On Saturday 17 March 2007 11:05 am, Arnout Engelen wrote:
> I usually compose stuff in C, and then transpose to get sheet music for
> Bb en Eb instruments. It would be nice if I could easily switch between
> Bb/Eb/C from within Rosegarden.
I agree with this. It would be nice to be able to switch back and forth
easily. I've been trying to make it easier to deal with transposing
instruments, but I haven't really succeeded in achieving anything that I can
always use to accomplish what I want without running into a situation that
forces me to stumble around in order to discover a way to get there. A quick
flip control could be just what we need, to arrive at a consistent way of
stumbling, even though I still feel like there is some ever-elusive better
idea hanging out there somewhere.
> Option 1: the 'transpose' combobox in the Segment Parameters box could
> be replaced with a button that opens a dialog to:
> * specify the desired transposition (e.g. '-2: Bb instruments')
> * choose between 'Do not transpose notes (keep presentation intact)' and
> 'Transpose notes in opposite direction (keep audible pitch intact)'
>
> Option 2: the 'transpose' combobox in the Segment Parameters box could
> be replaced with a button that opens the 'Transpose by Interval' dialog,
> which gets an extra 'Change transposition of segment in opposite
> direction (keep audible pitch intact)' checkbox option.
>
> Would that seem to make sense? Which would you prefer? Any other ideas?
The thing I don't like about either suggestion is that it takes a simple
control that can be operated quickly, and turns it into a multi-step process.
Let's look at use cases, and try to arrive at a better solution.
MIDI and/or Audio User: To this class of user, Rosegarden is a MIDI
and/or audio sequencer, and notation is superfluous, and inconsequential.
This user doesn't want to have to deal with the fact that all our events
carry notation-related properties, and if this user wants to transpose for
some reason, the need driving this desire is of a more mechanical or
special effect nature. She will want a transpose control like
we've always had, which is perfect for her needs.
Notation User A: This is somebody who imports MIDI files to arrange parts
for them. Everything is in concert pitch, and this user has no way to fix
a trumpet part without an understanding of the mechanics of the process.
One way or another, this user has to raise the notation up a step, and
lower the pitch back down a step to preserve the sound. This user wants a
simple control that does everything with a minimum of work, and presents
the choices from a notation perspective.
Notation User B: This is a user who started from scratch, and used the
TPB controls to pick instrument presets from our database. He has a set
of tracks whose properties will cause any segments created on them to
adopt various transpositions, but he has an awkward time if he wants to
record something with his keyboard, because the behavior is not
consistent. (I don't remember exactly what goes wrong, but I filed bugs
documenting my experiences with this.)
Notation User C: This user is like A, except he started with a blank
canvas, and did up a bunch of segments through recording or manual entry,
rather than importing from an existing source. He didn't use any of the
track controls, and the parts are all in concert pitch. Perhaps this user
composed something original off the top of his head, without much
forethought given to rendering the parts playable on real-world
instruments.
Are there any cases I'm missing?
It seems the needs of MIDI/Audio and Notation users are both different and
incompatible. Someone looking at this thing as pure MIDI data will want to
look at numbers without any regard to how it does or does not impact
notation. Notation users can come from different places with different needs
for correcting a situation on the fly.
How do we serve all of them with the simplest controls possible?
I'm out of time for the moment, but I'll chew on this in my head.
--
D. Michael McIntyre
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