A 365-Day Project"We Are All Mozart"A project to create ![]() ![]() |
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Notational Item | Natively supported? | Workaround or technique? | Playback supported? |
Percussion symbology. | ![]() | Special font | ![]() |
Contemporary articulation symbols. | ![]() | Special font | ![]() |
Empty or alternate noteheads. | ![]() | Special tools or staff styles | ![]() |
Stemless notes. | ![]() | Special tools or graphical kluge if stemless with beams | ![]() |
Staff lines other than five. | ![]() | Graphical kluge for ledger lines | ![]() |
Beam over barlines. | ![]() | Third-party plugin or graphical kluge | ![]() |
Feathered beams. | ![]() | Special tools | ![]() |
Boxes and circles. | ![]() | Graphical kluge, and no layering available | ![]() |
No barlines. | ![]() | Staff styles, individual removal, and notation adjustments | ![]() |
Staggered barlines. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Broken (through) beams. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Beamed flags. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Tone clusters. | ![]() | Move notes or special font | ![]() |
Quarter-tones. | ![]() | Change key signature | ![]() |
Other microtones. | ![]() | Special font | ![]() |
Circular accidentals. | ![]() | Special font | ![]() |
Fractional tuplets. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Interwoven tuplets. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Angled stems. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Rotatable symbols. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Stretchable graphic elements. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Drawing graphics (curves, writing, etc.) on-page. | ![]() | Graphics tool | ![]() |
Linear (time-based) notation. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Curved, bent or circular staves. | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
Two-dimensional (grid) staves. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Vertical or angled staves. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Arbitrary (wavy, square, diminishing) 'continue' lines. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Curved arrows. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Broken (through) arrows. | ![]() | Graphical kluge | ![]() |
Half-slurs or half-ties. | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
Equitone or Klavarscribo. | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
Score elements in color. | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
There is a staggering number of no's and kludges. Why does this exercise me so much? They are possible aren't they? Sure -- with a pen.
Even among creative people such as composers, and particularly when the creative activity is secondary (music engraving), artists are limited by their tools. Their imagination may stretch well past the tools, but in practice, one has to produce materials for performance. Among those in a forward-looking musical community, among musical friends, or where a reputation is established so that performers are willing to (or paid to) spend time and energy creating a piece from hand-drawn materials, the tools -- pen and ink -- are not a barrier. But materials move out of the circle of acquaintances. Publishers, even small publishers, take them on. Some publishers reprint composers' manuscripts, as with Gunther Schuller and John Cage. The latter's Music of Changes is in my library, and I see it is inked in what looks to be the composer's hand. In the recent past, calligraphers and engineering drawing experts were hired, and more recently, specialists working in a combination of programs (such as Score, Finale, and Illustrator) to create fine graphical renderings.
The economics of self-publishers and small publishers militate against hiring graphic artists. Some large publishers now even expect materials from "less profitable" composers to be submitted in digital format, camera-ready. One of my engraving clients is a well-known composer whose publisher expects him to provide ready-to-print pages, and he is not prepared to learn software as well as be a composer, so his compromise is to pay for the engraving, knowing that ultimately he may have a few performances -- but, as with a beginning composer and not one of his stature, the joy of performance will be his only profit.
I will use myself as an example, when I was new to Finale (and when Finale was the only option for a scoring program with playback, which was used to create demo versions). The 1970 Quartet for Winds, in its fourth movement, contained a section of independent time signatures with staggered barlines. When I engraved it using Finale 2.2 in 1993, the program would not allow separate time signatures for each staff with overlapping barlines like these, so in order to publish it -- this was before I determined how to kluge it graphically -- this is what happened:
Wind Quartet (1970) fourth movement, in my hand-inked version, showing staggered barlines with vertical synchronization -- a simple piece from 36 years ago.
Wind Quartet (1970) fourth movement, engraved in Finale 2.2 in 1993, showing staggered barlines eliminated and the rhythms rewritten -- and the sense of the individual parts gone.
There is the reason why I call notation programs embedded in the Nineteenth century. I was a 21-year-old composer using largely traditional methods of composition which to this day defy software to work with them natively. I'm hardly alone. Tens of thousands of us work in notation normal for compositional life, and the software -- which supports only Nineteenth century notation -- chokes its dry old digital throat.
Postscript: My conclusion was omitted: As composers come up through composition using these computer notational tools, just as writers come up with computer text editing tools, they will find themselves limited by their enormous inconvenience of working outside of Nineteeth century conventions. From simple text through advanced, multi-dimensional presentation, office tools present few barriers to imaginative visual communication. Though they may not encourage imagination, they do not prohibit it in the very nature of their toolset. Computer notation programs erect enormous barriers to imagination.
Klavarscribo example. Yes, it is read vertically. This is from Wikipedia, which shows the whole image.
Section of Hans Otte's Tropismen from 1960 (as reprinted in the Karkoschka book).
Interwoven tuplets. Short of calculating each value and hand-rebeaming, only a graphical solution exists.
Section of Alan Hilario's Überentwicklung - Unterentwicklung from 1998 (as reprinted in SoundVisions).
Oh. I didn't mention. Last night was the first frost -- the killer frost as well, on the night of the harvest moon.
Morning glory after the killer frost, frozen in incipient bloom, where it would stay until it drooped and fell in the late afternoon sun.