[MEI-L] "Cancelling" key signatures

[Byrd, Donald A.]

I agree the convention of showing cancelled _key signature_ accidentals 
where it's not strictly necessary varies quite a bit, but, Eleanor, I 
suspect you're thinking of accidentals on _notes_, which composers and 
publishers have treated very differently. I just checked a bunch of 
examples in the Norton Scores, Third Edition Expanded, vol. 2. The 
following, listed roughly in chronological order, contain key signature 
changes that require one or the other usage:

Trout Quintet (1819; publisher not listed)
Tristan und Isolde, Liebesnacht (Schirmer)
Violetta's scene from La Traviata (Schirmer)
Verdi Requiem (Schirmer)
Boris Godunov (publisher not listed)
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894; publisher not listed)
La Boheme (1896; Schirmer)

La Boheme shows only the new key signature; all of the others cancel 
the old as well as showing the new.

Elaine Gould's book _Behind Bars_ says (pp. 92-93) traditional practice 
is to cancel the old key signature (of course only when going to fewer 
sharps/flats or changing from one to the other), but contemporary 
practice is to show only the new key signature unless the change is to 
zero sharps/flats. The exx in the Norton Scores are consistent with 
that rule, and I'm pretty sure it's what I've observed in the past.

I highly recommend _Behind Bars_ for information about notation 
conventions for both current practice and practice of the 
not-too-distant past.

--Don


On Thu, 4 Sep 2014 16:09:32 -0700 (PDT), Eleanor Selfridge-Field 
<esfield at stanford.edu> wrote:
> Hi, All,
>
> I think the convention of signaling or  reiterating cancelled accidentals
> varies quite a bit with publisher and period.   We have certainly
> encountered them quite a bit.  My non-scientific impression is that that
> they steadily increase over time into recent decades.  That is, as
> harmonies become more distance, forewarning and redundancy become more
> desirable.
>
> There are at least two common models: (1) cancel, or introduce,
> accidentals just before a light double bar and/or at the end of a system
> as a cue to the performer, or (2) simply change them at the start of the
> relevant passage, especially if it is coincident with a meter change.
>
> Definitely a challenge to standardization!
>
> Eleanor
>
>
>
> Eleanor Selfridge-Field
> Consulting Professor, Music (and, by courtesy, Symbolic Systems)
> Braun Music Center #129
> Stanford University
> Stanford, CA 94305-3076, USA
> http://web.stanford.edu/~esfield/  +1/ 650 725-9242
>
>
>
>
>
> From: mei-l [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] On Behalf Of
> Andrew Hankinson
> Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 2:26 PM
> To: Music Encoding Initiative
> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] "Cancelling" key signatures
>
>
> If there's an explicit change in printed key signature it's not really
> necessary to cancel the sharps, as far as I know. So you would not write
> 3n1s, since a change from 3s to 1s is explicit. Even 3s to 3f would be
> fine.
>
>
> It's really only the absence of any key signature (Cmaj/Amin) where an
> explicit change with naturals would be needed to clarify that the key
> signature has changed.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
>
> On Sep 4, 2014, at 5:21 PM, Laurent Pugin <lxpugin at gmail.com
> <mailto:lxpugin at gmail.com> > wrote:
>
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I would expect this to be done at the rendering. For example, naturals
> would be added when changing from 4s to 1s. But maybe I am overlooking
> something.
>
> In any case, I am not sure your regexp would do the job since you would
> probably need to have both s or f together with n. For example 3n1s for
> the aforementioned case.
>
> Laurent
>
> On Sep 4, 2014 10:29 PM, "Andrew Hankinson" <andrew.hankinson at gmail.com
> <mailto:andrew.hankinson at gmail.com> > wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> The data.KEYSIGNATURE regex specifies the following valid values:
> "mixed|0|[1-7][f|s]".
>
> However, naturals may also appear in a key signature to clarify cancelling
> a key signature; for example, if you were to go from Gmaj to Cmaj, you may
> wish to write a natural in the key signature to indicate the new key.
>
> Perhaps the regex should be amended to: "mixed|0|[1-7][f|s|n]"?
>
> Or is there another suggestion?
>
> Cheers,
> -Andrew
>
>
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--
Donald Byrd
Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellow
Adjunct Associate Professor of Informatics
Visiting Scientist, Research Technologies
Indiana University Bloomington