On 9 Jun 2003 at 23:52, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: > At 5:55 PM -0400 6/09/03, David W. Fenton wrote: > >On 9 Jun 2003 at 17:09, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: > > > > > Kind of like staff expressions? But those can be attached to an item > >> OR to the measure, at a horizontal and vercial distance that you can > >> specify. Why not chords? . . . > > > >Because staff expressions are not precisely aligned with the rhythm. > >It's one of the reasons I don't like them -- I never know what I'm > >going to get. > > But the beat-chart of the measure is part of Finale's structure, > isn't it? Even when there is only a whole note in the measure? I'm > not a programmer, so I am sketchy on some of these details.
Well, what is that beat chart now associated with? Nothing but the spacing of note entries. And, of course, the only way now to get a chord precisely placed in relationship to the beat chart is via a note entry. It's associated now with the *spacing* subsystem, not with performance data. Obviously, measure expressions (which I simply never ever use; I still prefer the old system of not expressions and staff expressions) that are set to take effect at their horizontal place in the measure are somehow relating to that, but the exact placement of them is still rather fussy (after it's created, the dialog is hard to get to, for one -- I can never remember SHIFT- CLICK). Also, the idea of specifying beats as numbers really does not make sense to me. Beat 1 is 0 to me, not 1.0. And figuring out where you want it to be requires calculating decimal fractions. This is not musically friendly. However, I grant that the chords could use the same system. > > > Right. And let us specify quarter notes, half notes, or even eighth > >> notes or smaller to snap to. I don't yet see any problems. > > > >I do. > > > >There is currently no such structure in Finale for specifying exact > >placement. > > Not the beat-chart? Well, the system that is ready to accept this kind of thing is not the beat chart, but the system used with measure expressions. > >What would happen would be some kind of translation of the > >visual placement into a precise realization in playback. Expressions > >now work by applying, I believe, to the next item following them > >(i.e., a fff just after the beginning of a half note does not change > >the velocity until the next note is initiated). Maybe that would be > >satisfactory for chords? I think of what kinds of things I've done > >with figured bass and don't really think it would be good enough, as > >you could easily want multiple chord changes over a single bass note. > > Actually, I would be perfectly happy to have graphic-only chord > symbols, as they generally do not play back well, and even when they > do, they clunk out on the downbeat like the most ham-fisted juvenile > delinquent pianist you ever tossed out of band practice in high > school. I turn off chord playback in my own scores as a matter of > course. But I suppose SOME people want their chords to play back... If they were graphical only, it wouldn't be an issue, naturally, but playback is essential, I think. > And the present system of attaching chords to notes in another layer, > means one more pitch to play back, usually wrong, unless you are > careful to specify a correct pitch to be hidden or turned into > rhythmic slashes, or turned off in playback. It's so darn complicated > for such a common effect! For my figured bass I use a layer with no instrumental output for the layer and the notes hidden. Of course, the vast majority of figures are attached to real notes, though chord changes over a held bass note are not uncommon. And I don't use chords, but note-attached expressions (I've actually done only one piece with figured bass since getting WinFin2K3, previously using WinFin97, and I didn't think to try measure-attached expressions), because I had a library of them already built up. Actually, wait, no, I use articulations because of the automatic spacing. Using measure-attached expressions would mean lots of manual work to get them spaced properly. I've considered lyrics, of course, but since I don't have a figured bass font, I'd not get very good results. > > > What would get more complicated in the UI? It is much more complex to > >> enter items in another layer and hide them, making sure that the > >> option is selected to allow things attached to hidden items to show, > >> then attach a chord to the hidden item. I can't imagine anything MORE > >> complex than that! > > > >Well, consider: > > > >Should the grid be for the whole measure? > > > >Or beat-by-beat? > > > >If the former, what about a French overture style measure in which > >you have a dotted half tied to a dotted 8th/16th, in the right hand, > >and a pedal note in the left hand. You could perhaps want a chord > >change on that last 16th note, so you'd need to have a 16th-note > >grid. > > Well, in that case, I'd definitely go for the note-attached chord > symbol. Nobody would be able to spot a floating chord symbol over a > non-existent 16th in any case, as they would confuse it with the 8th > or quarter in the absence of any entries. Well, depends on what was in the other parts. In any event, it could be an issue, though the beat chart like in the spacing tool would fix the complexities of UI. > >OK, not bad. > > > >But what if you also needed a chord change at the half measure? Then > >you'd need to spread the measure out so that the 16ths were far > >enough apart that you could be sure to hit the right place on the > >grid. > > > >Now, one possible UI would be to do something like the spacing > >handles for manual spacing, where you doubleclick between existing > >handles to get additional ones. If you could then pin the chord to > >the new handle, that would be perfect. > > > >What do you think? It has the advantage of sharing something with a > >familiar UI that already exists, while adding a different kind of > >functionality. > > I think it's pretty good. I would like the beats to be there as a > default (say, quarter notes, or whatever the time sig says is beats) > and maybe a keystroke to add subdivisions. You suggested a > mouse-click, but in the interest of keeping one's hands on the > keyboard as much as possible, I suggest: > > "Type Into Score" automatically moves to the next item (at present) > when you hit Spacebar. Perhaps automatically moving to the next beat > when you hit Spacebar would replace that, with Command-Spacebar on > the Mac, Control-Spacebar on the PC (or something else?) to add in a > subdivision, and again would add another, etc. down to the limits of > Finale's ability to discern rhythm. Does a hard space in type into score for lyrics cause the cursor not to jump to the next entry? I don't know. If so, that would be a good thing to borrow for what you're describing. > Or to really have me squirming in my seat in joy, say item-attached > chords is the default, UNLESS a note lasts longer than the beat as > specified in the time signature, at which point the beat gets added > in, with my special keystroke to further subdivide the beat, all > without leaving the comfort of my keyboard to reach for the mouse. If > it turns out I don't need that beat there, I just hit Spacebar again > to skip it, just as I do to skip a note presently. Whee! I'm starting > to drool! Well, it's your feature! I just helped design it! Send it in to them as a suggestion and see what happens. > >Nonetheless, that data has to be stored somewhere in a manner that > >guarantees that the playback will be exact. I'm not sure if the > >current file format could handle that. > > You got me. I dunno. It would mean an addition of certain kind of information to the definition of the chord symbol. My bet is that it's already stored as a special case of something else, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if that something else were an expression, as currently it works a lot like note-attached expressions. If that's the case, it might very well require only a change in the UI to allow it to behave like a measure-attached expression, with the beat specified. Indeed, even the information derived from the beat chart UI could still be stored in the same data structure as the horizontal position of a measure- attached expression. > >I think the spacing handles would be a great way to do it. Say you > >placed your chords in the measure, then did something to reveal the > >spacing handles. You doubleclick to get appropriate subdivisions, > >then drag the handles down to the appropriate chord. > > > >What do you think? > > Well, how would you get two chords into a bar that only had a whole > note to start with? You would have to enter one, then go to another > tool (measure tool?), double-click to create the new handle, then > back to entering chords. I kind of liked my idea of creating a new > subdivision wherever the cursor happens to be in the Chord Tool, by > means of a control-spacebar or something. Sounds good to me! Or, have the beat chart visible whenever you're entering chords, by default, so the doubleclick is easy without having to do anything special to display the beat chart. And also have the keystroke to add the beat. And I think it would be good to have the main beats of the measure be in the beat chart even for whole/half notes. Sounds like a pretty well fleshed-out feature request to me! -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
