Me and piano notation again...
Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 9:45 amI 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.
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.
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 (109.19 KiB) Viewed 9680 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.