Re: \accidentalStyle for common choir notation

[Simon Albrecht]

On 22.06.2016 12:30, Phil Holmes wrote:
> Again, not at all.  Piano players must read more than one staff at a 
> time, and therefore an accidental on one staff might be felt to affect 
> pitches on other staves.  Singers (like orchestral players) have no 
> need to see the music of the other voices (and, indeed a few hundred 
> years ago, never did). They certainly have no need to follow 
> accidentals in other voices in case they affect what they sing.  Good 
> singers just sing the note they're given. Imagine having a fiddle part 
> with an accidental cancellation shown because the bassoon had been 
> playing a sharp in the previous bar. 

There are different ways of choral singing; one with whom I’ve had lots 
of contact during the last years actually requires every singer to have 
an overview of the score, to know what his harmonic function is and to 
determine intonation from that. Also, singing cannot be compared to 
playing an instrument in the way one finds pitches: you always need to 
refer to that which you heard before (except if you have perfect pitch 
and are _really_ well-trained), and finding pitches is much closer to 
intuition than on an instrument.
So there’s reason behind Jonathan’s idea.

Best, Simon