I agree absolutely with Andrew, but I do have a question about a tricky situation I often run into in these cases.
Let's say we have a flute and an oboe that begin a phrase in dead unison, and then split off. For example:
FLUTE: C - C# - F# - E - A - G# OBOE: C - C# - F# - F nat. - C nat. - D
The oboe part would be easier to read if it were spelled with flats:
OBOE: C - Db - Gb - F - C - D
But then the unison with the flute for the first three notes is obscured.
My preference so far has been to write unisons as unisons, even if that results in less-than-optimal spelling for some players in some cases. But I'm curious how others feel about this.
- Darcy
In my opinion, what you are balancing there is the relative importance of harmonic spelling versus melodic spelling. Again in my opinion, if the line is not too fast, harmonic spelling wins most of the time, as you said you favoured. If the line is sixteenths or faster at a medium tempo, then melodic spelling wins (for me); in other words, I might spell your example with flats. Intonation of individual chords (or unisons) becomes less important the less time you spend on the pitch in question.
That being said, I can't see many musicians over-spending CPU time deciphering an F# to Fnat in this case. Unless things are REALLY hairy, both ways can work nearly equally.
Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
