On Wed, 1 Jun 2011, Don Simons wrote:
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 17:54:22 -0700
From: Don Simons <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Werner Icking Music Archive <[email protected]>
To: 'Werner Icking Music Archive' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Tex-music] PMX news: Instrument-wise transposition
Dirk Laurie wrote
Comment: MIDI transposition should be independent of the printout.
There are three different pitch levels to worry about (relative to "concert
pitch"):
1. PMX input
2. Printed output
3. MIDI output
Here are my 2 bits to the `common usage' regarding printed
output:
1) it's completely nonstandardized, even among
`professional' editors,
2) to my experience, in the full scores used by
(professional) conductors, the notation of transposing
instruments is usually NOT concert pitch, but the
notation as read by the instrumentalists (C for a B
clarinet in a concert pitch B), whereas in pocket scores
and scores for amateur use, you often find concert pitch
only, troughout.
In tonal music, one can usually find out which is the case
by looking at the key signatures, a clue unfortunately
missing in most contemporary works,
3) an absolutely stupefying example is in a wind quartet
(flute, oboe, clarinet in B, bassoon) by Boris Blacher,
editor Bote & Bock: in the (pocket) score, you find the
clarinet denoted in its own B pitch (i.e. NOT concert pitch),
but in the flute part, the clue notes of the clarinet are
denoted in concert pitch!! With keys absent, it takes
some detective sleuthing to find out what's going on
(apparently the editor considers the reader of the score
a professional, whereas a flutist is considered a
non-wood-instrumentalist ... well ... ).
Summing all this up, my conclusion for PMX is:
a) with a score fully in concert pitch, there is no issue,
b) if the PMX writer aims for practical use, she should take
advantage of the new K feature BOTH in the score and the
parts (for the transposing instruments). Although it's of
course possible to arrange things differently in the
score and the (transposing) parts, it's NOT advisable,
for reason c),
c) in all cases, the MIDI output should give everything as
it sounds. That, IMHO, is an absolute MUST! How easy that
is to implement depends on the MIDI implementation from
the PMX source or the resulting TeX source --> Don !!??
But in any case, again IMHO, implementing concert pitch in
the score and the transposing pitch(es) in the part(s) is
a luxury that isn't worth Dons time.
Don: I shall describe the rules in my tutorial according to
PMX 2.610, i.e. as is, hoping that nobody will in the
meantime find a bug in that version!
ccn.
--
..................................................................
Prof.Dr. Cornelius C. Noack
Inst. f. Theor. Physik FB 1
Universit"at Bremen Phone : +49 (421) 218-62031
Otto-Hahn-Allee Fax : -4869
D - 28334 Bremen home : +49 (421) 34 22 36
Fax: 346 7872
E-mail: noack at itp.uni-bremen.de or ccnoack at mailaps.org
WWW-page: www.itp.uni-bremen.de/~noack
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