| A late reply to this question:
> A situation - I have a long sustained note, and want to add an occasional
> pitch bend to it at various times (think electric guitar being whammied
> from time to time). Now I know that I can accomplish this using a suitably
> long or the like, but is there any way that I can accomplish this
> in the score rather than the orc. file?
> Also, while on the subject of sustained notes, exactly how does one create
> a tied note in the standard score, and what purpose does this serve? With
> the absence of bar lines and standard note lengths one of the major reasons
> for having tied notes in written notation would seem to be lacking.
>
This can now be done fairly easily in the newer versions of Csound. I have
contributed a chapter to the forthcoming MIT book on the subject of
legato instruments (due out in December, I hear), and in the process found
some bugs in Csound which are now corrected.
The quickie short answer is:
Use the negative p3 instruction in the score to indicate a tied note.
Think of this as a SLUR - ie you can change attributes of a single note
without provoking a new attack. Thus, you must write at least two notes to
make a slur. You can use successive negative p3s to create a long slurred
phrase. Use the '+' codes in the score to write exactly end-to-
end notes. Use 'tival' in the orchestra to find out if the current note is
tied or not.
The tricky part is managing the context in the orchestra - to know what the
parameters for the PREVIOUS note were. The score commands 'ppX' and 'npX'
help you to do this.
Re score notation: yes, a tie across the barline is a notational obligation,
but it can still be useful for a score to reflect a barline structure if you
are doing a direct transcription. The real issue though is slurs - performance
changes within a single note - pitchbend, portamento, expression, and so on.
This is one area where keyboards and MIDI remain woefully inadequate.
You can really SING with Csound!
For the full monty on this, get the book!
Richard Dobson |