How to remember what accidentals in play for the bar

[mrcreosote]

This is especially tough for me with Rach who does so much chromatic work.

[dogperson]

I extensively use a yellow erasable highlighter:
If it is a fragment of a chromatic scale, I highlight all the included notes and add a bracket

If it is an accidental that I tend to miss, I highlight the note

[j_tour]

Similarly, particularly in Bach, notably,  with a bunch of modulations, I just pencil in redundant accidentals if it's a problem.   Pretty often I just pencil in the key or scale/pitch set used above the staves.

ETA

If it is a fragment of a chromatic scale, I highlight all the included notes

That's a good one I forgot about.  For me it's much easier to think "well, it's an octotonic scale in diminished, except for these little bits" or whatever.  Not a highlighter person on scores, but differing hardnesses of pencil lead does a good enough job for me and I can erase it when I invariably change my mind about how to think about some passage.

Although I just noticed:  an erasable highlighter?  I've never seen or heard of those.  Those would be useful, probably better than using colored lead in B or 2B.  Recommendations?

[mrcreosote]

I've done marking but the issue is when sight reading for first time.  Not fun if you don't remember them well.

Music notation is so Byzantine.  Computer programmers years ago wrote code in editors (same as current music sheet), but quickly with the advent of the GUI (graphical user interface), each of the languages had IDE's (integrated development environments) which visually make language components virtually jump out of the page by using color, bold and italics type and indentation.

When applied to sheet music, such conventions would revolutionize the craft.

You'd think with all the electronica in music (EDM, MIDI, etc.) some advancements in sheet would have happened by now.  I suppose the numbers of people that would actually have a need for this is so limited, nothing will change.

[dogperson]

Similarly, particularly in Bach, notably,  with a bunch of modulations, I just pencil in redundant accidentals if it's a problem.   Pretty often I just pencil in the key or scale/pitch set used above the staves.

ETA
That's a good one I forgot about.  For me it's much easier to think "well, it's an octotonic scale in diminished, except for these little bits" or whatever.  Not a highlighter person on scores, but differing hardnesses of pencil lead does a good enough job for me and I can erase it when I invariably change my mind about how to think about some passage.

Although I just noticed:  an erasable highlighter?  I've never seen or heard of those.  Those would be useful, probably better than using colored lead in B or 2B.  Recommendations?

I really like the erasable highlighters for this type of score marking... will occasionally highlight other score parts such as dynamics if I want them to stand out.  I do use colored lead pencils for things like fingering.

They are really erasable:  the special eraser is on the other end of the highlighter. I find colored pencil marking difficult to really erase. I buy the highliters through Amazon

[j_tour]

Computer programmers years ago wrote code in editors (same as current music sheet), but quickly with the advent of the GUI (graphical user interface), each of the languages had IDE's (integrated development environments) which visually make language components virtually jump out of the page by using color, bold and italics type and indentation.

When applied to sheet music, such conventions would revolutionize the craft.

You'd think with all the electronica in music (EDM, MIDI, etc.) some advancements in sheet would have happened by now.  I suppose the numbers of people that would actually have a need for this is so limited, nothing will change.

That's a fascinating analogy:  not even full IDEs, but most good text editors will automatically color syntax for programming languages based on what the editing program infers (which language, etc.).  I wouldn't know how to devise some kind of similar standards for notation software, but even an ad hoc system for personal use could be interesting for those with the time or interest. 

I'd bet using notation/engraving software is a bit more widely used, though, than one might think:  especially the free or low-cost ones.  Compared to handwriting bits of scores, for me, they're nowhere near as fast, but much more flexible when it comes to editing or making interesting reductions of complex pieces. 

You know, once you input, say, a fugue of however many voices, it's trivial to isolate, say, the soprano and bass voices, and print out a "mini score" if it's too tricky to untangle the voices by looking at the published score, or if you just want to take a different visual presentation for any reason..

 Or just collect snippets of pieces you need to woodshed and print them out onto, say, a single page (probably my favorite method:  sort of takes away the temptation to keep fumbling through a piece just for fun).

It could be useful, especially if you can figure out how to make something like MuseScore display the stems to your liking.

I would think nothing really beats just penciling in easily-overlooked accidentals.  Or perhaps just a decisive stroke of a highlighter.

@dogperson:  thanks for the tip about erasable highlighters!  I had no idea.  That sounds like an incredibly versatile and useful bit of equipment.

[quantum]

I usually pencil such things in.  My annotations are usually minimal, as I prefer not to clutter up the score.  As a general rule: if I can easily remember it without a marking, I do not make a mark in the score.  If it is something that frequently gets overlooked, it gets penciled in. 

For patterns like scales or chords, I'll frequently just write the name of the pattern rather than pencil in every accidental.  For example: I'll just write "C# Major" instead of trying to keep track of adding or cancelling accidentals. 

For chromatic scales, I focus on starting note and ending note. 

For modulations or tonicizations with a lot of chromaticism: I focus on first tonal centre, second tonal centre. 

Sometimes I use coloured sticky notes for very important stuff in performance such as: soprano needs cue here, watch conductor here, play along with the altos for this phrase. 

[mrcreosote]

Wow, what great highlighter tech:  ERASABLE!   (my poor books now....)

WalMart?

[dogperson]

Wow, what great highlighter tech:  ERASABLE!   (my poor books now....)

WalMart?

Walmart and Amazon.  I have not seen it in my Walmart store, but available online.