On May 8, 2007, at 11:17 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:
On May 8, 2007, at 12:09 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Most courtesy accidentals I have seen are NOT parenthesised, but I
confess that I hadn't noticed that until it was pointed out to me.
I'm not sure what the precise definition is, or if there even is a
precise definition, but when I say "courtesy accidental" I mean an
accidental which is not strictly necessary since that would be the
correct note even if the accidental weren't there, and you're just
providing the accidental as an extra reminder just in case. Maybe
I should call them "reminder accidentals"?
that's the definition of courtesy accidental, IMO.
As a general rule, I dislike parentheses around accidentals. I
tend to believe that if an accidental is worth including, it's
worth including without parentheses. The only time I'd want to put
in parentheses is if I'm afraid the accidental without parentheses
will tempt the reader to accidentalize some other note that
shouldn't be.
Well, that's the risk on ANY courtesy accidental. In my mind,
parentheses are saying to the performer, "I know you know this
already, but just in case there is any doubt, here's a reminder that
will keep your eyes from darting to the left to check the key again,
or wondering if this C# means that all the C's you has previously
played were supposed to have been natural." It keeps one from
doubting the pitch, or the key.
But in practice, I noticed that the parentheses make the accidental
harder to recognise, and clutter things up too much, which is why
most editors don't use 'em. I have reluctantly decided to follow that
course as well. Good idea in theory, bad in practice.
Christopher
(also, the parenthesised accidentals in Jazz Font are too small and
ugly to be of any use at all.)
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