Re: Mandatory or a cautionary accidental?

[Simon Bailey]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Urs Liska <address@hidden> wrote:
> thanks for your opinion.
> Obviously it boils down to the statement that leaving the reminder sharp for
> the gis' is impractical/impolite but not wrong.

i think david actually made the statement exactly the other way
around. omitting the reminder sharp may confuse a musician, especially
with a forced natural at the beginning of the bar.

> See the actual situation in the attached image. The gis' is on the third
> beat in the lower voice of the right hand.
> It is clear to me that there _has_ to be a sharp, the question is only if it
> will be a cautionary or a mandatory accidental.
> And resulting from your opinions I will make it a cautionary one.

this is a case where i'd normally play a gis, then realise there's a
natural at the beginning of the measure, then become confused and then
try to work out what's correct from situational analysis. that's not
conducive to sight-reading (not that i could even think of playing
this on a piano, i'm a monophonic trombone guy). when i'm typesetting,
i follow the sight-reading rule: if it _could_ be confusing, then add
cautionary accidentals (in parentheses). i've sat in a rehearsal where
the polite cautionary (non-parenthetical) accidentals really confused
the guy sat next to me -- he started playing fisis in a d major
passage, because the fis had a mandatory accidental. when the error of
his ways was pointed out to him, he ranted about the engraver and
crossed out all forced accidentals in his part... (which gave us more
problems further down the line, but that's a different story).

i always try to get parts which are as least confusing as possible.
when re-engraving, this may mean moving away from how it was
originally engraved, making the typesetting work somewhat more
editorial (why else would we be re-engraving though?). the best reward
is when musicians can play on-sight, without any questions occurring.
be nice to your musicians with the music, and they'll be nice to your
music. :)

regards,
sb

-- 
Do not meddle in the affairs of trombonists, for they are subtle and
quick to anger.