On 31 May 2010 at 20:55, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > So what's the solution? I just expect musicians to understand that > beaming primarily indicates organization in linear time -- *not* > organization to time signatures. (We used to call that the tyranny of > the barline.)
For music that is metrical and an organization according to the barline, it is, I think, foolish to contradict that with beaming, unless the point is to explicitly indicate that something is happening in contradistinction to the underlying metrical framework. But for music that is not organized in that fashion, I really can't believe that people would argue for notating it in a fashion that misrepresents the musical content (though I certainly don't disbelieve your 4/4 story). In the repertory my viol consort plays, we are constantly fighting the syncopation problem, in that the music is actually polymetric, but never notated in any way but with barlines that line up in all the parts. I don't care how gifted a player is, if the notation looks like a syncopation, it's going to get played differently than if it doesn't. I have never come up with a solution in our repertory, as the result would be completely independent meters with a points of alignment throughout. I tried to do it once as an illustration, but it was complicated in Finale that I just totally gave up. So, I feel your pain. But I don't believe that anyone was recommending that all musical styles should use the same beaming rules. Beam to the beat except when you shouldn't. How's that for a rule? It can also be stated: Beam according to phrasing except when you shouldn't. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
