Tim Nelson: melismas?
------------------------
A melisma is "an expressive vocal passage sung to one syllable..."
according to Willy Apel's *Harvard Dictionary of Music*. It has nothing
to do with notation terminology. What you want to note a melisma is a
slur or phrase mark. You should have your choice. You don't need either,
since you have lyrics. :-)
A desire to put phrase marks at the stem ends when not forced to do so
is perverse and negative. It probably reflects the fact that you don't
need them. Why do you want to make your scores more difficult to read?
Of course you should be able to force it if you want it, but I hope that
lilypond would never allow any marks whatever between tuplet brackets
and stems and beams. The performance of Schott's engravers was atrocious
in this regard. They would even sometimes put tuplet brackets at the
heads and phrase marks or slurs (they never made a clear distinction) at
the stem ends, which is the exact opposite of what obviously would be
done by anyone with more than one brain cell.
A desire to omit tuplet brackets from triplets is also perverse and
negative. It is easier and better to do them all, both to read
(especially for beginners), and to notate with software. The fact that
lazy (insert your favorite rhetorical plural noun here--I like bums) of
centuries past usually omitted them is no reason to omit them now.
The use of double flats should not be a reason to bring back
cancellation of chromatic signs from a well deserved oblivion. I can
hardly believe that anyone would want to do such a thing. A double flat
is fully cancelled by any other chromatic sign, just like all the
others. There is no occasion at all to write a nb (natural + flat) or
natural + anything for that matter, nor is there any justification
whatever to have key signatures or partial key signatures with naturals
in them, since they never serve any purpose not better served with a
proper key signature. All that special cancellation notation can
possibly do is confuse the reader. It is no good at all, for anything,
ever. It doesn't even look good as decoration. Never use it.
The fact that a composer of the past may have used a particular notation
practice is no indication that he liked it, or that he would have
approved of engraving it that way. You can lay that on Gaspar Sanz, who
engraved his own stuff, but not on the vast majority who had it done by
their publisher or, not uncommonly, by pirates. :-(
--
Peace, understanding, health and happiness to all beings!
U U u ^^ ` 'U u U ''`'`
_-__o|oO|o-_|o_o_-_MN[-->mm@_-_--___o|o|oU_|o_o__lilypond
dave N Va USA David Raleigh Arnold [EMAIL PROTECTED]
