Specific chord voicings in a lead sheet

[RickP]

A post script.

The pianist liked the ossia staff version, which appears above.

But the next time we played it, I stumbled over it -- and it was my own chart!

Basically, you have to remember "that extra line is just to show chord voicings, don't play it".

But, reading on the fly, all my too-limited brain could process was "what the hell is that? Oh, it's my ossia staff, I can ignore it, since I know the voicings already". And that thought took long enough that I stumbled.

My original way, which put in x'ed noteheads under the melody note of beat 1 -- with a note at the top that x'ed noteheads are there only to suggest voicings, to be used with ad-lib rhythm) had an advantage. Namely, that it may fade into the background the next time you see it, which the ossia staff did not.

But, the x'ed notehead idea is non-standard. Makes sense to me, but the pianist objected that he'd never see that notation before.

Not unusual for two players to have different opinions as to how to notate something. And, there's something about notation which brings out a pretty assertive side of the human personality.

[David Ward]

A post script … … …    … … … And, there's something about notation which brings out a pretty assertive side of the human personality.

This does indeed seem to be the case. Although on this forum people usually remain courteous, there are sometimes cases of bad manners worthy of Twitter (sorry ‘X’) on the Finale forum. I wonder why?