in matters where an old practice and a new one are equally clear, I
often prefer the older or more traditional method.
I'm sorry, I don't find the two methods equally clear.
I find the new method of not naturalizing key sigs much clearer when sight reading. I just want to know what the new key signature is, not what the old one was. (The one exception being a change to C major/A minor.)
When I see three symbols at the start of a passage all I want to know is whether they are sharps or flats - I only need to look at the first one.
If there is a stack of symbols such that I have to look to see which are naturals and which are sharps it slows me down albeit only for a split second, but that's enough to increase the risk of splitting the first note (I'm a horn player).
Of course, being a horn player, in much of our music we tend not to have key signatures anyway, but that's another debate (and one which has already been covered in this forum I believe.)
All the best,
Lawrence
http://lawrenceyates.co.uk
