TL DR So you can't convert from any traditional notation data file into a notation that would like to indicate specific hands for each note without sufficient human intelligence or artificial intelligence (neither of which I have, lol) and some tedious editing. If it imports MIDI, without any staves or voices, it does an even worse thing - anything from middle-C up it puts in the RH, everything below in the left. If the XML has n tags for notes, say in a baroque multi-voice piece, it might use those, but it's often necessary to play middle voices with alternate hands. The one app I know of that imports XML and MIDI files to Klavarskribo makes crude choices. Long story short: since the data file types we use to describe music represents traditional notation and doesn't therefore indicate handedness of notes, there is no parsing routine possible (other than complex analysis of note groupings, leading to hit-and-miss results) to convert a, say. It does it badly, incidentally, and a whole keyboard of staff is also a bad choice! This means the notes of each hand or voice just intermingle on the page when hands cross, and it uses stem direction to indicate the hand. One of the more successful (it's all relative!) systems is Klavarskribo, which represents the whole, or a section, of the keyboard, rather than beginning with the (ultimately vain) attempt to have different staves for each hand. Not only is it helpful to a player - we often practise hands separate, for instance - it also helps visually on a score, and in terms of hand-eye coordination when we play HT. So, for keyboard music, it seems useful to include a suggested/likely hand to use with every note (given people can ignore that at will). The context - which is what alerted me to this odd fact - is that I am interested in alternative notation systems for music, and the best way to approach designing one of those is to go back to first principles and consider all the possible variables and what might be the best combination to try to represent. And it is kind of odd, given that it's one of the most fundamental, and helpful, indicators one could give about the notes. Beginners will tend to play pieces that don't break the rule of thumb left-on-bottom-using-bass-clef right-on-top-using-treble clef, and when a confusing passage comes up as they take on more complex pieces, they will either have a teacher to ask, or help on a forum, or enough experience at the keyboard to just do what works for them. It isn't generally an issue, which is probably why people often don't notice that. However, I imagine that many keyboardists won't have a clue that there is no specific indication of which hand the composer/editor intended any particular note to be played with. But a lot of information is there that describes how the piece was intended to be played. We're free to ignore expression marks, add our own trills or glissando, choose a tempo we like, transpose to another key or change particular notes for whatever reason. Yes, of course we're free to do things differently from how a composer or editor indicated we "should", but that's a truth that doesn't really have any boundaries. Most of the time, choice of hand is fairly obvious, so it's only notated in specific instances.Īlso, are there other conventions besides "RH" and "LH" in the score? However, I can also see it as just an extension of fingering, which is usually thought of as too individual a decision for most composers to inscribe in the score. If we were devising a notation for keyboard music from scratch, it would seem one of the most important things to indicate. I was puzzled to find no element in XML, and then realised there's no such beast in the notation. I get the impression beams are often used to indicate a continual phrase played with the same hand, but I'm not sure. What, other than explicit "LH" or "RH" marks, indicates which hand we should use? I'm guessing there's no hard and fast rule, and it's not top vs bottom staff, obviously (since I presume we can't squeeze that many ledger lines in between the staves, even switching clef). This came up from analysing music in XML format, and the question's been bubbling up for a while anyway.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |