QuickScribe Key Change

[Frodo]

There must be an easier way.

For what I would have to pay for updates, there should be.

As it is, I'm happy with Finale 2005. I don't get to twiddle with the new virtual orchestra stuff, but then, I didn't for the last 13 years anyway, so...

Does that make me sound old? ("When I was a kid, we didn't have all this whiz-bang stuff you punks say you need now. When we needed to transpose, we sharpened our pencils, by gum...")

LOL! When I was YOUR age, the pencil hadn't been invented!! (Actually, they had been- but the ones we were forced to use in grade school were as big around as stoagies.) And when we needed to sharpen them we chewed the wood off the tip!!

Yeah, it's sort of like WUP to the extent that you keep paying for version that may or may not work. Glad you got 2005 running okay. 2004 ran better for me, so I stuck with that until 2006 came out. Things looked like they were headed in the right direction, so I upped to 2007. I wish you could have seen what came out of the printer!! LOL!! Reminded me of something I saw on a Ren and Stimpy cartoon once. Opened 2006 and the print was problem free.

[sugardilly]

I hope you knew that C# is Db? Most Horn Players I know prefer to read flats anyway. I've never used C# Major as a key. I don't even think it exist in contemporary theory. I might be wrong though

Hey Dwetmaster, Thanks for the response. This question has generated a healthy discussion which has leaned more to Finale issues than Quicksribe but I appreciate it all.

However, I do recognise that C# is the same as Db. When you transpose for an alto sax and the concert key is E (4 sharps) the sax's transposition is C # and not Db although they are enharmonically the same.

If we agree on this theory, then I'd like to see Quickscribe print it as C# and not Db.

I also have the issue of Quickscribe placing 'natural' signs on the staff just before the beginning of transposed bar.

[Frodo]

I also have the issue of Quickscribe placing 'natural' signs on the staff just before the beginning of transposed bar.

This is another rather archaic bit of eye clutter which, unfortunately, cannot be disabled.

There seems to be a copyists school of thought and a composers school of thought. Copyists will tend to assume that if, for example, a key change goes from E-flat to B-flat, that the musicians will somehow not know that the A is natural unless the cancellation natural sign is placed where the flat previously was (on the second space, treble clef).

Part of this, too, has emerged witih some musicians as well-- I've noticed that some musicians do not consider the barline as an accidental cancellation. Some musicians insist that if a B-flat in the key signature is changed to B-natural that it remains a B-natural until a courtesy accidental is included the next time the note appears. I find this a little strange, but I give the musicians what they want to avoid a debate.

Unfortunately, I don't think one can force a courtesy accidental in QS even where the courtesy naturals before a key change cannot be disabled. Makes you wonder who's responsible for determining what is necessary and what not necessary in these apps-- and why. QS just doesn't leave enough decisions for the user to determine.

[Shooshie]

I also have the issue of Quickscribe placing 'natural' signs on the staff just before the beginning of transposed bar.

This is another rather archaic bit of eye clutter which, unfortunately, cannot be disabled.

There seems to be a copyists school of thought and a composers school of thought. Copyists will tend to assume that if, for example, a key change goes from E-flat to B-flat, that the musicians will somehow not know that the A is natural unless the cancellation natural sign is placed where the flat previously was (on the second space, treble clef).

Part of this, too, has emerged witih some musicians as well-- I've noticed that some musicians do not consider the barline as an accidental cancellation. Some musicians insist that if a B-flat in the key signature is changed to B-natural that it remains a B-natural until a courtesy accidental is included the next time the note appears. I find this a little strange, but I give the musicians what they want to avoid a debate.

Unfortunately, I don't think one can force a courtesy accidental in QS even where the courtesy naturals before a key change cannot be disabled. Makes you wonder who's responsible for determining what is necessary and what not necessary in these apps-- and why. QS just doesn't leave enough decisions for the user to determine.

One of the ways you can date Bach's writing is by his use of key signatures, accidentals and cancellations. I don't remember the details, but I could find them pretty quickly. Not that I need to; it's just interesting that the standard has come full-circle. What was standardized for 200 years is now ambiguous again. Oh well... you needn't give me a courtesy natural, but QS will do it anyway. I'm getting Sibelius soon.

Shooshie

[Frodo]

One of the ways you can date Bach's writing is by his use of key signatures, accidentals and cancellations. I don't remember the details, but I could find them pretty quickly. Not that I need to; it's just interesting that the standard has come full-circle. What was standardized for 200 years is now ambiguous again. Oh well... you needn't give me a courtesy natural, but QS will do it anyway. I'm getting Sibelius soon.

Shooshie

I think part of it is due to professors who ingrain their own philosophies into the minds of their students. For good or ill, what a particular professor strives to impart becomes the foundation of the total farbric of that student's understanding and belief system.

And then there is the proverbial "They"... being those scholars and self-appointed governers who convene to determine what standard musical notation ought to be. Of course, people disagree-- and where someone departs such a committee, the surviving members often toss out that person's conventions right along with them.

These links may actually belong on the Orchestration thread, but I'll put them here for now... Some are just interesting and do nothing to assist with using QS:

The extremes of musical conventions-- (the biggest, smallest, loudest, shortest-- etc)
http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donb ... tremes.htm

Music Notation Modernization Society
http://www.mnma.org/

Sourcebook on Proposed Musical Notation Reforms
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/RHN%252f.aspx

Note and Tone: A Semantic Analysis of Conventional Music Notation (Karl Kurkela)

[Frodo]

Here's another thing that happens in QS without explanation-- doesn't happen in other notation apps:

Notice that the odd note is highlighted-- F#3 (indicated on the window frame). It hardly looks like F#3. The display fixes itself if other tracks are selected or if the track is displayed alone. Only when the adjacent track above it is showing does the one single note freak out.

BTW, the note which follows it is G3, so this is not an error in note entry. GE displays MIDI data as expected.

Drives me batty sometimes!!

[mhschmieder]

I've had that happen a lot and never knew why. I hadn't taken the extra effort to notice that it only happens when adjacent tracks are selected. In each case I figured maybe the note was a tiny bit off and so I might quantise that one note to see if it improved the display decisions in QuickScribe.

[Frodo]

Yeah-- I quantized the snot of these notes. I even deleted them and re-entered them manually and then quantized them again.

This has been one of those ongoing glitches ever since I can remember.

Incidentally, as I continued working with it-- and as it continued to change itself back to the wrong note with 1000 leger lines, it eventually crashed DP the same way many other edit moves in the SE can crash DP.

I can't reproduce this intentionally, but it does happen on G3/G4/G5 and Intel computers fairly regularly. I just can't accept that every computer I own has the exact same hardware defects where DP is the only app at issue in this regard.

I doubt MOTU will respond, but I sent it to them anyway as a matter of duty.

Well, MH-- at least we can confirm that we're not losing our minds!