On Mon, December 13, 2010 3:30 pm, John Howell wrote: > In my opinion, and for artificial harmonics, it would be indicating > the fretting finger and the touching finger with solid/diamond notes. > That is a specific instruction for a specific action, instantly > recognizable and playable. For natural harmonics, it depends on > which end of the string you want them, if you actually care. For the > octave harmonic (middle of the string), there's no alternative. For > all the others, there are, and either diamond notes (on the lower > half of the string) or circles over the note (on the upper half) will > get the idea across. And sometimes even the natural harmonics must > be played as alternative fingered harmonics if the natural ones do > not match the temperament being used, but THAT is a decision I would > leave to the performers.
How can string players learn a fairly vast repertoire of fingerings, positions, and techniques during their careers -- techniques that are played just from the "what" on the sheet music -- but for harmonics they have to be told "how"? I quit string playing many years ago, so don't know. Are harmonics not learned as a standard part of professional string development? Players don't have a core set of harmonics memorized? Guitarists seem to. This is a standard device; why are additional 'mechanical' instructions needed? I can't think of another commonplace device for which mechanical instructions are required. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
