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From: | Jonathan Kulp |
Subject: | Re: Harmonics w/ Regular Notes |
Date: | Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:52:35 -0600 |
User-agent: | Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (X11/20081125) |
Dave Bellows wrote:
On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Graham Percival <address@hidden> wrote:I recommend < a\harmonic >4 It's probably mentioned in Articulations, and is certainly mentioned in the section on Unfretted strings. The way that strings notate artificial harmonics is < a e'\harmonic>4 but I don't know if that's appropriate for guitars.Ah, thank you for that. I tried something similar but could not get the syntax correct. Now the only problem is that the harmonic noteheads are "open" whereas I believe it is standard in guitar notation for the noteheads to be colored in when dealing with quarter notes and the like. It's been a long time since I've dealt with guitar music so I'm not sure what the standard practice is now. I see some old scores in my collection that just use text spanners to indicate artificial harmonics or what looks like a bold lower case 'o' over each note. It would seem that having the note heads look like the duration they're supposed to be would be clearer. Maybe someone on this list is more up-to-date than I on this issue.
Unfortunately there is a staggering lack of standards when it comes to the notation of harmonics in guitar music. I think I'm even inconsistent in my own compositions. So far people who play my guitar music have always played the harmonics I intended without intervention on my part, so I'm satisfied. I always indicate with a markup whether it's natural or artificial, and I use filled-in diamond noteheads for durations of a quarter-note and shorter. However, some of my harmonics are indicated at actual pitch and some are not. For natural harmonics, I indicate a fret ("nat. harm. 12", for example, would tell the player to use the natural harmonics on the 12th fret), and for artificial I usually put the diamond notehead on the note that's to be fretted, indicating with a markup "art. harm. 8va" telling the player to touch the string an octave above that pitch. I don't know that I have rules as such, I just tweak it until it makes the most sense for me as a player. If in doubt I show it to another experienced player and see what he says. Maybe there's a style manual about this but if there is, I haven't seen it. If you want to run your harmonics by me off-list I'd be happy to take a look. Best,
Jon -- Jonathan Kulp http://www.jonathankulp.com
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