Pitch

Graphically altering note pitches and accidentals in the notation editor.

Key command summary

After selecting a note or rest in the graphical notation, you can move to other notes in the score melodically or harmonically. Use the left key to move the previous melodic note, right key to move the next melodic note, up key to move the next higher harmonic note in the score, and down key to move the next lower harmonic note in the score,

Below is a demonstration of the arrow keys in action. Notice that harmonic navigation wraps around, so that attempting to go up beyond the top note in the score will wrap the cursor to the bottom harmonic note at that point in the score.

navigating notes in a score with arrow keys — Navigating notes/rests in a score with arrow keys.

Also note that there must be a note or rest at the same timestamp on a staff or layer; otherwise that staff or layer will be skipped. Also note that the cursor in the text editor to the left is updated to match the currently selected note/rest. And finally note that moving melodically of of a page will cause the next/previous page to be loaded.

Stepwise transposition

Notes can be transposed to a different staff-line or space by clicking on a note and then using the shift-up and shift-down arrow keys to move it vertically. Below is a demonstration where the D5 pitch is moved down by step to D4:

graphically transposing a note — Stepwise graphic transposition of a note with shift-down.

Notice that as the note moves down in the notation editor, the corresponding note in the Humdrum data will change automatically to match the new pitch of the note in the notation.

Transposing by diatonic interval

If you need to transpose a note by more than a step at a time, a faster transposition method prefixes the shift-up or shift-down keystroke with a digit from 3 through 9 to transpose up or down by that diatonic interval:

graphically transposing a note by thirds — Transposing a note up by thirds with 3+shift-up.

Note: In the future, double-clicking on a note in a chord will select all of the notes in the chord, and they will be transposed together. Also, this might also be implemented for entire measures or beamed notes or tuplet groups.

Transposing by octave

The keystrokes control-up/control-down can be used as a shortcut to transpose a note by an octave. This is equivalent to 8+shift-up/8+shift-down.

graphically transposing a note by octaves — Transposing a note up/down by octave with control-up/control-down.

Accidentals

Accidentals can be added to a selected note by pressing minus for a flat, hash for a sharp, and n for a natural. To add a double-flat or double-sharp, prefix the accidental keystroke with the digit 2.

Repeating the same accidental on a note that already has that accidental will remove the accidental from the note. An easy way to remove any accidental other than a natural sign would be to type n+n: once to convert the accidental into a natural sign, and another to remove the natural sign (the note will still possess an implicit natural, however).

changing the accidental of a note — Graphically adding/removing accidentals.

Printed vs. sounding accidentals

Humdrum **kern pitches always encode sounding accidentals. VHV automatically calculates visual accidentals when converting to MEI for rendering to graphic music notation.

However there can be exceptions to the visual accidental calculation rules, which are demonstrated in the sub-sections below.

forced accidentals: the accidental can be forced to display on a selected note by pressing x.
suppressed accidentals: don’t show the accidental regardless of whether or not it should be shown. (not currently available in graphic editing).

Below is a demonstration of changing accidentals in the music. Notice that altering the accidental on one a note may automatically add a different visual accidental on a following note in the measure.

automatic calculations of printed accidentals — Demonstration of printed accidental calculations.

As demonstrated in the above figure, if a grace note has a printed accidental, the next note on the same staff line or space in the measure will be given a forced accidental. If you don’t want this automatic courtesy accidental add a y after the accidental in the Humdrum data.

Forced accidentals

Accidentals can be forced to display in the notation by typing the key x while editing a note (mnemonic: eXplicit). This will add the character X (capital x) after the accidental for the note data, which means to explicitly show the accidental in the notation. Forced accidentals are typically used to remind a performer that the note has the given accidental, such as when an accidental is canceled by a barline and a note in the following measure is spelled according to the key signature again. Forced accidentals used for this purpose are called courtesy or cautionary accidentals.

forcing the display of accidentals — Forcing the display of accidentals with x.

Natural signs (n) in **kern data are automatically treated as forced accidentals when converting Humdrum data into notation. To create a forced natural, you should instead type n to add a natural sign.

Note: Some things need to be cleaned up in the graphic editing implementation of forced accidentals: (1) typing x should toggle the forced accidental signifier, (2) typing x on a note with an implicit natural should insert an n for an explicit natural rather than nX which is a doubly explicit natural sign, and (3) X should be removed when deleting an accidental from the note (converting the accidental into an implicit natural).

Suppressed accidentals

VHV will automatically suppress printed accidentals on notes that otherwise require them if they are tied over from previous measures:

Explicitly suppressing visual accidentals cannot be done within the notation editor (yet), but this can be accomplished by adding a single y after the accidental in the text editor.

Ornament accidentals

Ornaments containing auxiliary accidentals will automatically force an accidental on a following note if it is different from that of the auxiliary accidental.

Ornamental accidentals — Automatically forced accidentals after ornaments. (typing m, w, and T)

Editorial accidentals

The VHV notation editor allows toggling of accidentals between regular and editorial forms. Press i to switch between these two types of accidentals.

To indicate an editorial accidental, an RDF signifier has to be added to the data:

!!!RDF**kern: i = editorial accidental

Any user-signifier other than i can also be used. If no editorial accidental RDF is found in the data, one will be inserted at the bottom of the Humdrum content automatically; otherwise, the signifier for an existing editorial accidental RDF entry will be used (even if it is not i).

Editorial accidentals will always be forced to display, so adding a forced display signifier (X) with the x key is not necessary.

Note: Perhaps editorial accidentals should be allowed to be suppressed, but they currently cannot.

Warning: Automatic insertion of an editorial accidental RDF is currently hardwired to the “i” user-signifier, so you should not use the same signifier in the file for a different meaning in kern data unless you manually add an editorial accidental RDF using a different user-signifier.

Note: A small accidental above a note is the common style for editorial accidentals in editions of Renaissance music (typically to indicate an unwritten musica ficta accidental). Other rendering styles for editorial accidentals are not (yet) available.

Styling editorial accidentals

By default editorial accidentals are displayed as small accidentals above the note. This is the most common editorial accidental style for Renaissance music. For music that includes basso continuo numbers or chords, editorial accidentals are typically displayed within brackets or occasionally parentheses.

Adding the string bracket or brack somewhere on the editorial accidental RDF line will move the editorial accidentals in front of the notes and place brackets around them:

Any user signifier can be used for editorial accidentals, but the last RDF line in a file is given priority for adding/removing editorial state of accidentals when using the i graphical editing command.

Note: Selecting an editorial accidental style cannot be done graphically, and instead must be added to the RDF line.