 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-03-20 03:31
A measure of music has a clarion "C" double sharped with an "x" preceding it.
Later in the measure the composer wants an altissimo "C" played naturally, and two neutral signs appear before it.
Is this common notation? Would one neutral symbol have indicated to play the altissimo "C" as a "C#"?
Thanks.
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2015-03-20 03:37
A double sharp raises the note by two semitones so to make the note a natural will require the naturalisation of the double sharp. A sharp and a natural would have only lowered by a semitone.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-03-20 03:57
I think to answer your question specifically, a single natural sign would be enough to cancel the double-sharp. If he had wanted a C-sharp, I think Peter is correct that it would have taken a natural and a sharp together.
Karl
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Author: DGRichmond
Date: 2015-03-20 07:18
The two natural signs isn't common since a single natural sign will do to cancel out a double sharp, but it is done, and I believe it's mentioned as a method of notation in Elaine Gould's Behind Bars.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-20 13:48
I just read all the answers, and I assume all are well educated musicians, yet there is no clear answer. That is a problem. I spent 5 years typesetting, editing, arranging, and proofreading all kinds of music at Hal Leonard and another publisher, and when we came across something that was confusing to us and others doing the same work, we tried to go with what brought clarity to the situation. Sometimes courtesy accidentals were put in as a reminder, but this is a weird one. Personally the composer should have just written a D natural and been done with it. Notation has evolved over a long period of time, and is still evolving. In ye olden days there were no bar lines or key signatures, so we have created some monsters with all our obscure rules.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2015-03-20 17:32
In this instance, because the courtesy accidentals were given, it is fairly clear. The current practice, however, is to consider accidentals good only for the register in which they appear (Finale and Sibelius work this way). Playing contemporary tonal music or reading from handwritten parts, which haven't been notationally standardized by a computer program, can be tricky.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-21 00:11
I worked at 2 music print publishers in the 1980's, and one, Hal Leonard was the largest print publisher in the world, and the other was the publisher which the owner of Hal Leonard had started at called Sight & Sound. Sight & Sound used a software program at a company called AR Editions in Madison, Wisconsin which used an IBM mainframe, and a software program written by a computer person with a musicology background. It's rules as any software program were determined by the person or persons writing the code. There were many problems, and I finally wrote my own guidelines for editing to bring uniformity to what came across my desk. I also did the same at Hal Leonard where I worked at 2 different periods of time. Hal Leonard had a computer in Winona, MN with software written by someone who did not fully understand music notation, so editors, proofreaders, etc. changed things. HL later set up another typesetting office in Milwaukee, but that had a totally different computer with software and hardware by New England Digital. There would be updates, and things would come out different. So there you had 2 different computers with people in different cities typesetting music, and there was no communication between them because of the distance and different computers and software and no written rules. Then HL bought many other publishers each with their own software, systems, rules, etc. so there was not even uniformity within that one company. Later HL went to different software so that changed everything again. Other companies had their own systems, and some music was of notes put on a blackboard and photographed. It was kind of crazy. Notation also evolves over time. The short answer is there is no answer. There are so many different software programs, music printed not using software, different rules for different publishers, and rules changed by each person that comes in contact with music production that it is impossible to give a clear and carved in stone answer. It is a mess. Add to that the professors in college have no inkling of how music publishing works, and rely on books they may have read, there simply is no definitive answer. Music is a language, and like all languages it changes over time, and different people speak or write it differently. It is imperfect.
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2015-03-21 00:52
Nonetheless, the answer as to what is intended seems quite clear, even though the way it is communicated is "unnatural" (sorry). The use of two accidentals to alter a subsequent pitch of the same letter name in a measure after a double-flat or double-sharp isn't that uncommon.
One example comes quickly to mind that many of you will have in your personal music libraries. The Scherzo by Koepke in Rubank "Concert and Contest" book, if I recall correctly, is notated according to similar principles in the cadenza.
Wisco99, thanks for the insider story about music publishing and the reminder about language always being in flux. As frustrating as it can be, constant change is a important indicator of life.
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