NOTATIO

John Ruggero wrote: ↑16 Feb 2023, 13:18 Now even choral music, which gave birth to polyphony, is often written as chordal blocks, further reinforcing this viewpoint. This is a great tragedy.

The sentiment behind this statement is beautiful. Bravo!

What you choose depends on the context; however, I would not use diamond noteheads, because those are commonly used to represent comping rhythm with no voicing information. You may try notating with solid, stemless noteheads at the chord change and then rhythm slashes for the rest of the bar. That w...

I find it risky to assume that players will know exactly what is intended in this situation. It may not be self-evident if they don't know the recording on which you are basing the arrangement. In my experience, tying one rest to another would invite questions from the performers. They may assume th...

John, I thought your response was excellent. It's hard to make a judgement without knowing the context of exactly what music is being created. I deal with these issues frequently when creating lead sheets or rhythm parts. We're trying to keep things as simple and visual as possible to give the perfo...

And that's the essence of the let ring question. If the previous note is tied to a rest, what else could it mean? OTOH, why make the drummer (or any other player who may not be familiar with the notation convention), have to think about it? If this is meant to be a lead sheet or master rhythm chart...

Thank you both for your thoughts. I raised this because I have never seen a definitive explanation, as you both indicate. There has been apparent consensus on much of this, but few explanations as to "why" which can be codified. I tack George Orwell's final rule for writing to the end of a...

I think we all agree that an ascending hanging beam end creates a triangle. What are the rationales for this being discouraged? I know that traditionally such shapes caused printing issues. However, today, printing is much sharper in many cases... but I think we should still be conservative. Persona...

However, the issue here is whether the stem length in bar 4 and 5 should be the same; not what it is should be. My opinion is that they should be the same, especially if the bars are consecutive or part of a continuing or recurring pattern. Changing length of the stems can imply a change in pitch o...

Thank you to both of you for allowing the rest of us to follow this thoughtful conversation!

I usually see "bell", "on bell", or "at bell" to indicate playing the bell of the cymbal.

Some people use little pictograms to show where to play, but in my experience as a percussionist, there is no standardization to them.