Klarinet Archive - Posting 000718.txt from 2003/03

From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Key signatures
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 18:11:20 -0500

On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 15:37:09 -0500, alevin@-----. Levin)
wrote:
>
> Some thirty years ago I was experimenting with notation because I
>was writing modal serial music (as opposed to atonal serial music). It was
>a phase for me because I found myself to be more comfortable with the music
>of Berg, (late) Stravinsky and Sessions, than with purely atonal serialists.
>...
> I also noticed that a number of current composers were writing all
>full score parts in C and adding accidentals, then having the parts
>transposed appropriately - the conductor continuing to work with the "C"
part.
> (I also wrote a couple of things without regular metered measures
>- even without bar lines. That was a disaster.!)

I have noticed that quite a number of pieces we've reviewed recently in our
community band have obviously been typeset by people using a desktop notation
program like Finale, who naturally assumed that whatever Finale suggested
must be right. These are generally easy to spot. The note spacing is poor
and uneven, the dynamic markings are irregularly placed, note heads are
disproportionally sized, and perhaps most telling of all, slur and phrasing
marks overlap note stems in a very difficult to read way.

Many of these people are also relying on the notation program to do their
transpositions, relying on whatever silly enharmonic spellings the program
gives.

For example, we recently played a medley for band called "Bright Lights on
Broadway". It's a nice enough arrangement, but there is one measure that
drives me nuts. At one point in "There's No Business Like Show Business", it
modulates from concert Ab major through A major (on its way to a concert Bb
major resolution), just in time for the ascending phrase "everything about it
is appealing". It is a simple ascending scale, starting one note below
tonic, rising to the tonic an octave above. Instead of writing it correctly
for the clarinet as a simple B major scale, they chose to notate it in Bb
major with accidentals: Bb, B, C#, Eb, E, F#, Ab, Bb, B. Every time I see
it, I have to force myself to think "it's just a B major scale". It is much
harder to parse this way than it would have been written as a B major scale,
which my brain could have recognized at a glance.

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------