I understand from Sherry that there are changes in the plans for writing for drum sets in Notation Composer. I don't know how far along this project is, but I thought I'd add a few thoughts.
There's a very good book available by Norman Weinberg,
Guide to Standardized Drumset Notation, that has the blessing of the "Percussive Arts Society". Here's the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Standardized-D...2059028&sr=8-1
Not knowing what you have planned, as an old mainframe programmer, our programming languages had "equates", which the programmer could assign to a value, and later use the equate, rather than have to use the value over and over again.
The book uses a staff with the first line at the bottom of the staff.
What I would like to see is the capability for a Notation Composer pitch to be equated (assigned) to a specific place on the staff, like the standard notation mentioned in the book cited above, i.e., bass drum (B2) = 1st space; snare (G2) = 3rd space; hi-hat pedal (G#3)= 1st space below the staff; hi-hat closed (F#3)= 1st space above the staff; hi-hat open (A#3) = same, with O above it to signify open; tom 1 (D4) = 4th space; tom 2 (C4) = 4th line; tom 3 (B3) = 2nd space; tom 4 (A3) = 2nd line; etc. The pitches included here relate to the Drum Jazz Set on my Clavinova.
This would present a much more easily readable (in my opinion) drum part to print. I realize that the above is a bit of a simplification, as there are many more nuances itemized in the standards book, but I just wanted to present the gist of the idea.
Comments, anyone?
Ralph Rayner