Stuck notes

[Tim Mariott]

I have a real problem with the piece attached. It is an SATB choir piece which I imported as a MIDI file from another choir: I have used a lot of their material before and never had any problems.
I have completed adding the lyrics and expressions - but now find I have some very persistently stuck notes. They start around measure 45 and seem to be associated with the piano staves which should be silent for a few measures from this point but the last piano chord seems to stick.
I know I can turn it off during playback but I cannot send the piece out to my choir members in its current state.
Any ideas as how I might fix this?
Thanks - Tim

[Sherry C]

Hi Tim,

I took a look and a listen to the file, and playing it here seems to work fine. The first thing I look for in a case like this is the Sustain Pedal, but there are no Sustain Pedal events, using Graph Over Notes to view them.

There are some sustained notes for measures 45 and following, but those are as-notated in the bass and tenor staves, not the Piano (the Piano stops at the quarter note chord for me at measure 45.) I also see (using Piano Roll) that those notes are set to play "legato" and connected, so it does give the effect of a "wall of sound", especially since neither the note velocities nor the volume changes for them, when in a live performance I'm betting those voices would be much lower to allow the soprano soloist to cut through the mix.

Perhaps I'm not listening/looking for the right thing. Maybe a bit more detail about the problem you're hearing will point me in the right direction?

ttfn,
Sherry

[Tim Mariott]

Sherry
Thanks for the rapid reply. I have to admit I don't yet understand the Piano Roll and the note duration possibilities.
However, I have been able to narrow down the problem and it all seems to relate to where I have used upper and lower voices on the Tenor stave in measures 45-51 and again from measures 59-63. By muting the other staves I hear a very definite sticking of notes which does clear on playing if I hit Ctrl-Shift-S.
So I deleted all of the notes from these Tenor measures and put back in the upper voice notes only - fine so far. Then I added some lower voice notes and the sticking reappeared! Very strange as I have used upper and lower voices quite happily for many other pieces.
I can work around it as I have cloned the Tenor stave and put just one voice on each stave: this seems to be working so far but is less satisfactory as the Tenors only split for these few measures so it means a redundant stave for most of the piece.
I guess it's just a puzzle!
Cheers
Tim

[dj]

Hi, Tim, Sherry:

The stuck notes are the ones where the two tenor voices overlap, at the A-natural on beat 2 of bar 46 and at the Ab on beats 1 and 2 of bar 51. Same thing happens on the second beat of bar 59 and the first two beats of bar 60. There may be others.

Having the two voices playing the same notes at the same time there leaves one of them with a missing note off.

I've tried rebuilding the phrases with new notes of different lengths, but the missing note offs (notes off?) re-appear.

Can't think of a work-around, because it shouldn't be a problem -- the two voices should handle their own separate note off commands.

That's what you get for working your tenors so hard, Tim.

David

[Tim Mariott]

David

Many thanks. As a retired IT person I'm always much happier when someone can explain what is happening even if it doesn't solve the problem. At least there is a logical explanation as to why using upper and lower voices in other pieces has always worked for me before and I know what to look out for in future.

Tenors are always the hardest worked voice (I am one of them): they are the only ones continually challenged to switch between treble clef and bass clef in the same piece - but they do normally get the girl!

Tim