Slash notation and 12/8 time?
This is not necessarily a bug or an enhancement request, but more a matter of curiosity that might turn into one of those two :-)
How should slash notation appear in 12/8 time? A single slash per beat? Or a dotted slash per beat?
I know that in regular notation, a dotted quarter is one beat, but was expecting that since slashes represent beats (or, at least I thought they did) and not quarter notes, there wouldn't be a dot. This is unlike rhythmic notation where i'd expect the dot.
So, just wondering... what is considered to be "correct" slash notation? And if it shouldn't have a slash-dot per beat, should I file a bug in the issue tracker?
Thanks for any information and education you can provide :-)
- Mike.
Comments
Well, since I implemented it, and it currently shows four dotted slashes, I guess you know my vote :-)
But if I see a lot of good evidence that the standard is to not use dots, I could mark them invisible by default. Meanwhile, it's easy enough to mark the dots invisible yourself - with the range still selected, right click one dot, select / all similar elements in range selection, "V".
In reply to Well, since I implemented it, by Marc Sabatella
This is the closest thing I was able to find to stating a "standard":
http://community.berkleejazz.org/wiki/index.php/Slash_notation
It says that a slash is on each beat, and gives an example in 4/4 time... which doesn't really answer the question :-)
Oh well... no worries. I'll hide the dots as you described if it *really* bugs me :-)
Thanks.
- Mike.
In reply to This is the closest thing I by carneyweb
To me, the dots should be there. If you have a bar which is only partially slash, it would be confusing. I would be thrown if the dots were not there in any case. I'm a rhythmic purist.
ALWAYS make things as clear as possible if you want to share it with others. Otherwise be prepared to spend time in unnecessary explanation.
In reply to To me, the dots should be by xavierjazz
I agree 100% with keeping things as clear as possible. I'd always read the slash as one beat, not one quarter note. So a 12/8 bar would have 4 slashes. If, as you say the bar is only partially slashed, I don't see any confusion. If I need anything other than one full beat on each slash, I use rhythmic notation instead since every length other than quarter note and whole note needs the stem and possibly a flag or bars to make any sense at all. So I don't think it's any less clear.
HOWEVER... I don't think it really matters that much either. I just found the dots cluttered things a bit. :-)
Thanks for the thoughts though!!!
- Mike
In reply to To me, the dots should be by xavierjazz
That's an excellent point about partial measures; I hadn't though of that! To me, that's a pretty definitive reason to not hide the dots by default. But if you know you will never use any partial measure so you don't expect there to be any conflict, then I think you'd be justified in hiding the dots manually if you like. To me, it wouldn't be worth the bother unless I had some equally definitive source that said they should be hidden in cases where there was no possibility of confusion. Or if the work was being done on contract for a client who demanded it that way.