Dunno for sure, but when I was editing, largely self-taught, a MS I found of an early 18th century gent's favourite "flute" (i.e. recorder) tunes, he had a whole plethora of marks, spirals, cirles with dots, the lot. I looked in the "Division Recorder Book" for help, where there are some suggestions, and also talked to one or two people, and it all confirmed what's already been said - a) it's not certain what each particular person may have meant by these decorations - and b) as has already been suggested, music at that time was perhaps more free in its interpretation, so whether you played the same decorations or even the same notes each time depended on what mood you were in. Best wishes, Richard. Gibbons, John wrote:
The Henry Atkinson MS has several commonly notated ornaments - * A pair of vertical lines over a note: || * A pair of diagonal lines over a note: \\ * A pair of diagonal lines through the vertical of a note. These are easy to distinguish and are often used together, eg in the Reed House Rant. What did they mean? Does anyone know, or was it ambiguous then? John -----Original Message----- From: Philip Gruar [[1]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 22 September 2008 21:33 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [NSP] Re: Fool, fearing to tread, aka Peacock marks ----- Original Message ----- From: [3]<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "NSP group" [4]<nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 1:09 PM Subject: [NSP] Re: Fool, fearing to tread, aka Peacock marks Otherwise you could apply the "leavitoutement" - an obscure but very useful early music ornament, which to the best of my knowledge was either invented by, or at least publicised by, Philip Gruar in his early music manifestation. I wish I had invented it - I certainly use it regularly. Unfortunately I can't lay claim to it, or to any of the others (like squeakement - an ornament very well-known to pipers) which have long been going the rounds among people who regularly have to cope with all the genuine French Baroque ornaments. Another one, "pegment sans appui" is perhaps better known to string-players. If it's of any use I'll add my early-music twopennorth. (note to other Baroque-music specialists out there - this is inevitably simplified and probably contentious, but I hope you'll agree with the broad gist) Although the French composers in particular were very precise in their notation of ornaments, often giving a table of what they all meant at the beginning of a publication, other composers were extremely vague. For example the little cross often found over notes in 18th century music frequently means just some indeterminate ornament - probably a short trill, but just as readily a mordent or whatever suits the music at that point. In the eighteenth century much more was usually left to the players' discretion, even in "classical" music (that is, not "traditional" or "folk") than later became the rule. SO - we don't need to search for an exact interpretation of the Peacock "trill" sign, and we probably don't have to take all the notes as absolute gospel either. To get on or off this list see list information at [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. mailto:nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu 3. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 4. mailto:nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
