I wrote: I'm not defending this method, merely suggesting that Stravinsky was following a convention that was fairly common at the time. John Howell wrote: Probably quite true. And of course I accept Andrew's statement that conventions in Germany and some other parts of (Eastern?) Europe may differ from those here. But would a composer not be better off notating in a way that can be immediately and unquestionably understood at sight in ANY and every country in the world? And by bass clarinetists who are not in the elite orchestras where they have to understand all the historical ins and outs of bass clarinet notation? I would vote for confrontation, but it's your client and your job, so it's entirely up to you. There's a misunderstanding here: Godofredo asked how to change the clef in the bcl part. Someone (me) told him how. Several other people weighed in saying Don't Do It. Godofredo then explained that he was simply following his client's wishes. There were then some responses blaming Stravinsky for using a daft convention involving differing transpositions depending on which clef was current. I pointed out that Stravinsky was not to blame for this, he was just following the convention he believed to be current at the time in his particular neck of the woods. It may be that Godofredo's client was educated at a European conservatory in the 1940s or 50s and was taught the old convention. In which case it is entirely appropriate that Godofredo should take Darcy's advice and point out to his employer that this is an obsolete way of writing for the instrument. There are a number of grey (or gray) areas in the field of instrumental transpositions. For instance, when I write a harmonic for double bass, I notate it at actual pitch in the treble clef. For all I know, this may be an out-of-date convention and I should be damned like Stravinsky. But I'm only too willing to change this practice if someone tells me it's wrong. John |
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
