David, my comments are meant to be of a general nature. Clearly there
will be exceptions where page turns or other considerations make
standard repeats a good choice. I am not as concerned with standard
repeats as the complicated nested patterns that are customized for a
piece need special instructions on the part (and often in rehearsal). I
have seen far too many of these and they are almost always unnecessary
and confusing. As a general rule, I consider repeats to be a remnant of
the hand written days. But there are certainly cases in which they are
justified.
Certainly a DS placed over or near the ending barline of a mm repeat is
clear. But I have seen large DS markings stretched out over an entire
bar (or more) These can be very unclear. If you stretch one of those
over a mm repeat that has been compacted to make it fit a page, you have
real potential for error.
Careful workers will, of course, not make this error. But one of the
deceptive things about our modern software is how good (superficially)
it can make sloppy work look.
dhbailey wrote:
Richard Smith wrote:
Sibelius does the same thing as Finale in this case. But, if I may
give a player's perspective, I really prefer having the MM rest
broken to place a DS or similar instruction. It doesn't look as good,
but it's much more clear to me as to where it is to occur. I have
played lots of music that had such instructions poorly placed and was
confusing. I think instant recognition is more important than graphic
beauty, especially in the high pressure world of one rehearsal
(maybe?) before performing it.
But then, this brings up one of my favorite peeves. Why, when copy
and paste work so well, do we continue to use complicated repeat
patterns and nested endings that only consume limited (at least in my
case) brain power when it's most needed for making music? The less we
are distracted from the basics of music making, the better the
performance is likely to be. It's really time to leave the archaic
notation shortcuts of the handwritten era behind.
Often D.S. or D.C. instructions leave us with a 1-page part, which is
about half as expensive to print as a 2-page part would be, and quite
often that D.S. or D.C. section before the Fine or the Coda is only a
couple of lines. Why should we make a 2-page part for only a couple
of lines?
Musically, it's easy to get people to play the same section the same
way (if that's what's desired) if they're looking at the same printed
music. Often when looking at even the same music on a different part
of the page, it doesn't come out the same way.
Finally, try printing a piece which is through-composed with no
repeats, 1st-2nd endings or D.S./D.C. on a march-size piece of paper
for a marching band which doesn't memorize its music. Go ahead, I
dare you. :-)
As to the breaking of a multi-measure rest just so show that the
D.S./D.C. instruction is at the end of that rest, everybody I've ever
met musically knows that it goes at the end of the multi-measure rest,
and that if it were to go anywhere else, there would be a shorter
multi-measure rest with that instruction at the end.
I've never run into any musicians, even elementary school 1st-year
students, who needed the D.S. or D.C. over a measure rest which was
separated from a multi-measure rest.
You didn't make me mad, but don't sell those old-fashioned repeat
structures short and don't sell your musicians short in their ability
to cope with them. Anybody who can't understand them has no business
calling themselves a musician anyway. :-)
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