Richard Smith wrote:
Sibelius does the same thing as Finale in this case. But, if I may give
a player's perspective, I really prefer having the MM rest broken to
place a DS or similar instruction. It doesn't look as good, but it's
much more clear to me as to where it is to occur. I have played lots of
music that had such instructions poorly placed and was confusing. I
think instant recognition is more important than graphic beauty,
especially in the high pressure world of one rehearsal (maybe?) before
performing it.
But then, this brings up one of my favorite peeves. Why, when copy and
paste work so well, do we continue to use complicated repeat patterns
and nested endings that only consume limited (at least in my case) brain
power when it's most needed for making music? The less we are distracted
from the basics of music making, the better the performance is likely to
be. It's really time to leave the archaic notation shortcuts of the
handwritten era behind.
Often D.S. or D.C. instructions leave us with a 1-page part,
which is about half as expensive to print as a 2-page part
would be, and quite often that D.S. or D.C. section before
the Fine or the Coda is only a couple of lines. Why should
we make a 2-page part for only a couple of lines?
Musically, it's easy to get people to play the same section
the same way (if that's what's desired) if they're looking
at the same printed music. Often when looking at even the
same music on a different part of the page, it doesn't come
out the same way.
Finally, try printing a piece which is through-composed with
no repeats, 1st-2nd endings or D.S./D.C. on a march-size
piece of paper for a marching band which doesn't memorize
its music. Go ahead, I dare you. :-)
As to the breaking of a multi-measure rest just so show that
the D.S./D.C. instruction is at the end of that rest,
everybody I've ever met musically knows that it goes at the
end of the multi-measure rest, and that if it were to go
anywhere else, there would be a shorter multi-measure rest
with that instruction at the end.
I've never run into any musicians, even elementary school
1st-year students, who needed the D.S. or D.C. over a
measure rest which was separated from a multi-measure rest.
You didn't make me mad, but don't sell those old-fashioned
repeat structures short and don't sell your musicians short
in their ability to cope with them. Anybody who can't
understand them has no business calling themselves a
musician anyway. :-)
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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