Pipe Organ default clefs
Question directed mostly @ChurchOrganist
I've just had a user in the Dutch forum reporting the 8vb F-key used for the 3rd staff of the Pipe Organ should be a regular F-key instead.
To my experience the regular F-key is indeed far more common in the written sheet music; although very often played by a combination of a 16' and 8' register, doubling the audible notes with one octave below anyway.
I support the request as well, but was wondering about the reasoning for having it as 8vb currently?
8vb key introduced when working around Aeolus in https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/commit/6bfd9f10a8c17a03be628c699…
Comments
Hi Jeetee :)
The reason is to conform with modern score engraving practice which provides the appropriate octave clef for octave transposing instruments.
The Pedal Organ is usually founded on 16 foot pitch, so it is appropriate using this principle to indicate this by using the 8vb Bass Clef.
For the same reason Contrabass parts are written in the same clef, Guitar is written with the 8vb Treble clef etc.
Of course some pedal parts are Cantus Firmus played at 4 foot pitch, so it would be appropriate under these guidelines to use the 8va Bass Clef for such parts.
This standard is relatively recent, and scores written before 1980 or so generally do not use octave clefs.
Obviously you are perfectly at liberty to use the standard Bass Clef for your organ pedal parts as this is an issue of house style. Using the 8vb Bass Clef does, however, pitch the pedal part correctly at 16 foot when playing back on the default soundfont.
In reply to Hi Jeetee :) The reason is to by ChurchOrganist
Thanks for the clarification!
I wasn't aware of the (very recent) shift to use the 8vb cleff as standard. With that in mind, are there any plans to change the default clefs for the plain "Organ" as well then?
As far as I can see that is the only difference between them.
I think I'll advice the user to use "Organ" for his instrument selection then. If playback matter he can always change the bottom staff transposition and save it as a template.
In reply to Thanks for the by jeetee
In fact the Pipe Organ instrument was originally intended to be used with the Aeolus implementation we had in the Nightlies at one point.
Unfortunately difficulties with the original author meant we had to abandon it.
The Pipe Organ instrument stayed in Instruments.xml though.
I'm planning to eventually provide a couple of specific pipe organ sounds in the default soundfont for use with this instrument. But obviously they will be available from the mixer for the Organ instrument too.