1/ (Concert 5). So far it has had one preliminary run through (without my being there) and I'm told that everything is ‘very clear’.

The point I'm making is that there probably is a psychological difference in notating and/or playing with or without a key signature. Or is there?

[Fred G. Unn]

I love open key and use it all the time in my own work. I think the brass players' complaint is that they are used to hearing certain scale degrees a certain way, and when one uses a modal key sig to simply cut down on accidentals it creates a conflict between what they see and what they are used to hearing. With a key sig of 2 sharps, G "feels" very different when it is the 4th scale degree of D major, than when it is the 3rd of a tonicized E dorian. For E dorian I would use 1 sharp in the key sig to convey the tonal center of E minor and then use notated C#s to convey dorian, rather than using 2 sharps in the key sig. It's obviously a topic for debate, but I don't necessarily believe minimizing notated accidentals is automatically a desirable thing. Musicians are used to remembering key sigs based on tonal centers, and unless your name is Béla or György, many musicians won't want to deal with modal key sigs, especially in situations where rehearsal time is limited or non-existent.

The point I'm making is that there probably is a psychological difference in notating and/or playing with or without a key signature. Or is there?

I think you're probably right. I think there is something to the psychological aspect if you know the composer was thinking of a harmonic pull towards a tonal center, even if highly chromatic and/or eventually resolving elsewhere.

[Anders Hedelin]

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 context.

So, here's a short section from Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Act III, Scene 1. The music makes use of free atonality, the harmonic style adopted by Schoenberg and his students before the dodecaphonic period. No tonal centre as such, but a pedal point on F# (26-30) in the trombones - and of course no key signature:

Wozzeck, Act III, Scene 1, a.JPG (132.34 KiB) Viewed 142816 times

In the following bars, the music moves clearly towards F minor, and when the key is established by a tonic, Berg applies one of the very few key signatures in the opera.

Wozzeck, Act III, Scene 1, b.JPG (136.66 KiB) Viewed 142816 times

The psychological effect of the key signature is there, I think, the harmony suddenly being confined to a gloomy minor key (Marie's mood in her claustrophobic room?). You might also sense a stylistic difference, one of many and of many different kinds, which Berg uses very meaningfully in this multilayered work.

[David Ward]

… …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 otherwise no-signature context.

So, here's a short section from Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Act III, Scene 1.… …
In the following bars, the music moves clearly towards F minor, and when the key is established by a tonic, Berg applies one of the very few key signatures in the opera… …

Yes indeed, those nine bars in F minor are notable, as of course is the later D minor interlude for the orchestra.

I've been obsessed with Wozzeck since I was fifteen (in 1956!). For some reason 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. In June this year, I made the 700 miles (each way) trip down to London to see Deborah Warner's new production of Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with Christian Gerhaher in the title role. It was gripping.

Conversely, I think some of the key signatures in Strauss's Elektra rather confuse things and certain passages might be more simply notated with none. The same might possibly (discuss) apply to the prelude to Act 3 of Wagner's Parsifal.

[Anders Hedelin]

[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.