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Me and piano notation again...

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Me and piano notation again...

Postby elerouxx » Wed May 02, 2012 9:45 am

I woke up this morning thinking about transcribing a piece for clarinet and piano (to help me study clarinet).
I got problems right in the first measure. I just can't have the notes behave, they decide if they want to have up or down stems even if I tell them manually otherwise.
Two voices would be ok, one stem up and the other stem down. The problem shows up when adding the third voice (the dotted whole note below).

This example isn't even very modern notation, it's Saint-Saens. I think once again it has to do with the lack of cross-staving notes, because the first voice actually belongs to the upper staff (notice the eight note rest in the upper staff).

Writing this right hand on the lower staff is what the pianist would expect for an easy reading. But the way it is, it's not acceptable by a musician, so the only way out is to put this first voice in the upper staff.

piano_saint_saenz.jpg
piano_saint_saenz.jpg (109.19 KiB) Viewed 9672 times


I don't expect Notion to become an absolutely versatile, fully customizable music engraver overnight. But I really, really wish, over all other features and fixes, that Notion does notation that is acceptable to my school of music. I am the only one in my class that uses Notion, and while my teacher and mates are always amazed by my compositions and how good they play, none of them, nor the university, want to adopt an application that gives them some problems or that lacks some basic features in notation, which I think to be priority in any school.

Among my major troubles with Notion's notation and my 'homework' are that I can't have the grand staff the way it's suppossed to be, and that Notion doesn't put cautionary time or key signatures at the end of a previous bar, when the time signature is going to happen right in the following line. (this of course is also a big problem for the players, not only a school problem).

Well, sorry for my little rant again. I hope you don't take this as an hate comment, because I love Notion. But I witness how notation software is adopted by people, and how difficult is to switch once a composer is used to finale or sibelius even as a student. I think covering the educational needs of music schools is maybe the most important issue to warrant the door is open for Notion not only in schools but also later in the commercial market.
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby Admin » Wed May 02, 2012 10:00 am

Unfortunately this appears to be a formatting bug....should be possible. I'll bring it up to the devs:)
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby elerouxx » Wed May 02, 2012 12:55 pm

That would be great, thank you for your reply!
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby pandora » Fri May 04, 2012 4:26 am

Yes. This bug is very frustrating. Hope there is a fix soon.
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby thorrild » Fri May 04, 2012 7:56 am

eleroux and pandora,

I agree that the 4 layers are annoying and buggy when it comes to notation just slightly more complex than the standard, upstem/downstem variety. However, sometimes they can be wrestled into submission by experimenting a little: If something doesn't work the way you first enter it, try another layer combination, or enter the layers in a different order.

The example below shows first the standard method (which is clearly broken); then I switched the layers around. In bar 2, I entered the down stem 8th notes first, in layer 4. Then I entered the up stem 8ths in layer 1; next the dotted whole note in layer 2. Finally, I hid one of the 8th rests, because they were show in both layer 1 and 4.

Clearly, this is no way to work. But it is a workaround - until we get a fix...

Best,
Thorrild
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby pandora » Fri May 04, 2012 1:20 pm

Thanks Thorrild - that's a workable alternative (and rather ingenious). Hopefully a fix soon, though!
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby elerouxx » Tue May 08, 2012 8:25 pm

I should add to my little rant that one other thing I am requested constantly is to increase the size of certain markings, like the METRONOME MARK. Teachers and musicians think it's so tiny!

Is there a font that contains both normal characters and musical symbols, like notes? that would help by hiding the time signature and adding a custom text.
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Re: Me and piano notation again...

Postby thorrild » Wed May 09, 2012 11:25 am

This topic explains how to add custom tempo indications:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1940#p8407

Best,
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