Re: Cadenza time

[Richard Shann]

On Wed, 2021-12-01 at 12:12 +0000, Burgess Hill Community Food Bank
wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> I have a piece which starts with 3 bars which are 10 seconds long and
> simply establish an atmosphere, with one solo mandolin playing odd 
> numbers of high notes.
> It is marked "senza misura", and 10 Seconds.
> I assumed that I could set up the parts in the 6/8 - the time
> signature 
> from bar 4 onwards - and then tell denemo that Cadenza started at the
> start of bar 1 and cadenza finishes at start of bar 4.
> I expected that on Typeset I'd see music starting in 6/8, marked
> Cadenza 
> in some way and, having allowed me to put various notes into the bars
> in 
> different parts, 
Well, LilyPond will typeset the "various notes" vertically aligned in
accordance with the durations given. All the parts have to have the
same (nominal) durations.

In the commonest case where the other parts are silent it is necessary
to insert spacer rests of the same duration as the notes in the
cadenza. 

With a complex cadenza I've found it convenient to copy the cadenza
into each silent part and then edit them all in one go from being notes
to being spacer rests (I think you select all the notes and use the
Del,Del command - Delete in stages - applied to the selection - you
need the command
 
Command: Apply Shortcut to Objects in Selection
Followed by a keyboard shortcut: applies the shortcut with the cursor
successively on each object in the selection.
Location: Main Menu ▶ Edit ▶ Select
Internal Name: ApplyToSelection

used with Del,Del to do this.)

> at bar 4 a nice 6/8 time signature and regular 6/8 bars 
> from then on.
> There was no marking for Cadenza - probably I have to use Multiline
> Text 

yes, you do if you just use the Start Cadenza Time command, but there
is also


Command: Start Cadenza
Inserts Cadenza start at the current cursor position, which should be
the start of a (Denemo) bar. Turns off automatic barlines, beaming etc
and sets small sized notes for a cadenza. You can break up the cadenza
in the Denemo Display into Denemo "bars" if the cadenza is too long.
You will need to insert barlines or use the Allow Page/Line break
command to let the typesetter break lines. Add Ignore Measure Duration
Error directives in each bar if you want to use Check Score.
Location: Object Menu ▶ Directives ▶ Markings ▶ Spanning
Internal Name: CadenzaOn

which I found by typing Cadenza into the Command Center search.

> - and the 6/8 was hidden.

I see that the End Cadenza command
Command: End Cadenza
Inserts Cadenza end at the current cursor position which should be at
the start of a (Denemo) bar. See Start Cadenza for details.
Location: Object Menu ▶ Directives ▶ Markings ▶ Spanning
Internal Name: FinishCadenza

hides the time signature change - this is because normally there is no
change of time signature after a cadenza. I double clicked and ran the
object editor to delete the "Hide".


>  Indeed when I marked end of Cadenza time the 
> only option I had was to hide it, and TimeSignature (Print) Hide
> doesn't 
> seem to be a toggle.

I think that's worth a bug report, you would expect it to be toggle.

> I probably don't know what I am doing but it doesn't seem very
> intuitive.

Actually, what's under the bonnet is still less intuitive - if you run
the Object Editor on the start cadenza time object you will see it is
not just a standalone Denemo Directive outputting the lilypond syntax
\cadenzaOn but actually a Denemo Time Signature - it's not obvious, but
it is telling Denemo that it can have up to 256 quarter notes to a
(Denemo) bar - ie a time sig of 256/1! You can discover this by running
the Object Editor on the Start Cadenza Time object and deleting the
directive attached to it, it then becomes an ordinary time signature
display and typesetting as 256/1.

This just means Denemo will take any amount of notes(*) in each cadenza
bar. Denemo knows just enough about what is going on to *not* mark bars
in 256/1 time as underfull, but apart from that it doesn't have any
special programming for cadenzas.

If you didn't want all that jiggery-pokery under the bonnet you could
just insert(**) the LilyPond syntax \cadenzaOn and write your cadenza
notes spread over as many Denemo "bars" as you need... perhaps that
would invoke a simpler model of behavior.

Richard

(*) ok, any amount up to 64 whole notes which would be well off
anyone's screen.
(**) the command would be
Command: Insert Lilypond
Insert or edit a directive in the LilyPond music typesetting language.
This can be used for extra spacing, transposing or almost anything. See
LilyPond documentation for ideas.
Location: Object Menu ▶ Directives
Internal Name: InsertStandaloneDirective