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I've solved my transposition issue

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I've solved my transposition issue

Postby Johnny » Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:30 pm

When a transposing instrument stave is added to a score from the "Score Setup" window "sharps are added to the transposed staves.
When I set the view to "Pages Across" I was able to select and delete the "sharps" from the beginning of the staves of transposing instruments. That allowed me to enter the notes as seen from a printed full-score sheet music.
Before I was adding notes to my document and # sharps were being played automatically when not wanted.
My experience is that "most" of the full-score classical printed music does not display or use "key signatures" and transposed instruments do not have key signature changes either. Key of the moment may be a better description I believe.
So I was confused and thought the Notion sharps added at the beginning of the score could not be removed.

My bad. Now I can get back to work.
----,Johnny :arrow:
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Re: I've solved my transposition issue

Postby Surfwhammy » Sat Apr 19, 2014 10:05 pm

Great! :)

I was working on a reply but the topic disappeared, so I was pondering the idea of creating a new topic; but I checked and saw that you created this topic, which is fine with me . . .

I use the "Concert Tuning" view and soprano treble clef staves for everything, where for electric bass I set the soprano treble clef staff to play its notes two octaves lower, but I do not use odd intervals, so it is either (a) one or two octaves lower, (b) same octave, or (c) one or two octaves higher . . .

This makes everything vastly simpler, and it is consistent with the perspective that there are 12 notes and 8 or so octaves . . .

In the Pop music universe of the 1960s, one way to make sense of intervals is to study "Heatwave" (Martha & The Vandellas) and "Louie Louie" (The Kingsmen), where the electric bass and rhythm guitar for "Heatwave" basically are doing what I call an "upside-down Louie Louie", along with a partial scale or "walk-up" and a "back-and-forth" bit, all of which is as mind-boggling as it is fascinating . . .

Image

[NOTE: The "back-and-forth" bit (E♭ and A♭) starts the song and is followed by a pair of "upside-down Louie Louie's" (Fm7, Gm7, Cm7) and the "walk-up" (Fm7, Gm7, A♭, B♭) followed by another "back-and-forth" bit, with all the chords except the "back-and-forth" A♭ being what I call "low" Barre chords (root note on the low-pitch "E" string), while the A♭ is a "middle" Barre chord and has its root note on the low-pitch "A" string, which is one way to play it if you can change chords quickly . . . ]

"Heatwave" (Martha & The Vandellas) ~ YouTube music video

"Louie Louie" (The Kingsmen) ~ YouTube music video

Add this one to the set, and you have the patterns for nearly every Pop song from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, really . . .

"Maybe" (The Shangri-Las) ~ YouTube music video

Really! :P

THOUGHTS

Consider the following NOTION 4 score . . .

The "Horn in F" staff actually is in the key of G, but the Piano staff is in the key of C; and this makes the "F" on the Horn staff an F#, and B natural is the correct interval . . .

So, instead of being "Horn in F", it actually is showing "Horn in G", which is a bit confusing . . .

[NOTE: The top set of staves shows the notes in the keys of G and C, respectively. The bottom set of staves shows the same thing but with both "Hn. in F" and "Pn." in the Concert Key of F . . . ]

Image

I did a few experiments to make sense of this, and for reference the "Horn in F" is done by NOTION 4 when "Transposed" view is selected . . .

By default, NOTION 4 is in "Concert Tuning" view, and in "Concert Tuning" view, the name of the staff is simply "Horn"; and it does not show the F#, which can be a bit confusing unless you know about it, but there is no reason to know about it, really . . .

Really! :idea:

In part, whatever confusion I experience is the direct consequence of avoiding as much formal music theory training as possible . . .

Instead, I taught myself using the "by ear" strategy augmented with a good bit of mathematics, a universe where if C maps to F, then F should map to B♭ . . .

There probably is some type of "logic" that makes labeling an instrument "Horn in F" when the staff actually is in the key of G, but it is the same "logic" which suggests it makes sense to have different clefs for various types of instruments; and from a mathematical perspective, this transforms something which is elegant into something which is inelegant, because from a mathematical perspective there are only 12 notes and 8 or so octaves, which is something a bright child can understand . . .

Fortunately, when I was a child I only learned the soprano treble clef staff, and now many years later I do everything on soprano treble clef staves, but I use NOTION 4 score setup to cause the notes of certain instruments to be played (a) one or two octaves lower; (b) at the same octave; or (c) one or two octaves higher, depending on the range of the instrument, where for example I set the soprano treble clef staff for electric bass to play its notes two octaves lower, which among other things (a) is the way I visualize electric bass and (b) avoids having to remember whether the bass clef is a third higher or lower, which for reference is something I never can remember . . .

Instead, the only thing I consistently remember is that when I see what looks like Middle C or High C on a bass clef, then it is neither of those, hence I have to stop and think about it for a while, something that takes too much time for no useful or productive reason . . .

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ABOUT HORN PLAYERS

The same "logic" finds its way into the electric guitar universe and creates the delusion that the third fret on the low-pitch "A" string is "Middle C", when Middle C actually is the note at the first fret of the high-pitch "b" string, with the consequence that the promoters of the so-called "logic" have managed to be quite successful in their ongoing quest to confuse guitar players . . .

Explained another way, this is what happens when one allows horn players to join a musical group without adult supervision; and it is the reason guitar players invented Barre chords . . .

The stellar aspect of Barre chords is that horn players can select any key signature which makes them happy; and the electric bass and electric guitar players just need to know which string (low-pitch "E" or low-pitch "A") and which fret on that string the horn players decided to be the root note of happiness when they held their daily "Let's Confuse the Bass and Guitar Players" team meeting . . .

Lots of FUN!
:D
The Surf Whammys

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Re: I've solved my transposition issue

Postby idiotSavant » Mon Apr 21, 2014 2:54 pm

Johnny wrote:My experience is that "most" of the full-score classical printed music does not display or use "key signatures" and transposed instruments do not have key signature changes either.


Johnny, glad to hear you've got clarity. This issue still confuses me. I just had a series of conversations with Notion Tech Support. It seems that in my case, I need to write for Notion transposing instruments, then later convert those instruments to Vienna Ensemble instruments. They will sound correct but will not read correctly in the score. Not a good thing, really. I hope they address this in the next version.

In my work with classical full-scores, most of the pieces are published with transposed staffs. In other words, if a staff is used for Clarinet in Bb, the staff is transposed and the key signature at the beginning of the staff will be different for that staff from non-transposed instruments (unless, of course, the piece is written in Bb).

I work mostly with older (pre-1950) scores, maybe there's a difference with the scores that you're working with?
Michael

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