On 14 Jan 2011 at 20:26, John Howell wrote: > At 5:43 PM -0500 1/14/11, David W. Fenton wrote: > >On 14 Jan 2011 at 17:11, John Howell wrote: > > > >> But the practice goes back to the 13th century and was a necessary > >> one in music in which barlines were never used. THAT is what > >> makes it archaic, since using a number automatically makes it a > >> multi-meaure rest. > > > >I'm about to prepare parts on my Capricornus score (discussed on the > >last early last summer), and I have a dilemma -- the multi-measure > >rests will include time signature changes, so I'm going to have to > >break them up (I assume Finale will do that), but they are long > >measures, the standard being 4/2 and with 3/1, 6/2 and 9/2 (though > >3/1 and 9/2 occur problematically only as the last measures of > >passages in 4/2 or 6/2, so that's relatively simple). I'm intending > >to put in multi-measure rests only for the standard meters (4/2 and > >3/1) and write out the non-standard measures, and for the ones that > >occur at the end of a rest, I'm going to include vocal cues. > > I can certainly understand that as an editing dilemma. From what you > say, I assume that the original did not have bar lines,
Well, the organ part has "barlines", every whole note. But none of the other parts have any barlines. But the music really isn't in 4/2 or 3/1 in every single place. > so imposing > your own bar lines--even if mixed meters reflect the music > accurately--means that multi-measure rests would be incomprehensible > if they tried to cross time signature changes. Abolutely. I'm more concerned with the instrumentalists being able to pick up where they are so they know when to come in. The structure of the piece means they can't just zone out: Sinfonia -- tutti (no singers) Solo arioso -- singers and continuo group Sinfonie da capo Accompanied arioso -- tutti Solo arioso Accompanied arios -- tutti This structure repeats five times, and everything would be easy except for the entry of the instrumentalists at the last tutti, since they have to know where to come in (it's not following a huge structural cadence, for instance). It's probably going to be OK, since the instrumentalists come in together (no contrapuntal entrances), so everybody just has to watch the treble viol player (the leader of the group). But I'm going to have to cue that in the treble viol part, so I might as well do it in all the parts so everybody won't have to watch the leader so intently. > That's why I try to > remove the barlines when I edit, if it's possible to do so without > making things more confusing. But in rehearsal you still have to be able to say "start at m. 34" or "3 bars before rehearsal B" so you really can't get rid of the concept entirely, seems to me. > But of course Finale (along with > Sibelius and Mosaic) assumes that ALL music is divided into bars, so > various kludges are needed to try to fool them. > > At least you're barring to the music, and not to an arbitrary meter > that's imposed on it. You mean, unlike the original source... > New Music has many of the same problems. It's just that there were > those two centuries of rather rigid meter between then and now. Which > of course led composers like Beethoven and Schubert to rebel against > the "tyranny of the bar line"! Sometimes you just can't win. I think Finale automatically breaks multi-measure rests at time changes, so I won't have to do anything special here. If it were a recurring pattern, like the Westside Story "America" pattern, it would be kind of annoying, since you'd get no multimeasure rests at all (assuming you actually changed the meter with every measure from 6/8 to 3/4). The 6/8+3/4 example is too simple, as you might have 4/4+3/4 in a repeating pattern, and that would require time signature changes in the score (whether you displayed them or not), so you'd never get any multimeasure rests, but it would still be something that's quite easily counted. I'm not sure I'd finger Finale's problems with being measure-based here for the issue, as I think creating countable rests is something that transcends the issue of how the stuff is notated. As I said, I don't know how you rehearse without measure numbers... -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
