I downloaded Jeff Covey's rendering of the Milan Pavan 2 from Mutopia
this morning to give to students. The overall appearance of it is just
wonderful. I can certainly mark it up a bit and use it, but it has
serious errors in it that *cannot* be his fault.
There are stem collisions at 9:3, 10:3, 11:1, 13:2, 14:3, and 22:3.
These errors are not merely cosmetic and meaningless, as, for example,
failure to divide the directions of multiple ties in some way or other
would be. Any one of the cited errors should be considered completely
fatal. You *must not* have two time values on a single stem. Stems that
coincide are a single stem in all cases. There must be offset, and the
software must absolutely provide it without prompting or configuration.
(Of course multiple stems on a single head are fine. That has always
been, since 1825 at least, considered ok *even with the ambiguity of a
dotted head*. That last should not be and should never have been
allowed, but it was. :-( )
The way the notes are aligned on the left side at 20:1 and elsewhere
looks great, but to have the stem touch a semibreve as in 11:1 is a
serious fault. A semibreve doesn't have a stem, at least never one
with a half note on it.
Also, the spacing at 15:2-3 and 23:2-3 is so bad that the second and
third beats in each case give the appearance of being a single 4-note
chord.
At 19:1 the tenor part quarter rest is below the bass.
---------------Summary:
Measures: 24
Measures ok: 15
Measures not ok: 9
----------------
Ok does not mean without fault. There are wrong stem directions in
measures 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, and 22. A very minor matter except where
it caused a few of the other mistakes.
I hope that I have been beating a dead dog here, and that this stuff
is already fixed in the program. I would much prefer to have wasted
my time rather than yours.
Now to pick some nits.
There is too much staff before the clef, and the distance between the
clef and the F# is too great. This is purely wasted space. It looks
wasteful without looking elegant, unlike indention, where I was wrong.
:-)
There is no 8 on the bottom of the clef. I know that guitar music has
always been written at the octave, Jeff knows it, but everybody doesn't
know it, and everybody shouldn't have to know it. One shouldn't have to
know the instrument to read the music. Millions of people will download
this stuff, eventually. Not all of them will be guitar players. Clefs
should always give *absolute pitches*. It is completely unnecessary to
compromise on that, and also needlessly confusing. Since you can
completely avoid ambiguity in pitch, you should. If people didn't in the
past, shame on them.
This Pavan is from the first book of exclusively instrumental music
published ever. It is transcribed from tablature and it is not in the
original key. (F) There was no such thing as a repeat sign. Milan
suggested that one of the pavans (I forget which, but not this one)
should be played three times for best effect. That is the kind of
information which would be nice to have on a *title page*. I don't
consider myself to be the type of person that Mutopia was created to
serve. I already knew that stuff. I cannot deny that it would usually,
but not necessarily, be more sensible to refer to a title page rather
than include it in the file for a single page of music, especially part
of a larger work, but when the Pavans and Fantasies become single
downloads, as they must, the situation will change. If the Pavans and
Fantasies together should ever become one download, I doubt a single
title page would provide enough space for the desirable information.
Why not start getting ready now?
I'm sorry if you consider binding OT. It is crucial to survival.
BTW: I have a bilingual edition of the Carcassi Method in American
English with the original French, probably published in 1883. The
original publication was in Paris in 1825, I believe. 1883 was the year
that Theodore Presser was founded in Philadelphia. It is extremely
likely that they would have published the Carcassi book in their first
year. It is possibly the best selling instrumental method book of all
time, a sure winner. Before 1883 anyway, we in the USA wrote F# as fis
and G# as gis. :-) I've decided that I should get used to it.
This edition is engraved but it has some music typesetting in the
introductory (mostly text) part. When engraved, the staff is open on the
left, but it is always closed with typesetting. The thin metal ends of
the lines would bend or break without that reinforcement. Since music
was typeset with metal long before the invention of copperplate
engraving, (typeset in Italy during Monteverde's time, which is why
Allegro, Andante, Dal Segno, etc.) that explains the persistence of the
practice of closing the end. And gives further justification for not
continuing it when trying to emulate engraving. :-)
I didn't much like "Hall of Shame" either. I like the idea, not the
title. A bad user interface is the programmer's fault. Failure to find a
solution to a notation problem is nothing like that. You are certainly
right that it should be blame free. There may well be no solution to
a notation problem. Also, the most illuminating examples of failure
are from the best efforts of the best engravers and typesetters, not the
worst. I was looking for a title that was not dull, not looking to
insult people or hurt their feelings. Of course, most are safely dead,
too, while most of the user interface writers are still alive...
How about "Music Notation Chamber of Horrors"?
--
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