Don Simons wrote: > > I'm working on coding shifted accidentals. I would like to hear > preferences of other users on the following matters: > > 1. Are vertical shifts needed as well as horizontal? I believe if I > do put in vertical shifts, they will have to be in integral multiples > of \internote . > There is a high need for horizontal shift of accidentals, no question. Modern organ music is full of dense clusters with lots of accidentals. One has to make heavy use of shifted accidental, because everything smaller than a fourth will clash. That means that one needs often three rows of accidentals. Obviously, the left-most row should be reserved for the left-shifted notes of the cluster. Reading this music is quite difficult; usually the player usually has to indicate with a thin pencil mark to which note the accidental belongs, especially if there are two close notes, one with an accidental, the other one without. I personally prefer in these cases that every note has its accidental whether one is needed or not, because then one can see at the first glance what one has to play. The biggest problems cause the quite common case where the cluster contains two notes with the same absolute pitch but different accidentals. Some printers use split chordal lines for this case, but I have not seen yet a convincing notation. However, vertical shifting brings no advantage in these cases. I cannot remember to have seen vertical shifting of accidentals in print. Christof.
