feature request: better grace note handling

Currently, a cadenza of grace notes is handled very badly. You won't be able to scroll, navigate with the keyboard, or even just to see all the grace notes without reducing the view!

To comfirm this:
add a lot of grace notes on a staff that goes longer than the goes longer than the NWC document window

That could be well over the maximum of playable/workable number of grace notes. How many did you put in?

(I wish my surname was Notes. I would have called my daughter Grace, for sure.)

[typo correction]
To confirm this:
add a lot of grace notes on a staff that goes longer than the goes longer than the NWC document window

OH NO!
[typo correction]
To confirm this:
add a lot of grace notes on a staff that goes longer than the NWC document window

[quote="Rob den Heijer"]
That could be well over the maximum of playable/workable number of grace notes. How many did you put in?
[/quote]
A lot of them. Try typing lot of grace notes like the cadenza in Listz's "Liebestraum".

Try this example at the Scriptorium:
http://www.vpmag.com/nwc/ftp/classical/l/lis_leb3.nwc

Goodness grac(enote)ious! That seems more like abusage than usage of grace notes. But I see the problem. And I do not think there will be a quick or easy fix, since such a quantity of notes can not be expected to fall within the next note, timewise.

I think the problem is that these are not really grace notes. This is a not-at-all unusual way of notating cadenzas (look at the score for Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, as discussed a week or so ago in the NWC forum. Follow the pointer provided there:

http://www.bh2000.net/score/

and you will find that in the Choral Fantasy there are a lot of such strings of mini-notes. My interpretation (as a non-musician -- I await refutation) is that this is a sort of "here are the notes, play them as you like, I'm not telling you how long or how to group them, etc.".

But in NWC the only mini-notes we have are the grace notes. So people have pressed them into service for something else.

I think the problem is that these are not really grace notes.
If NWC supported cue notes, that wouldn't have been a problem.

(And you... take a base...) Now we're getting someplace.
What we need for scores like this: scaleable notes. Or at least a property of notes to be printed at grace-note size.

[I hope many of you recognise 'High Society' lyrics.]

Cue notes as a feature would be very welcome. The main problem with using grace notes is that you can't line them up with proper notes. Nor do tempo changes take effect until the next proper note, and they don't note-chase either.

But you can string arbitrary lengths of them together. Just put invisible muted proper notes every so often (eight grace notes before every crotchet, or pro rata) and you can get some quite intricate effects. And you can tie grace notes together to double their length – hide the first of the pair.

G'day Peter et al,
I concur. Proper cue notes are well up there on my desireble feature list. One thing about them though - they need to be able to be chorded with normal notes. I often have music that I work with that will have second or third verses where the rhythm remains the same but the pitch changes and it is inappropriate to try to use special endings as the changes are in the middle (and there are alread special endings).

I know the chorded variety won't necessarily play back correctly, but at least the appearance will be there.

user111,
I don't agree there is a problem with grace note handling the way you originally appeared to be interpreting it. The example you cite is a work around because of the lack of cue notes, which you later noted.

The really desireable change for grace notes is for correctly behaving (and controllable) acciaccaturas and appoggiaturas.

Of course, one could argue that their behaviour could simply be written in on a hidden, sounding staff. While this is true, it would still be nice if they were properly available. Along with trills, turns and mordants etc..

Lawrie

Rob [quote][I hope many of you recognise 'High Society' lyrics.][/quote]

No - but I would hazard a guess at "Now you has jazz".

Robin

That's it!
You... take a skin -tzzzdzzzdzzz tzzzdzzzdzzz- Jazz begins
You... take a box - (piano plays) Mmmm, that rocks!
You... take a base - dadumdum, dadumdum, Now we're getting someplace.
( the ... is a musical, dramatical pause)
and more, Bing Crosby.
Every time I say or hear 'Now we're getting someplace' I think High Society. I have a very associative mind.

Rob, are you in 3/4 time? Jazz of the Crosby era was normally in 2 or 4. Try the bass part would be Dadumdumdum in 4 , or more likely in 2 with a slight swing Daa-de-daa-de.

Of course, Jimmy Blanton or Oscar Pettiford would have created true walking bass lines, with frequent 8th note figures as well.

The tadumdum should be taDUMdum: short-long-short. That gives you 4/4. It was a lot of ad lib, anyway, the jazziest of jazz.
But, I guess that more of High Society has survived than just 'true love' ?

Just out of curiosity - Was High Society Cole Porter's last musical?

It seems High Society was 1955-6
Les Girls was 1956-7
Aladdin was 1958.

HTH

Thanks Andrew.
Do you know any popular songs from the last two?

It would also be good to have a ripple feature that doesn't involve hidden staves, grace notes, ties, and boxmarks.

Y'all gettin' off topic again, eh?

Err.......

Whatever...

[quote="(G)"]
It would also be good to have a ripple feature that doesn't involve hidden staves, grace notes, ties, and boxmarks.
[/quote]
Yeah, definitely.