Nicolas B., Lanark remarked:
| In a message dated 1/12/00 5:19:06 am, writes:
|
| >> There seem to be a number of programs on the market which produce
| >> quite execrable music printing (my pet hate is the bar lines all
| >> above one another straight down the page!)
| >
| >If you're typesetting Highland pipe music that layout is exactly
| >what you want.
| Yes, of course, but not for any other usage.
Well, now; I wouldn't be so quick to speak for everyone else. I've
experimented with a lot of different formats, and seen some patterns.
One is that dance musicians usually really appreciate a format in
which sections and major phrases start on a new staff, and
corresponding parts of phrases line up vertically. This greatly
improves the music's readability. That is, it makes keeping your
place in the music easier. The reason in this case is fairly easy to
understand. Dance musicians are usually very much aware of rhythm and
phrasing, and if this these correspond closely to the position of the
notes on the page, then keeping your place is a lot easier.
OTOH, I've found that the classical crowd usually has an aesthetic
objection to such "anal" tabular arrangement of the music. They react
similarly to the pro publishing crowd to, say, a paragraph of text
that has a visible gap caused by words lining up vertically. They
much prefer "flowing" music that is more or less evenly spread across
the page but has no visible vertical alignment.
Multi-part music is, of course a common exception. I don't think I've
ever seen music in which corresponding measures of the voices was not
aligned vertically. I suppose such music may have been printed, but
I'd be curious to hear any argument in its favor. There seems an
obvious advantage for alignment in this case.
Also, I'd consider it curious that someone would accept aligned parts
without objection, while objecting to vertical alignment of
corresponding phrases within a single voice. These seem to my mind to
have a great deal of similarity, and I'd think you'd either want both
aligned or neither.
In any case, I don't think I've much heard any sort of rational or
experimental support for any particular format. People have strong
opinions, and think that those who disagree with them are idiots, but
they don't seem to provide much justification for such strong
feelings. I'd be tempted to suggest what statisticians call a "null
hypothesis", that it doesn't actually make much difference at all.
Saying that one format is better than another is a lot like saying
one musical style is better than another.
Some readers with fixed-width fonts may notice that the right margins
of this text are aligned. I've received some sorta funny email from
people who object strongly to this. I've challenged them to provide
references for experimental support for their claim that misaligned
margins make for easier reading. So far, nobody has provided such
references. I don't know of any support for aligned margins, either.
I kinda like them; others don't. That seems to be the sum of the
discussion.
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