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Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm
From: |
Hans Åberg |
Subject: |
Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm |
Date: |
Thu, 8 Feb 2018 10:40:34 +0100 |
> On 8 Feb 2018, at 01:59, Andrew Bernard <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Good question, and lots of good answers. Modern practice is to follow the
> order of the circle of fifths. But that was not always the case. So, indeed,
> depends on your historical context. Bach was writing in G sharp for the WTC,
> and it was most certainly not intended to be enharmonic with A flat. But if
> you look at18C manuscripts and JS Bach in particular there is wide variance
> in how key signatures were done, and Bach often repeated the notes in the
> signature, say having two c sharps, for reasons of his own (quite interesting
> to see). Obviously his music teacher would fail him today. This was before
> the age of standardization of everything.
The key signature was a way to simplify notation, not to actually indicate the
key of the musical piece-there examples where they do not agree. There is a
similar problem with Balkan music: it may be useful to write a nonstandard key
to simplify the ornaments in LilyPond which cannot handle them as intervals,
but if the ornaments are very chromatic, an appropriate key signature will not
help.
> So I would discard advice about rewriting in A flat. G sharp is perfectly
> good, even though the textbooks call it a 'theoretical key' - what they mean
> is that it is hard to read when an alternative is available in an equal
> tempered context. As Urs has said, there are plenty of valid musical contexts
> for a key such as G sharp.
Blatter suggests to do it for a harp, because otherwise the harpist will have
to do it, which adds to the performance cost.
> Since lilypond gives you the ability to change the ordering in the key
> signature, you ahve complete freedom in what you do.
>
> Nothing new here, but I just wanted to chime in on this interesting topic.
There is an additional complexity with microtonal accents, say like in Persian
dastgah. It is indeed interesting what a good default might be.
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, (continued)
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Hans Åberg, 2018/02/08
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Andrew Bernard, 2018/02/08
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Urs Liska, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Hans Åberg, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Thomas Morley, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Karlin High, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Urs Liska, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Torsten Hämmerle, 2018/02/07
- Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, David Kastrup, 2018/02/07
Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Andrew Bernard, 2018/02/07
Fwd: Re: Gis major key signature; Lily's key signature algorithm, Blöchl Bernhard, 2018/02/07