On 9 Sep 2005 at 6:21, Darcy James Argue wrote:

> [So far, the thread seems to be leaning towards "or not," especially 
> if the accidental in question is parenthesized.]

My feeling is that you don't really need a "rule" for this. All you 
need is to ask yourself:

Is the notation unambiguous so that every musician, whatever their 
assumptions about "rules," will play exactly the same notes?

So, it seems to me that, whether you think the tiedl accidental 
carries through the whole measure or not, you *must* put a cautionary 
or real accidental on the additional notes in the measure to clarify 
what pitch is to be played.

That issue is entirely independent of the system break circumstances.

To me, a tied note's accidental continues through the remainder of 
the measure it initiates, even if it's not repeated at a system 
break, but I probably reach that conclusion because my work is mostly 
with music that is wholly tonal where it's quite common to be 
parsimonious with accidentals (indeed, leaving out many that would be 
considered obligatory in modern engraving, i.e., in 18th-century 
sources, one G# makes all the Gs sharp, in all octaves).

This reminds me of arguments about bibliographic citations -- it 
doesn't matter which style you use, as long as your provide all the 
information unambiguously, and do so consistently.

Indeed, I've always been hostile to the whole concept of using Ross, 
Read, et al., as authorities, since their "rules" are not binding on 
me, they are just recommendations for a consistent style of 
engraving. Yes, there's lots of common sense in there, but that 
doesn't mean that the rules they come up with must apply to all 
cases.

In fact, I think the Peters organ music I looked at that lacked the 
accidental at the beginning of a tie broken across a system was 
completely unambiguous, because it's *keyboard music* and there's 
plenty of information in the other voices to provide a clear harmonic 
context that makes the cautionary accidntal wholly superfluous.

It's very different in, say, a violin part, where the harmonic 
context can only be inferred. Then, the cautionary accidental after 
the system break beomces pretty important, as there's no other 
information for the player to use to disambiguoate the accidental.

-- 
David W. Fenton                        http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associates                http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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