Surely this issue has something to do with the context. Highly chromatic music requires more frequent courtesy accidentals, and once you reach a certain point, parentheses simply become needless clutter. Also, as Chris says, parentheses make accidentals more difficult to read.
I also think the "looking back" problem is overstated. I'm with Michael — this is largely a non-issue. It may cause annoyance to some but, unlike a missing courtesy, it doesn't generally cause mistakes. Cheers, - DJA ----- WEB: http://www.secretsocietymusic.org On Nov 29, 2014, at 10:02 AM, Michael <[email protected]> wrote: > I have an extensive library of music from many different publishers. I can’t > find any consensus over whether or not to put parentheses on cautionary > accidentals: some do, some don’t. > > As a player (pianist who has to sight-read a lot, accompanying opera), I > prefer not to see the parentheses, for reasons others have already given. > When I’m sight-reading at speed I often don’t notice if a given accidental is > a necessary or a cautionary one: I see a D-flat, play a D-flat and move on. > > As a conductor I’ve never had problems with players stumbling over cautionary > accidentals, with or without parentheses, but I’ve often had players make > mistakes through the lack of cautionary accidentals at appropriate places. > > > > >> On 29 Nov 2014, at 06:32, Craig Parmerlee <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 11/28/2014 10:37 PM, Christopher Smith wrote: >>> Most major publishers these days do not parenthesise courtesy accidentals >>> either. >> >> Really? >> >> That surely isn't my experience. I don't recall seeing any recently >> published music from a respected publishing house that does it that way. >> >> I find that a non-parenthesized unnecessary accidental causes more >> errors than it avoids. If the player's eyesight isn't perfect or the >> player is otherwise distracted, the presence of "something" tells the >> player that it sure isn't what the key signature indicates. The player >> may have to make a quick guess as to what the accidental most likely is >> -- and of course will be wrong 100% of the time because it wasn't a >> necessary marking. I cuss the engraver every time they do that to me. >> >> With courtesy accidentals, either parenthesize them or leave them out. >> Anything else is a hostile act, IMHO. It is hard enough to sight-read >> accidentals accurately without the engraver placing land mines in the way. >> _______________________________________________ >> Finale mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale >> >> To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: >> [email protected] > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: > [email protected] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: [email protected]
