[MEI-L] Debussy La Danse de Puck [vs. Ravel Scarbo] clef

[Byrd, Donald A.]

I agree with almost everything you say, Craig. The "simple 
representational hack" really is a hack; much better to say, this note 
_really_ belongs to staff 3, which is in bass clef with a conventional 
key signature of three flats. The only odd thing is that staff 3 is 
superimposed on staff 2, etc., as you say. Just one thing: I don't see 
how saying the bass clef note's staff is "ossia type" makes any sense.

The situation in Scarbo is vastly different. The _only_ odd thing is 
the fact that, of the notes on the 2nd staff in m. 4 of the excerpt, 
the downstemmed notes on the downbeat are in bass clef, while the 
upstemmed notes -- which are also on the downbeat despite the red 
herring of being far to the right, after the clef change -- are in 
treble. Much harder to see what's going on, but easier to represent: 
just let a voice (or perhaps a chord, or just some notes) have 
its/their own clef, overriding the staff's current clef... Well, that's 
not completely satisfying, but it should do the job.

--Don


On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 18:22:48 -0700, Craig Sapp <craigsapp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> I would say that the clef in the notation example:
>
> http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/InterestingMusicNotation_files/Debussy_Danse.png
> is not a clef but a pointer (in the C-programming sense) to a clef.
> In other words, if it were a clef, then the pitch of that note would
> be F3 since the F clef is aligned vertically with that note.
> However, the pitch of the note is E1, with the bass-clef symbol
> indicating that that particular note (and the note tied after it)
> should be interpreted as being on a staff with an F-clef located
> on the fourth line from the bottom of the staff.
>
> Not that that would help clarify how to encode it too much, other
> than that it is a clef-symbol and not actually a clef.
>
> As a simple representational hack, perhaps something along the lines of:
>   * logical/sounding pitch of note is E1
>   * visual pitch of note is C3
>   * clef symbol is an ornament attached to the left side of the note
>
> If you were to transpose the music for some strange reason using
> the above mechanism, things would get very complicated, since
> you must suppress any visual accidentals (invisible visual accidentals),
> and only display the logical/sounding accidentals....
>
> Another better way of encoding the Debussy example and preserve
> a reasonable representation after transposition might be to treat
> it in a similar manner to cross-staff notes, which is closer to the
> intended meaning of this notational shorthand.  In this case, there is
> a cross-staff note with -1 staff displacement.  The staff below is
> superimposed on top of the bottom of the grand staff, and the staff
> below also has an implicit (hidden) clef (and implicit accidentals).
>
> Or another variation is that the note is printed on an ossia-type staff
> (with the same size) which superimposes on the main staff (with an
> implicit bass clef).
>
>
> -=+Craig
>



--
Donald Byrd
Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellow
Adjunct Associate Professor of Informatics & Music
Indiana University, Bloomington