Mark D Lew wrote:
On Mar 16, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Robert Patterson wrote:
Whether you want them or not, whether you agree with Ted Ross or not,
an engraving program should have them. Ted Ross (among a bare handful
of others) defines some industry best-practices. You don't have to
take his suggestions, of course, and many people choose to do some
things differently. But a large number of very qualified people take a
large number of his suggestions, so it is not wise to dismiss him
out-of-hand.
Well said. I hope no one thought I was dismissing Ted Ross out of
hand. I only meant to suggest that most of us here on this forum can
have sufficient confidence in our own judgment that we might disagree
with him on certain points. I certainly didn't mean to suggest he
should be ignored.
By the way, on the original question, I join with the minority. I'm not
at all bothered by seeing a slur end at the first note in a tie. To me,
it feels normal, perfectly understandable, and in some cases more
aesthetically pleasing. No doubt this has something to do with the fact
that I spend a lot of time with 19th century music. As with many of
these questions, it's a matter of what one is accustomed to.
But on the other hand, just who was Ted Ross? He was just one engraver
out of thousands who were working at the same time. He happened to
write a book which was published by one of the publishers (Hansen House)
which I would trust least to be an authority on good engraving practices.
I have no problem in disagreeing with Ted Ross whenever my eye doesn't
like what he suggests.
He is a great starting point for people who haven't seen a lot of music
from a lot of different publishers and formed their own general concepts
of good music engraving. And he's also a good point of reference with
which I feel it's fine to disagree if the music is clearer and more easy
to read.
It's too bad that more such books weren't written by folks who engraved
for Breitkopf&Haertel (eye-pleasing layout, in my opinion) or for Carl
Fischer (quite often very overcrowded, hard-to-read layout, in my
opinion) or for G. Schirmer (quite a mixed bag, in my opinion, with some
works being hard on the eyes with others being very well engraved, in my
opinion) or any of the big publishing houses such as Durand or Novello
or any of the others in the golden age of engraving.
But just because Ted Ross is the only one who actually wrote a book
about it doesn't make him the final arbiter on all matters concerning
music layout.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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