It’s my understanding that if you want a player to stop the horn a + sign is placed over the first note and no further PT is needed until the playing technique changes, i.e. to O for open. No continuation line is needed, nor should be placing a + over every note. In playback I’m only getting stopped sound on the notes with + over them. Am I correct in my assumptions?
Gould (page 263) says the + sign applies to one note only. You can write + with a continuation line over the following notes.
Gould also says that o should always be used to terminate the stopped passage, but this is often omitted unless it is a cautionary marking (e.g. the same phrase is played stopped and then open). You don’t usually put any mark on the first note after a series of staccato dots to say “not staccato”, so why should a series of + marks be any different?
This brings up a question I have had since continuation lines were introduced:
I used to be able to apply a technique (say a down-bow) to to each of multiple notes by selecting the notes and then selecting the technique.
Now when I do that I get a down-bow on the first note and a continuation line over the rest. Is there any way to select multiple notes but still keep the down-bow marks on each note without the continuation line when one wants?
EDIT: Originally said accent when I mean down-bow and subsequently found that I could change the “continuation” type in the Properties Panel.
(Sorry to trouble anyone.)
In that case, if I use the marquee tool to select multiple note and click on the stopped + in techniques I only get a + on the first note and I oddly get an extender line in some instances but not on others. It would be time consuming to have to manually enter a + on each note.
The pull-down for “continuation” in the Properties Panel gives you the option to Repeat the symbol on each note.
Rob: but in string writing if you use pizz (or sul pont) it stays in that mode until you see arco. So why should that be different from brass writing?
Because horn-playing conventions are not the same as string-playing conventions and you don’t want to waste rehearsal time?
Derrek: I don’t seem to have that option.
Adler has an example from Rimsky-Korsakov where all stopped notes are indicated separately, and an example from Mahler where there is a marking for gestopft (stopped), and then one for offen (open)
Possibly because string players sometimes play pizz for minutes on end, but horn players are unlikely to do the same for stopped notes?
FWIW left hand pizzicato on strings is marked on individual notes.
There are a few things to unpick here:
- The “stopped” and “muted” playing techniques both use the same glyph (+) and both use the same popover text by default (+). Make sure you change the popover text for one of them, to ensure you’re consistently inputting the same one. If you’re using the right panel, make sure you’re consistently clicking the correct “+”.
- The Continuation Type property will only appear for Playing Techniques that span multiple notes (because if it’s applied to a single note there’s no continuation).
- Once you’ve taken care of 1 and 2, the Continuation Type can be taken care of globally for that Playing Technique, from the Edit Playing Technique dialog, or locally from the properties panel. If you really want, you can set the Playing Technique to have no continuation. The onus is on you to remember to put in another Playing Technique to tell the (human) player to change the way they play their instrument. Don’t get caught out by the fact that the software player can “read” the invisible continuation line!