On Mar 18, 2005, at 12:50 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 18 Mar 2005 at 7:58, Christopher Smith wrote:
I'm thinking of one piece in particular of mine that I started with a 7 eighth-note pickup, but then amended later to be 9 eighth-notes, which of course took up one measure and an eighth note (over two measures), neither of which I chose to number. Seemed silly to me.
Maybe musically, but measure numbers are not for musical analysis, but for ease of rehearsing. Having more than one measure before measure 1 means that talking about the first full measure means *not* using simple measure numbers. The other issue is that your score will be forced to not follow the usual practice of having no measure numbers on the first system, since you have to indicate that it's the third frame that is actually numbered measure 1.
I understand that, and I forced the measure number to appear in that case on my bar 1.
Then why the convention of not numbering incomplete pickup measures? If numbering is ONLY for keeping everyone in the same place, why shouldn't an incomplete pickup bar have a number? Why number solo works, since only one person is playing it?
For that matter, in the example I cited above (BEFORE the revision) I had a pickup measure with 7 eighths in it. I didn't bother making it a 7/8 bar, as that seemed needlessly fussy and would most likely interfere with reading, rather than helping it. So since that pickup measure is notated as a FULL measure of 4/4 (starting with an eighth rest), should it have a number? I didn't think so at the time, and saw no reason to change my mind in the revised version just because I had two extra eighths added onto the seven already there. The gesture was not different enough for me to see the difference.
Christopher
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