> =============Konrad Hinson:
> > > - Two more accidentals, half-flat and half-sharp, to cover quarter tones.
>
> ------------------------
> There were madrigals written with quarter tones centuries ago, but you
> have already looked at them, right? :-)
No, never heard of them. Do you have a reference?
> If you are going to use more than one tonality, you need 3/4, 5/4, and
> 7/4 tone sharps and flats also, so that you can have symmetry in the way
> you write in various tonalities. Are you going to use equal temperament?
> Why? I think you underestimate the problems with having many keys.
Fortunately I don't have to worry about this; notation practices for
Arabic music are well established, I just want to be able to use them
on my computer!
Arabic music traditionally does not use equal temperament, although
the introduction of Western instruments into some genres has
introduced equal temperament as well. An musical notation is a
newcomer to the Arabic world as well. The Western notation was taken
over with minimal adaptions, i.e. half-accidentals and generalized
keys. Many Arabic musicians still refuse any kind of written notation
and those who do use it see it strictly as a study aid. Only the basic
melody is written, no ornaments, hardly any execution hints, etc. You
are supposed to learn a piece from another musician, or perhaps from a
recording, but never from a partition alone.
Since Arabic musicians consider musical notation a rough approximation
anyway, they don't care about many details that are important to
European musicians. F-sharp and g-flat are considered the same, both
being a rough approximation to the real notes, which vary from mode to
mode and from region to region. Therefore half-flats and half-sharps
are sufficient. Transposition plays a minor role, and harmony (in the
form of chords) is nothing more than an ornamental technique.
One other feature that would be necessary for professional-quality
Arabic music typesetting is lyrics in the Arabic script. Maybe that
could be done in combination with ArabTeX, but I don't really care; I
find such lyrics highly irritating anyway (they note only individual
syllables, because the writing direction of the arabic script is the
opposite of the music notation).
> sure that designs have been out there for a long time. But I can't help
> but wonder what a ReHalfFlat clef would look like? :-)
In analogy to the half-flat symbol, just add a line across the clef ;-)
Konrad.
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