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I'm proofreading a score where each quarter note has a different triad, very freely juxtaposed. I usually try to keep the accidentals consistent with the harmony, but sometimes that produces ackward lines for the individual parts. Maybe use the harmonic consistency principle for the score and the easier one for the parts? Here a couple of examples, what would you do? (Daryl?)
Must add that the copyist made a bit of a mess here...
EDIT: of course these are strings, v1, v2, vla, vc, cb

Why are they using flats here? It's a simple e-major b-major progression. Just use sharps and that is clear. As it is, it's unnecessarily difficult to read. And worse, the players intonation will not match if one is playing g sharp and the other a flat. I see no good reason to use flats and sharps here, and some very good ones not to do it.

Linos, it's not a simple E-B progression... From left to right in the first image chords are: E-G#m-Db-Eb-E-G
in the second example: A-B-C-Ab-C-Em

I would read it differently Rob. First image: E - G#m - C# - Eb/G (could be notated as D#/G) - E - G. There is no good reason to use flats in five of these six chords. In fact, I would say it's detrimental. Why is an E major chord notated with flats? It makes reading complicated, and good intonation even more so. Much better to just use sharps. I still don't understand what you are asking. Why do you think using flats could be preferable?

Linos wrote: ↑Sep 22, 2025 3:03 am ... (could be notated as D#/G) ...

where do you see a G in the bass? And suggesting D#/G is horrible, are you imagining a D#-G-A# chord?
Anyway, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here: the score excerpts I posted are before I do my job of proofreading, it's the original that I have to fix. I too find absurd the use of Fb instead of E and that goes for many other places...
My doubts are, as I tried to explain in my first post, should I favor diatonic intervals, easier to read for the player but harmonically wrong or remain harmonically coherent and use chromatic intervals? My preference is for harmonic consistency, but still I was asking myself.
I had a look at the original manuscript and the composer had apparently the same doubt as me; he starts off all chromatic but then further on in the score starts writing diatonically.

Well, do as you please obviously, but these extracts are a hot mess. Fix the typos first - and there is an almost comical amount of these here. After that, deciding on the two or three ambiguous places should be easy. Normally, it's the composer's decision whether to use harmonically correct notation or chromatic intervals. You stick with what they chose, if you trust them to make a reasonable decision. Personally, I prefer harmonically correct notation in most cases. But as said, it shouldn't be you who has to make the decision.

thanks for sharing your opinion, Linos...

Sorry I couldn't be of help. It seems we often talk past each other. I'm sure Daryl can help you. It doesn't seem like you want anyone else's opinion anyway.

I created the thread exactly to hear opinions, don't know why you think otherwise... that doesn't mean I take everything as gospel

No idea if it is of any help, but I wrote some scores in a long forgotten past where I used parts which where only chromatic/a-tonal and on some parts I moved to more tonal/modal parts.
On the chromatic part I never used any key signature and went with the "logical" horizontal lines that made it for the players easily to read as harmony was not intended to be read as normal. I tried to be consistent though in using sharps vs flats and used or one or the other and only mixed them if it made somehow sence in the melodic movement.

If I switched to more tonal/modal parts I added a key signature, so that is was also clear that a different territory was entered and then I used the more regular approach and harmonic readability was then preferred.

Hi Rob, not Daryl of course, but for me to make it work reasonably easily, I would definitely prioritize the harmonic readability as broken down by your chordal analysis above. I might consider chromatic/enharmonic spelling for the (second occurrence of the ) E chord in the first example for Vln1 and Vla, and for the Ab chord in the second example for Vln1. Though I don't think I'd be bothered by staying completely harmonically-focused, since it seems to be non-functional harmony.

Thanks a lot, Jaap and Luke! In the end I thought
1) trying to make lines look diatonic was anyway causing problems in the course of the piece.
2) We’re dealing with first class orchestral musicians who have no problem reading difficult intervals
3) I like to make harmonies as clear as possible, for the conductor at least
So I went for harmonic consistency and delivered the score. No one’s going to complain, the composer is not among us anymore so…

I'm not Daryl, nor do I have his day-in-and-day-out experience, but I have composed and arranged for lots of really good musicians.

I think you'll be best off in this case making the harmonies clearer. Many excellent players will recognize the chords by ear as they play, as well as their factor or member in the chord (the note they're playing within the chord), so making the basses and celli play Fb when they'll hear an E major chord (example 1, bar,1, beat 1) unnecessarily complicates things (same with the violas playing Ab instead of G#--string players all recognize an E chord right away, probably since they were 3-8 years old--sharp keys are their "place of comfort." Just like us jazz musicians and Eb ).

Likewise, on the next beat, having the violas play Cb and the lower strings play Ab when they'll hear G# minor is unnecessarily confusing (in English, there's a joke: what do you get when you drop a piano down a mineshaft? Answer: "A flat minor" [sounds like "a flat (squished) miner (person who works digging in a mine)"]. That joke is the most common place I've encountered Ab minor.

Not a criticism, but adding clefs to your first post might make it easier for people to engage with.

Thank you, that’s exactly what I did Joe, after the initial doubts, and yes I should have written clefs but thought it was clear enough for people accustomed to reading strings scores… nice joke by the way

Sooooooo....

Just to wade in on this, it's a very complicated question, and there is no right answer, although there are plenty of wrong ones.

As we're talking about Strings, one would think that there is only one answer. However, even then it depends. For example a quartet will spend hours discussing how a D# in one chord should be played differently than a D# in the next chord, and certainly from the Eb in the following one. A session orchestra doesn't give a shit. Just get it done.

So my view for sessions is usually as follows:

Get the chords right, so that the conductor can see the harmonic progression easily. String players can usually deal with double sharps, if they have to.

If the tempo is fast, legibility, and ease of reading is more important than technical perfection. So that's when I would start to look more carefully at the individual lines.

So in the example above, I would basically get rid of all flats, don't be scared of an f##, and maybe in the 4th bar, chord 4, use flats, just because it's clearer.

Having said all that, we're talking about Strings. With brass and Woodwinds the strategy might be very different, particularly if you are using non transposing scores.

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 23, 2025 5:38 am Sooooooo....

Just to wade in on this, it's a very complicated question, and there is no right answer, although there are plenty of wrong ones.

As we're talking about Strings, one would think that there is only one answer. However, even then it depends. For example a quartet will spend hours discussing how a D# in one chord should be played differently than a D# in the next chord, and certainly from the Eb in the following one. A session orchestra doesn't give a shit. Just get it done.

So my view for sessions is usually as follows:

Get the chords right, so that the conductor can see the harmonic progression easily. String players can usually deal with double sharps, if they have to.

If the tempo is fast, legibility, and ease of reading is more important than technical perfection. So that's when I would start to look more carefully at the individual lines.

So in the example above, I would basically get rid of all flats, don't be scared of an f##, and maybe in the 4th bar, chord 4, use flats, just because it's clearer.

Having said all that, we're talking about Strings. With brass and Woodwinds the strategy might be very different, particularly if you are using non transposing scores.

thanks Daryl, yeah you basically confirm what I've done (I have delivered the score with my edits yesterday).
As for that Eb/D# chord I decided for D# in the end, better connection with the preceding C#, just an Fx to first violins and violas.
It was impossible, further on in the score, to remain in the sharps domain, so I had to make do with flats there...
thanks again

Luke wrote: ↑Sep 22, 2025 12:13 pm Hi Rob, not Daryl of course, but for me to make it work reasonably easily, I would definitely prioritize the harmonic readability as broken down by your chordal analysis above. I might consider chromatic/enharmonic spelling for the (second occurrence of the ) E chord in the first example for Vln1 and Vla, and for the Ab chord in the second example for Vln1. Though I don't think I'd be bothered by staying completely harmonically-focused, since it seems to be non-functional harmony.

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