Grace notes make other notes overlap during playback

• May 15, 2011 - 18:42

Grace notes are played with the duration of an 8th note. When followed by eg. a 4th note, that note is shifted so that it starts an 8th note later (to make room for the grace note), but the note keeps its duration and will thus overlap the next note by an 8th note. At least that is the case in the attached example by J.S. Bach. It is noticeable in measure 4, but probably most apparent in measures 30 and 32, where the A and F# overlap the unison G's in the following measure, creating a rather nasty dissonance.

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Siciliano by J.S. Bach.mscz 5.87 KB

Comments

• May 16, 2011 - 19:11

It's all in the first voice, so that's not the cause.

Shouldn't grace notes "steal" from the following note, or sort of "tuplet-ize" with the following note? To the extent that it's left to the player's judgment, it's difficult to make a computer do that.

-- J.S.

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• May 16, 2011 - 19:42

Indeed. If only there were a feature to select how each grace note should be performed. But yes, it should "steal" from the following note (and in other genres from the previous note), so the duration given to the grace note is taken from another note. In other words, "stealing" as in "stealing a car", which leaves someone with one car less, not as in piracy :).

Glad I'm not the only one experiencing the bug.

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• May 16, 2011 - 20:16

it's just a matter of finding them. I clicked on a grace note to select it, then right clicked for a menu. At the bottom, there's a "Note Properties" item that has lots of interesting stuff in it, including "Ontime Offset" and "Offtime Offset". I haven't investigated thoroughly what they do, but if they don't fix the problem, there should be a fix added to that menu.

-- J.S.

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