On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 04:03:33PM -0500, D. Michael McIntyre wrote: > On 01/08/2013 03:19 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote: > > > in which the trumpets just play a few rhythms and half of a melody > > (not even the whole phrase!!), and the strings just ... string the > > thing along. :P > > Get rid of the strings and replace them with a brass band. :)
Heh. :) > > blockheaded enough to write notes for the contrabass that are below > > their range -- those notes will have to be played by the bassoon > > instead.) > > Are you using Rosegarden's built in arranging encyclopedia? If you use > the "Create segments with" properties ahead of time, before creating the > segments, you can use the Load button to dial up just about any kind of > instrument you can think of, and Rosegarden will pick the right clef, > transposition, and indicate when notes are out of the expected playable > range for that instrument by drawing them in red. (How accurate that is > depends on the instrument to a large extent. Some are more flexible > than others. The defaults are reasonable and sound in every case where > I have any personal knowledge of that instrument though.) I only found out about this a few days ago while browsing the rosegarden docs. The piece in question was composed a long time ago -- back in 2007, probably before the encyclopedia was included in rosegarden. :) In fact, it was while using this handy feature to do my transpositions for me (I had written all the parts at sounding pitch) for the purpose of making the score, that I discovered that I had out-of-range notes, nicely highlighted in red. > It's kind of an obscure feature that's probably hard to discover and > understand without reading documentation, and the documentation > probably isn't any good either, but it has a lot of potential to help > composers avoid doing dumb things like that. When you work with MIDI, > it's way too easy to tell a flute to play a low Bb or something, and > the synth will happily obey while the human player will call you a > moron. I think it's a very good feature! It's a little step in the direction of this dream I have, that one day, rosegarden will develop to the point where it knows how to switch between different MIDI instruments that simulate different ways of playing a physical instrument. Y'know, like inserting pizzicatos or legato and have it automatically switch to the right MIDI programs, or, since you hate the strings, insert random sounds of violins being smashed, etc.. ;-) Or be able to switch between muted and unmuted trumpet parts without having to manually insert program change events. > > (Oh, and lest you think the bassoon has it bad... the oboes play a > > beautiful melody of silence the whole way through. Haha... yeah, my > > orchestration needs work. Lots of work.) > > Mine does too, because I feel too sorry for the "tone color" > instruments, and I tend to try to make sure everybody has some fun, at > the expense of artistic purity or whatever. I think it's pretty artistic to be able to incorporate something interesting for every instrument to play. I mean, after all, you *are* composing for *all* those instruments, so you should make good use of them! (Beyond just pointillistic random notes here and there, that is.) It takes artistic skill to *ahem*orchestrate*ahem* interesting parts for everyone. > Bassoon and tuba solos anyone? I've always dreamt of writing concertos for unlikely instruments. Like the contrabassoon. Or flugal horn. Or timpani. But I still haven't written anything approaching the complexity of a real concerto yet. :-( > Everybody gets fair treatment, except the TROMBONES. When it comes to > trombones, silence is golden. :P lol... I like trombones, 'cos they let me pretend that I have a trumpet playing ridiculously low notes! ;-) > > Speaking of which, does lilypond support automatically indicating > > which instruments are on which staves when empty staves are omitted? > > Indeed, I was thinking the same thing myself. > > That turned out to be an interesting research project. > > Yes, LilyPond supports two staff properties, instrumentName and > shortInstrumentName. The latter is used on all follow-up staves. > > As you point out, we only use the former. Thinking about that from a > code perspective, the reason for that is fairly obvious. Just what > should be do, algorithmically, to derive a short name? Why derive it algorithmically? Why not just add another field to the track? > I can think of two approaches off the top of my head. > > 1) Just take the first letter from whatever the label is. I have a > vague and NOT researched memory of seeing conductor scores that had > single letters on subsequent staffs. Trombone and Timpani and Tenor > would all come out as a T. In most cases, grouping and placement > would probably still give you enough of a clue to find the trees in > the forest. > > 2) Implement a whole parallel properties system allowing you to edit > the track label AND the secondary label. This is clearly the most > flexible, since you could manually specify "Tbn." and "Tpni." and > "Tnr" or whatever, and get it to come out exactly how you want. It's > also more work to develop, since it requires going in and adding a lot > of parallel infrastructure stuff, new properties, and so on. It's > also more work to use, since you have to go edit all of these things > manually to get any result. What about if these are preloaded with default values as part of the instrument encyclopedia? > My take on it, approach 1 isn't very satisfying, but I can probably > have it implemented in five minutes. Approach 2 is probably what we > need. > > What think ye? Business is dead and I have a free night off, and > nothing in particular to do. Prime time for me actually knocking > something together again. [...] I say approach 2 is the way to go. :) T -- Doubt is a self-fulfilling prophecy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Master SQL Server Development, Administration, T-SQL, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS and more. Get SQL Server skills now (including 2012) with LearnDevNow - 200+ hours of step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft MVPs and experts. SALE $99.99 this month only - learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122512 _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-user mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-user
