Hello. I’m wondering if someone might be able to help me why Dorico is spelling this enharmonic this way sometimes ---- with the odd B natural instead of the way in the next bar, which I manually went in and changed the spelling to C flat. Is there a library option I should be choosing somewhere?
Thank you.
(Using midi input by the way.)
You don’t show the key signature, but if those are E naturals I can understand why Dorico might prefer the Bb/B nat combo. (Also I’d like a cautionary on the E?)
Oh duh. Sorry about that. Key signature is C minor.
I just think the way the chord appears is out of the norm for me and what we typically see in theatre music. It’s not a big deal to do the manual change of the enharmonics, I just thought maybe I wasn’t ticking a box in some library correctly.
Thanks.
In case you don’t know: when you have a bunch of B’s to change into Cb’s, you can also select the bars and use the Note Tools Popover (type b=cb):
Oh wow. I did not know that. Thank you, that will be very helpful.
Very cool. I never use Cb or Fb or B# etc, bc it’s confusing to me and I never use key signatures. But I often have to respell things using cmd-R or opt-+ etc so this will be extremely helpful for my own freetonal music. Thanks!
shift-i is probably the most underrated popover. It is sooooo powerful…
Note that you can use the coma to change several pitches at once, like cb=b,f#=gb,b#=c
Or also you can use a Key Signature: spell dbmaj
Yeah, I also don’t use double flats or sharps. Feldman did, in a lot of his later chamber works for strings, but I think that’s was with intent to have the performers color things a bit such that fb ≠ e but something in between. Not so much microtones but just a different flavor. Like how one can notate some notes as string harmonics in several different ways but they’re not identical in terms of the sound.
I’m also not a fan of the double flats and sharps, and when writing for other instruments I always go with what’s easiest to read (for me?) but with piano/jazz stuff, some of the things I do copy work for tend to stick with some of those “correct” theory enharmonics. I think I’m just slow at recognizing the function when there are those double flats/sharps. I’m mostly in theatre/jazz kind of stuff though.
There is definitely a time and place for double accidental use to convey harmonic context or voice leading, sure. For me, they most often occur in Dorico when I’m writing in concert pitch, then when I flip to transposed pitch, a bunch of them appear in the transposing instruments. Having an SD button to invoke my Note Tools macro to flip all of the double accidentals at once is a huge timesaver. It’s also useful for proofreading, because I can select the entire score and my SD macro first filters for notes before flipping all the double accidentals. In case it wasn’t clear from the image, here’s what needs to be entered into the popover:
ax=b, bx=c#, cx=d, dx=e, ex=f#, fx=g, gx=a, abb=g, bbb=a, cbb=bb, dbb=c, ebb=d, fbb=eb, gbb=f
It’s simple enough to add b#=c, e#=f, cb=b, fb=e if you want too.
That is great info for sure. It might be slightly above my pay grade at the moment! There are still so many things I do wrong every time, that I’m SLOWLY starting to learn how to do it. But I’m glad to have your explanation. Thanks.
Here’s some examples from late (eg, 1980’s) Feldman. Interestingly, I don’t find “complex” accidentals in his earlier (70’s) string music like Spring of Chosroes or String Quartet and Orchestra, but they are definitely here in his String Quartet 2:
Violin and Orchestra (1979, so now into his late era):
Composition for solo violin (1984):
Clearly it was intentional, and he only did it for strings, never any other instruments as best I am aware.
In a couple of those examples, it seems like he had a personal grudge against the string player!
Speaking as a recovered violinist, I don’t disagree with you. But speaking as a composer, I really don’t think he had it in for performers. Just the opposite. But he had a lot of very innovative and unique ideas about music, and his work has had a ton of influence on my own works even though I would never consider Feldman to have been a “minimalist.” It does please me that some talented performers, like the Ives Ensemble and FLUX Quartet among others, have embraced his late music. I always found those to be his best works overall, much as I love his earlier music.
In October, I was in Brussel for a performance of one of my piano works by the great Stéphane Ginsburgh, who coupled it with the four late piano works of Feldman (Piano, Triadic Memories, For Bunita Marcus, Palais de Mari). It was about 4 hours of music, easily. His works, besides being challenging for performers, are, I think, challenging for listeners, although I absolutely adore his music. Maybe it’s because I have also tended to write music of greater durations starting in the 70’s (three of my piano works are 2-4.25 hours, and one of my string quartets clocks in around 2 hours).
I confess I really know nothing about the subject - I was just making a joke as a musical theatre guy! Impressive stuff. And keep up the great work!
