Some thoughts about instruments.xml and ease of engraving
When I asked some engravers to input orchestral scores, I found there are some limitations in the current instrument definition strategy, so want to discuss here. I wanted to transcribe some Richard Strauss scores into braille, and you know, there are lots of instrument changes in late-romantic scores. Also, sometimes the horns use treble clef, transposed a 5th lower; but sometimes there's a bass clef, transposed a 4th higher. There are cases where horns, trumpets and timpani don't have key signatures. Sometimes a bass clarinet may use a bass clef without octave down transposition, etc. So, I think in the future development:
1. Is it possible to include a definition for second clef transposition, so that we can use a single instrument rather than a self-defined instrument change to apply different transpositions caused by the clef change? The engravers did lots of work to invent such kind of things, and there are quite a lot of changes even when there're only horn in F staves.
2. Is it possible to suppress key signature for individual instruments rather than applying open key by dragging it to the corresponding staves? Sibelius has built-in horn, trumpet and timpani without key.
3. So, if there are multiple such instruments, can we use the description field in the instruments.xml instead of the long names? Then if we see Horn in F (no key), Timpani (no key), the long names will still be Horn in F and Timpani, no need to change names if not needed.
4. If possible, can we implement a dialog to create and edit instruments instead of first making a change then edit the properties? This will ease both instrument creation and software development, and we can store the newly-defined instruments in a customed xml file, either for self use or sharing online to expand the instrument library, bringing convenience for other engravers.
Regards,
Haipeng
Comments
In reply to Yes, some transposing… by Jojo-Schmitz
So, can I contribute by creating such special instruments and include appropriate description so that they can be included in the default instruments.xml in future versions? I'm no a developer, so I don't know how to pr, but I can send it to another person who can do this.
Haipeng
In reply to Yes, some transposing… by Jojo-Schmitz
pndI just read the instruments.xml ile, and fun the guitars oly useoctave rnsositio. My facing problem is, h to nclude two kinds ofdifferent transpositons for orns?In uitar, thre's only one or octave, but for horn, there are 5th down and 4th up.
In reply to pndI just read the… by hhpmusic
Version 3.x doesn't have the ability to have different transpositions for different clefs so I have a custom transposition I use when the switch between treble and bass clef. Multiple transpositions would be great and I'll put in a feature request for it. I don't expect to see it before 4.0 but we'll see what happens. Perhaps when the alpha and beta get released we can revisit this if needed.
For the Bass Clarinet (Bass clef), it already exists for German scores such as Richard Strauss songs. There is also an A bass clarinet in both the treble and bass clefs even though they are quite rare.
In reply to Version 3.x doesn't have the… by mike320
It doesn't matter if it'll be in 3.x or 4. So a feature rquest is welcome, and your words may be more clear since you have seen more such scores than I.
Haipeng
In reply to It doesn't matter if it'll… by hhpmusic
you have seen more such scores than I
Somehow funny...
Sorry, could not resist
In reply to you have seen more such… by Jojo-Schmitz
His eyes are on his finger tips and work far better than mine at times.
In reply to Version 3.x doesn't have the… by mike320
See #311765: Multiple transpositions for Horns
In reply to See #311765: Multiple… by mike320
Thank you Mike!