Cannot tie swung note

[Tim Mariott]

In the attached "When I'm sixty-four" which I am preparing for choir learning files, at measures 9-10 and 17-18 in the Tenor and Bass lines, the arranger has specified swung notes tied to a crochet in the next measure. No way will Composer allow me to tie these notes: it tells me that the notes are not the same pitch.

Later in this arrangement the same pattern of notes occurs but this time without the "swing" and now the same notes can be tied - measures 42-43 and 50-51.

Also I note that swung notes can be tied to a succeeding note if they are in the same measure, e.g. at measure 7 and many other times.

So what is blocking the ties in measures 9-10 and 17-18 and is there a work around? I don't really want to have "unswing" these notes as it is an important part of this arrangement.

Thanks
Tim

[Tim Mariott]

Think I've found a work-around which is to delete the crochet in measure 10 and then use Piano Roll to greatly increase the duration of the second note of the "swung" pair in measure 9. I found I had to increase it to 700 else it didn't seem to increase the duration over the measure boundary.

Seems to be working in the exported MP3 file - but would still be interesting to know why it was happening.

[Sherry C]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for reporting this issue.

There is also another work around if your singers are familiar with "swing" notation. I play in a big band, and we have a lot of pieces that are written in "swing" notation. This just means that pairs 8th notes which look "straight" are understood implicitly to be "swung" in the same timing fashion as the tuplets that you have notated. Not all musicians understand this, though, so your mileage may vary. You can also go another step to get back to the "standard" notation WITH the ties - please see below

If you use Format/Retranscribe, and then select "swing" as the Rhythm style, you will get what looks like "straight" notation, but the musician can "swing" it. In the following screen shot, I've used the Format/Retranscribe on the Tenor staff but not the Bass:

SwingTenor.jpg

As you can see, I was able to tie the 8th note from the end of measure 9 to the quarter note at the beginning of measure 10.

Now, if you don't want to leave it in "Swing" notation, but want the tuplets back, just use Format/Retranscribe again (after tying the notes you want) and then select "Standard" (which is the default). Now the tuplets are there AND so are the ties.

I've entered this issue into our database for bug fixing, but hopefully the above workaround (or yours) will get you by for now.

Thanks again for reporting the issue!

ttfn,
Sherry

[Sherry C]

Hi Tim,


Thanks again for the report. This issue will be fixed in the next update release.


ttfn,
Sherry

[Sherry C]

Hi folks,


Tim's reply and our subsequent private email conversation reminded me of a feature in version 5 that some folks may be interested in, especially if you want your "swing" notation (which looks straight but is performed with a "swing") to sound correctly.


In some cases folks are creating a song file for the audio performance to help musicians or vocalists to properly perform the notes. This little feature will help you to more speedily enter the notation for "swing", keep the rhythm transcription as "swing", and have the cleaner "swing" transcription of your piece.


I'm including a small example file. The general directions are given below. The exact steps I did are in parentheses.

1. Enter the "straight" notes in your score. (I did the exact same note figures in staves 1, 2, and 3.)
2. Now select that region of notes. (I selected 2 and 3).
3. On the Notes,Rests / Notes tool palette, there is a button that shows the swing notation that you entered - please see the attached screen shot. Click that button.
4. The notation will now reflect the change to a "swing" performance.
5. If you want the notation to look "straight" but still "swing" (ie, to be "swing" notation, where you'll want to put in that text annotation to remind the musicians 😉 ), then use Format/Retranscribe, and select "Swing" as the rhythm style. (I did this only for staff 3).


SwingMethod.jpg


As you can see, the "swing" rhythm style makes for a "cleaner" and typically easier to read sheet for musicians, especially if there is a lot of notation on the sheet.


You can hear the difference by listening to the Straight_Swing_SwingNotation_example.not file that is attached.


Hopefully this will help someone out there save a little time and have a swinging performance as well


ttfn,
Sherry

Straight_Swing_SwingNotation_example.not