Gould's Repeat Mark-Clef Rule

[John Ruggero]

On page 234 of Gould's Behind Bars, we encounter the following rule:

Gould rule.png (50.52 KiB) Viewed 437 times

Application of this rule leads to the following result as shown in an example I engraved in Dorico. The clef change is placed outside of the repeat mark! This is the only way Dorico can handle this situation automatically, but workarounds are possible:

Gould-style repeat+clef change.png (106.78 KiB) Viewed 437 times

Has anyone seen this from a well-known publisher? I haven't. Here are various examples of the way I have seen this done:

1. Bach Goldberg Variation 13 Henle:

Bach Goldberg 13 Henle.png (181.91 KiB) Viewed 437 times

2. Beethoven Diabelli Variation 26, Beethoven's manuscript, the first edition, Henle edition:

Diabelli MS.png (807.5 KiB) Viewed 437 times

Diabelli 1st ed..png (281.3 KiB) Viewed 437 times

Diabelli Henle.png (239.07 KiB) Viewed 437 times

[John Ruggero]

Here are a couple more:

Diabelli B&H.png (247.14 KiB) Viewed 434 times

Schnabel Beethoven op 120.26.png (534.63 KiB) Viewed 434 times

[Shinohara Hoshi]

I remember talking about this with John at FinaleForum before. It is true that I have never seen a trusted time-honored publishing house use this.

Although Finale and Dorico are like this by default, we can avoid this by inserting a measure. But it would be nice if the software could come with such a function.

Sincerely
廿七

[John Ruggero]

Thanks, Shinohara Hoshi. This just came up again over at the Dorico forum, so I thought I should post here because I don't think that it's been discussed here. I am interested in knowing whether Gould based this rule on a tradition that I've never encountered.

But it is clear that software should be able to handle the traditional way of doing it. The work-arounds to this and other situations involving clefs and repeat signs are growing tedious. Dorico is brilliantly designed, but there are a few gaps that seem ascribable to Gould's influence, like the missing unbroken tuplet bracket.

[Fred G. Unn]

I am interested in knowing whether Gould based this rule on a tradition that I've never encountered.

Obviously we were chatting about this on the Dorico forum too, but I think the tradition is "repeats are not barlines ... except when they are" LOL! Without too much effort, I'm sure you can find examples of mid-bar repeats that aren't functioning as barlines. The vast majority of the time they coincide though, so to the reader there visually isn't a difference between the function of a barline and a repeat in these cases. Gould is exerting that there still is, and that the repeat bar should appear before the start of the music and after any preamble information. Even my handcopying guides tend to support this view, like pg 46 of the Ken Williams book:

kw46.png (48.98 KiB) Viewed 392 times

In practice, this still looks really weird to me a lot of times though, as the familiarity of the barline and repeat coinciding influences my expectations. Regardless of what the manuals and guides say is "correct," there really should be some options here, as the textbook way is far from universally approved. As we discussed on the the Dorico forum, the positioning issues regarding cautionary clefs, key sigs, and meters certainly may play a role in what is the optimal positioning too. I'd love to see Dorico incorporate some more options with these, so the user has some flexibility depending on the look they require, rather being locked into the current way.

[John Ruggero]

Hi, FredGUnn. We meet again.

Yes, I just gave several examples in the posts above of mid-measure double repeat signs and how the clef falls after the repeat mark. Imagine how bad those would look if the Gould-Dorico system were applied.

The way I understand it is: A repeat mark substitutes for a bar line if it coincides with a bar line; not that it IS a bar line.

No matter what books may say, the music engravers whose work that I am familiar with will do whatever it takes to avoid putting what could appear to be an extra measure in the middle of a line of music to accommodate a clef, meter, or key signature. It is too disruptive to the "Flow" (pun intended). You feel it and I feel it.

But enough theorizing. I would like to see actual examples of the Gould-Dorico system in effect in the standard repertoire from well-regarded publishers!

[NeeraWM]

I may be daydreaming, but isn't there now an option for Dorico to place clef change before the repeat barline?

[John Ruggero]

That may be, Neera, but the subject of the thread is putting a clef change after a double repeat that occurs in the middle of a staff.

[NeeraWM]

Right! Sorry about that!

[John Ruggero]

No problem. (Do people still say that?)

Neera, have you ever seen the Gould-Dorico style (as described above) in fine editions? I would love to know where this came from.

In thinking about it further I am wondering if it comes from a misunderstanding of the point I made above. A repeat mark replaces a normal bar line if they come at the same time. We never place a bar line next to a repeat mark with no music in between, because that creates an extra (if empty) little measure in between them. But this is exactly what is happening in the Gould-Dorico system, and the clefs falling in between the bar line and the repeat mark make it look even more like there is an extra measure being sandwiched in.