NOTATIO

But that brings up the famous controversy about Debussy's Prelude...Engulfed Cathedral. He appears to be saying that the quarter note is constant throughout. But in his own recorded performance he plays the quarter notes in the opening 6/4 at the same speed as the half notes in the following 3/2. P...

you see, I like the grace note notation because to me it indicates that the grace notes should be played distinct from the rest of the notes. in the chord notation, to my eye, it implies that the notes should be played as quickly as possible, and as much "in one go" as possible. it also al...

If a string player (or someone very knowledgeable in string notation) could help me with this question, it would be immensely appreciated. when writing a multi-stop, I've always written the first-played notes as grace notes, then the actual "on the beat" notes as "real" notes. I'...

I would have gone with only at the top staff, considering how small an ensemble it is.

Ravel has them over the top staff, over the voice AND over the piano in Chansons Madécasses. To me that's overkill. But then, I ain't no Ravel, either.

well THIS topic has sure taken a tangent!! it's been interesting, even if rather unrelated to the original question LOL quick callback to the original post: I'm rather upset that the orchestra is stuck working from parts that have errors in them that were only found AFTER they had all been printed a...

I didn't expect this topic to be quite as divisive as it turned out. well, as a composer and performer, who engraves my own music for publication, I'm going to go with the idea of flexibility in stem direction when it comes to the middle staff line. for me, readability is more important than some ar...

Unfortunately, I was facing a deadline for the production of score and parts, for the premiere of this particular work. Normally I also sit and play through instrumental individual parts, FROM their separate parts. I didn't get to do this, in this particular case, until the whole set had already bee...

I very rarely change a stem's direction, preferring to simply leave the default directions, which are usually correct. This was a rare case for me, and it was annoying the heck out of me every time I'd see that measure (with a down-stem note.) It just looked... "wrong", somehow. This is a ...

thank-you for your responses. they confirm what I suspected. I'm looking for clarity for the performers, mostly. it felt to me that clearly identifying the mid-measure break was the best way to avoid any rhythmic insecurities on the part of the musicians reading their parts (too often for the first ...

Notes on the middle line of the staff have a particular issue to them Some "rule books" say that the stem should always be in X direction, others seem to say it depends on the context. I have a question here. might I flip a stem to make the half-bar more distinct? I have two images, the sa...