On Jul 4, 2006, at 12:42 PM, Chuck Israels wrote:
On a similar subject - is there a prevailing opinion on the use of
parentheses on courtesy accidentals?
I have always used them on the basis that they were helpful in
reminding the reader to expect that particular accidental as part
of the key signature, but a respected NY composer arranger friend
feels that the parentheses are simply a distracting element. I
want to have everything that is necessary and useful in my music
but, if there's something that can be eliminated without harm, I'm
for it.
I used to like parentheses on courtesy accidentals for the same
reasons you mentioned – that their appearance in parentheses confirms
the key, and is kind of wink to the performer, as if to say, "I KNOW
you don't need this accidental, but I am just mentioning it in case
you are occupied with the business of sight reading and might
hesitate over a certain alteration. It's just to take some of the
strain off." Non-parenthesised accidentals give me a feeling of being
the non-courtesy kind, and when they appear in the key signature as
well make me doubt the key.
That being said, the parentheses ARE a distraction, and in the heat
of sight-reading the parentheses remove an important visual cue. I'm
sure we all have mistaken a sharp for a natural and vice-versa,
that's because they share a distinctive shape that the flat doesn't
have. But putting parentheses around them gives them all the same
outline so we have to look harder at them to distinguish them from
one another.
And in the JazzFont, the parenthesised accidentals are just too darn
small! Plus they kind of melt into characterless blobs because of the
nib size used to create them originally, so they cut down on
comprehensibility instead of increasing it.
So I am in the non-parenthesised camp, for now.
Christopher
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