Re: Transposing instrument best practice

[Vaughan McAlley]

On Thu, 1 Aug 2019 at 02:40, Simon Albrecht  wrote:
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> I have practically never had to typeset music for transposing
> instruments before, so I have barely any experience with this topic. The
> documentation confuses me, since the NR has two sections talking about
> transposing instruments, each giving different advice:
>
> 1.1.3.d recommends entering the notes in ‘written’ pitch and using
> \transposition to get correct MIDI, cues and quotes. In ‘See also’, it
> links to
>
> 1.1.2.b, where the recommendation is to enter the notes in concert pitch
> and use \transpose to display them in transposed, written pitch.
>
> Keith O’Hara, in
> , writes that ‘we
> usually suggest that the variables holding music for transposing
> instruments store the music in concert pitch.’
>
> Given the highly confusing nature of the subject, wouldn’t it be better
> if the NR took a clear stance toward one of the ways as ‘best practice’?
>
> Which way would that be? What experiences did you make?
>
> Best, Simon
>
>
> ___
> lilypond-user mailing list
> lilypond-user@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user

The use-case for entering the notes as written is if you're entering
an existing score, by Beethoven for example. Beethoven will have
transposed the clarinet parts himself (relatively laboriously), so
that is the easiest way to enter them.

Otherwise, if you're creating a new score and the music in its present
form is in concert pitch, it's helpful to \transpose the music (much
less laboriously and much more accurately) with your computer.

Either way, the music will appear in the score the way the player sees
it (if that's what you want). I'm almost always doing the second
option because of what I do.

The \transpose and \transposition is a bit hard to get your head
around, but if you did it another way, it would be a lot trickier for
people who use the first option (who are probably a majority?)

Vaughan

___
lilypond-user mailing list
lilypond-user@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user

Re: Transposing instrument best practice

[Lukas-Fabian Moser]

Hi,

Given the highly confusing nature of the subject, wouldn’t it be 
better if the NR took a clear stance toward one of the ways as ‘best 
practice’?


Which way would that be? What experiences did you make?


(I still dispute the description of the subject as highly confusing, but 
this may be an instance of "déformation professionnelle" since I am 
often in the position of having to convince students that there is no 
need to fear transposing instruments ;-).)


For what it's worth, I can describe my practice - for me it may well be 
"best" practice:


GENERAL RULE: I like to have the contents of a music variable in concert 
pitch at all times. This means, I want to make sure that if I just combine


<<
  \new Staff \clarinetI
  \new Staff \clarinetII
  \new Staff \violinI
>>

in conjunction with \midi, everything should fit.

This implipes:

ENTERING: Whether I actually enter the \clarinetI notes in written or in 
sounding pitch depends on the source. In most cases, the source will be 
transposing (not in sounding pitch), and since I'm too lazy to transpose 
on-the-fly, I enter written pitch and wrap everything in a \transpose 
command:


clarinetI = \transpose c' a {
  % music copied directly from a part written for Clarinet in a.
} % the variable now contains the music in concert pitch

(Actually, this means that while entering the Clarinet music, I "hear" 
the piece in the wrong key since, having perfect pitch, I tend to hear 
the note of the name I'm typing. That's not ideal, but less of an 
inconvenience than transposing everything while typing.)


Of course, one can also omit the \transpose command and instead perform 
an actual transposition of the written note names using the neat tools 
that Frescobaldi offers. This way one actually "sees" concert pitch in 
the source code.


SCORE/PART DESIGN: Since all my music variables are in sounding pitch, I 
have to re-transpose them when creating the actual score and parts (I 
almost never create concert pitch scores):


\new Staff \with { instrumentName = \markup{ Clarinetto in \italic la } 
} { \transposition a \transpose a c' \clarinetI }


Here, the \transposition command makes sure that a midi file that might 
be generated from the score uses the right transposition.



Of course, this way of handling things leads to a redundant bunch of 
transpositions and re-transpositions (if I enter a written clarinet part 
in written pitch, \transpose it to make sure the music variable contains 
sounding pitches, and \transpose it back in order to recreate the 
clarinet part for the player). But I like the conceptual idea of my 
general rule that a music variable should _always_ contain music in 
actual concert pitch.



A drawback of this method seems to be that it's quite hard to implement 
mid-piece changes of transposition. I somehow never seem to need this; 
but if I ever had the need to typeset an old-style French Horn part that 
changes transposition every few bars, I would probably abandon my 
"general rule", enter written pitch and define a music function 
\changeTransposition that i) issues the proper \transposition command 
and ii) generates a text markup like "in fa".


Best
Lukas


___
lilypond-user mailing list
lilypond-user@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user

Re: Transposing instrument best practice

[Simon Albrecht]

Hi Dick,

please keep communication on-list except if you need to share actual 
private information.


On topic: the question is neither about composing, nor about what’s 
supposed to appear on the page. This is exclusively about coding style 
and the implications of what’s ‘behind the scenes’.


Like many, I never compose and rarely arrange directly into LilyPond, 
since that’s cumbersome with the way Lily works.


Best, Simon

On 31.07.19 20:03, Dick Seabrook wrote:
Depends on where you're coming from I think. If you're composing at 
the piano
then write in concert pitch by all means. However if you're composing 
for trumpet (Bb)
and decide to write a flute part (C) and also a trombone part (bass 
clef C) you can think
in C all you want but plan on adding a couple of flats to the other 
parts. Add sharps

going the other way.
Dick S.


On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 12:40 PM Simon Albrecht 
mailto:simon.albre...@mail.de>> wrote:


Hello everybody,

I have practically never had to typeset music for transposing
instruments before, so I have barely any experience with this
topic. The
documentation confuses me, since the NR has two sections talking
about
transposing instruments, each giving different advice:

1.1.3.d recommends entering the notes in ‘written’ pitch and using
\transposition to get correct MIDI, cues and quotes. In ‘See
also’, it
links to

1.1.2.b, where the recommendation is to enter the notes in concert
pitch
and use \transpose to display them in transposed, written pitch.

Keith O’Hara, in
, writes
that ‘we
usually suggest that the variables holding music for transposing
instruments store the music in concert pitch.’

Given the highly confusing nature of the subject, wouldn’t it be
better
if the NR took a clear stance toward one of the ways as ‘best
practice’?

Which way would that be? What experiences did you make?

Best, Simon


___
lilypond-user mailing list
lilypond-user@gnu.org 
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user



--
Dick Seabrook
Anne Arundel Community College
http://vader.aacc.edu/~rhs
Speed the Net!


___
lilypond-user mailing list
lilypond-user@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user

Re: Transposing instrument best practice

[karl]

Simon:
...
> 1.1.3.d recommends entering the notes in ‘written’ pitch and using 
> \transposition to get correct MIDI, cues and quotes. In ‘See also’, it 
> links to
> 
> 1.1.2.b, where the recommendation is to enter the notes in concert pitch 
> and use \transpose to display them in transposed, written pitch.
...
> Which way would that be? What experiences did you make?
...

Since I'm no composer, for me it depends on what I copy the music from,
since that makes it easier to compare and correct.

A composer writing new music, probably chooses what suits himself/herself,
you can do it either way.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar


___
lilypond-user mailing list
lilypond-user@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user