At 16:10 19/10/2023 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
... the results look awful:
Shouldn't both tuplet brackets span every notecolumn within the
purview of the last note's duration?
For what it's worth (I know, I know!), Elaine Gould [Behind Bars, pp.
195/6] seems to distinguish between old and newer practice:
*Tuplets ending with the longest duration*
Traditionally, the bracket extends only as far as the last written
duration. Thus a numeral centred in a bracket occurs before the
central duration, making the rhythm unnecessarily difficult to read.
It is now usual to extend the bracket to the position of the
hypothetical final division of the tuplet, so that the numeral occurs
at the rhythmic centre of the group. This makes complex rhythms
quicker to read.
*Aligning brackets between parts*
When the final division of a tuplet is subdivided in some parts but
not in others, the bracket ends need to extend only as far as the
last duration in each group. This means that brackets may finish at
different points. If preferred, all brackets may be extended to the
position of the longest bracket. There is a visual logic to this,
especially as uniform bracket length will allow the centred tuplet
numerals to align vertically.
Her subsequent examples seem to follow her "now usual" and "if
preferred" style that you espouse.
Brian Barker
