Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
- Message d'origine - De : "Lukas Pietsch" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Patrick Andries enquired: 2) U+1D1C0 seems to have an incorrect names (e.g. "fusa black"). This is character (SEMIBREVIS BLACK + STEM + FLAG-2) I believe, this is black SEMI-FUSA. [snip] I believe the confusion may stem from the fact that some symbols have change names and values through time (see below). Unicode seems to have aligned itself on the pre-1420 names (the smaller set of symbols) and have extrapolated from it the names of the black notes that appeared only after 1420. No, I think the Unicode terminology is correct. The name "fusa black" has not been extrapolated anachronistically. It was indeed used like this pre-1420 (although the dictionary table you quote doesn't show it.) OK. If this "fusa black" is indeed attested, I stand corrected. May I add that I believe this is not the most common name : I did check this in three different small music dictionaries (and many Web pages) and they all show that this note appeared late (post-1420) and give it its post-1420 name : "semi-fusa". Could it be that Unicode has adopted a rare name for this character and that this could confuse modern users (they are quite a few pages on the Web concercing this topic) ? The Unicode terminology is consistent in so far as all white notes are given post-1420 names, and all black notes are given pre-1420 names, notwithstanding the fact that these black notes were also used with *different* names and values post-1420. Which I believe is confusing (see your table below). All notes could have been given post-1420 names given the fact that the white notes appear only after 1420... semibr. = white head(=1d1b9 "semibrevis white")* minima = white head + stem (=1d1bb "minima white")** semimin.= white head + stem + flag1 (=1d1bd "semiminima white"), or: black head + stem (=1d1bc "minima black")*** fusa= white head + stem + flag2 (=1d1bf "fusa white"), or: black head + stem + flag1 (=1d1be "semiminima black") semifusa= black head + stem + flag2 (=1d1c0 "fusa black")* Found this original illustration http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/16th/FABCOM_04GF.gif in Compendiolum musicae pro incipientibus, 1594. You can see that the Unicode terminology is consistent with all of the pre-1420 symbols, and at least with one of the two sets of post-1420 symbols. (Even if that is not the set of symbols that eventually came to dominate.) Exactly. Thank you, Lukas. Patrick P.S. Incidentally, do your sources also show consistently the nominal form of the MAXIMA and LONGA with stems pointing downwards contrarily to the Unicode reference glyph ?
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
All notes could have been given post-1420 names given the fact that the white notes appear only after 1420... Well, not really, because there are quite a few symbols (black notes of semibreve and above) which occur only in the pre-1420 notation. So the series of "black" note names would have a confusing gap: "black head with no stem" = "black semibrevis" = no "black minima" "black head with stem" = "black semiminima" (new usage) "black head with stem and flag1" = "black fusa" (new usage) "black head with stem and flag2" = "black semifusa" (new usage) "white head with no stem" = "white semibrevis" "white head with stem" = "white minima" "white head with stem and flag1" = "white semiminima" "white head with stem and flag2" = "white fusa" etc. That's what your proposal boils down to, isn't it? Well, certainly historically correct, but I find it even slightly more confusing than the other way. I do think that the terminology Unicode has chosen is the more consistent one. Confusing, yes, but it *will* be confusing to non-specialist users either way, won't it? P.S. Incidentally, do your sources also show consistently the nominal form of the MAXIMA and LONGA with stems pointing downwards contrarily to the Unicode reference glyph ? Oops, indeed, they do, and I hadn't noticed. (As I said, my musicology days at university are way back...) -- This might very well be significant. Yes, I think mensural notation did not have the modern convention that the orientation of the noteheads depends on the position on the stave. Hold on, I'll check. I also notice that the "black maxima" seems to be missing. Since we have the "black" and "white" series, we ought to have them both complete, right? "black longa" can be thougt of as unified with Gregorian 1d1d3 "virga", and "black brevis" with generic 1d147 "square notehead black", but the "black maxima" isn't there. Lukas
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
- Message d'origine - De : "Lukas Pietsch" [EMAIL PROTECTED] All notes could have been given post-1420 names given the fact that the white notes appear only after 1420... Well, not really, because there are quite a few symbols (black notes of semibreve and above) which occur only in the pre-1420 notation. So the series of "black" note names would have a confusing gap: Maybe not. As I mentioned in my first message, I believe these are font variants (they have the same names and values). If you have a pre-1420 font they are whites, after they are black (they do not usually appear simultaneously) . I may be wrong on this, please feel free to correct me. That's what your proposal boils down to, isn't it? No, IMHO, the black pre-1420 variants should not be coded and named. Well, certainly historically correct, but I find it even slightly more confusing than the other way. I do think that the terminology Unicode has chosen is the more consistent one. I see, siding with authority... Confusing, yes, but it *will* be confusing to non-specialist users either way, won't it? I don't think so, this is the practice adopted in most (short) musical dictionary, like the one you quoted : Post-1420 (when black vs white noteheads became distinctive:) semibr. = white head(=1d1b9 "semibrevis white")* minima = white head + stem (=1d1bb "minima white")** semimin.= white head + stem + flag1 (=1d1bd "semiminima white"), or: black head + stem (=1d1bc "minima black")*** fusa= white head + stem + flag2 (=1d1bf "fusa white"), or: black head + stem + flag1 (=1d1be "semiminima black") semifusa= black head + stem + flag2 (=1d1c0 "fusa black")* I would suggest (and I was wondering about using it for ISO 10646 1st Amdt of Part 1 French translation) to use the first column names with their post-1420 form, all lay books seem to use them. My problems are the superfluous (pre-1420) black forms (the historical glyph variants) which would still have to be named. Note that I fully accept that I may err and, in fact, do not want to push my point too hard here, not being a specialist. P.S. Incidentally, do your sources also show consistently the nominal form of the MAXIMA and LONGA with stems pointing downwards contrarily to the Unicode reference glyph ? Oops, indeed, they do, and I hadn't noticed. (As I said, my musicology days at university are way back...) -- This might very well be significant. Yes, I think mensural notation did not have the modern convention that the orientation of the noteheads depends on the position on the stave. As far as the stave position is concerned, it may well well vary; but are the reference glyph stems in musical books not predominantly down for those two notes? (see http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/16th/FABCOM_04GF.gif, 1594). Hold on, I'll check. I also notice that the "black maxima" seems to be missing. Since we have the "black" and "white" series, we ought to have them both complete, right? "black longa" can be thougt of as unified with Gregorian 1d1d3 "virga", and "black brevis" with generic 1d147 "square notehead black", but the "black maxima" isn't there. Not missing, if the black variety is simply an historical glyph variant. P. Andries (who will be offline for two days).
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
In my last posting I wrote: I also notice that the "black maxima" seems to be missing. Since we have the "black" and "white" series, we ought to have them both complete, right? "black longa" can be thougt of as unified with Gregorian 1d1d3 "virga", and "black brevis" with generic 1d147 "square notehead black", but the "black maxima" isn't there. Patrick Andries has answered this point, suggesting that the black and white variants should be seen as font variants. I guess that's a valid point, but it raises the question why the other musical notes aren't unified in the same way. There are separate characters (1d1b9) "SEMIBREVIS WHITE" and (1d1ba) "SEMIBREVIS BLACK". Note that these symbols are *not* affected by the semantic ambiguity problem we were discussing, which involves only the smaller note values minima, semiminima, fusa and semifusa. I'd be interested to learn the rationale behind these choices. Is the original proposal available anywhere? As for the other question, that of the stem of "longa" and "maxima": Yes, Patrick's suggestion is right that the most common form of these notes has a downwards stem (on the *right* side of the notehead, mind!) In earlier mensural notation, the directions of noteheads did not depend on the position of the notehead on the stave, as today; rather, minims and other small notes always had upwards stems and single longae and maximae mostly had downward stems. However, the odd example of longae with upward stems can be found even then. From the mid-16th century onwards the modern convention of context-dependend stems seems to have emerged, and from then on both the longae and the minim stems were placed according to it. So, it seems consistent that the Unicode charts show all notes with upward stems, implying that upward and downward stems are context-dependend glyph variants. Plenty of examples of all this can be found in: Willi Apel, Die Notation der polyphonen Musik 900-1600. Leipzig 1962/1970. Lukas
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensuralnotation
Lukas P said: I'd be interested to learn the rationale behind these choices. Is the original proposal available anywhere? Try: http://viva.lib.virginia.edu/dmmc/Music/UnicodeMusic/ That's Perry Roland's original proposal, with a lot of examples. I'm not sure you'll get much rationale, however, for the names. Regarding yesterday's question by Patrik A.: 1) Where is the Gregorian punctum (square dot) ? Is it unified with another dot, another shaped note (U+1D147) ? If so, why ? First, I believe what Patrik called "punctum", meaning the Gregorian "brevis" (terminology according to Apel's Harvard Dict article "Notation".) The (Gregorian) "brevis" (square) is unified with the square notehead U+1D147; and the (Gregorian) "semi-brevis" (diamond or lozenge shape) is unified with the U+1D1BA. Thus, Gregorian notation, medieval notation, and modern notation require either separate fonts in practice, or need "font features" to differentiate subtly different shapes if required. Please note that the SCOPE of the current set of musical symbols is mainly sufficient for general use in plain-text discussions and so forth. At some point, there will probably be another proposal for more characters. In particular, there might be a need for further neumes and more obscure symbols. However, gregorian notation is expected to make heavy use of ligatures, not all of which should be encoded. The quilisma in particular I think needs to be added in a subsequent proposal. Rick
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 --Mensuralnotation
Why are the punctum and semi-brevis unified with U+1D147 and U+1D1BA since, unless I err, they do not share the same value but only a visual similarity Well... the rationale for that would be the same thing that unifies the "." in "3.14" and "Mr. Fung". However, in this case, it's true, that they might be better dis-unified and we are considering that. The PUNCTUM (brevis) most often has a slightly convex upper side and concave lower side while the square notehead of modern music is really square. Rick
Re: Musical Notation 3.1
P. Andries asked: 1) Where is the Gregorian punctum (square dot) ? Is it unified with another dot, another shaped note (U+1D147) ? If so, why ? I am double-checking, but I believe it's unified. I'll have more info later. 2) How would a triplet (a group of three notes to be performed in the time of two ordinary notes of the same kind) be represented ? By the addition of a subscript/superscript number 3 (which one ?) to a series of beamed notes ? That is entirely up to the layout program. I would suppose use of a small italic "3", with or without accompanying brackets, depending on the typesetter's preference. This aspect of layout is beyond what Unicode is providing. Rick
Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
I have a few questions about the Renaissance musical symbols found inits proposed 3.1 block. 1) I do not see why the notes U+1D1B6-U+1D1C0 are divided in three different groups, one of them grouping miscellaneous symbols. 2) U+1D1C0 seems to havean incorrect names (e.g. "fusa black"). This ischaracter (SEMIBREVIS BLACK + STEM + FLAG-2) I believe, thisis black SEMI-FUSA.Itwill eventually producethe 16th note (in Unicode's American imperialist terminology) or the semi-quaver (in the tongue of the Great-British); the lozenge headnote having been replaced by an oval one. I believe the confusion may stem from the fact that some symbols have change names and values through time (see below). Unicode seems to have aligned itself on the pre-1420 names (the smaller set of symbols) and have extrapolated from it the names of the black notes that appeared only after 1420. Name Pre-1420 After 1420 SEMIMINIMA U+1D1BE U+1D1BD or U+1D1BC FUSA --- U+1D1BE SEMI-FUSA--- U+1D1C0. May I ask why the larger set (post-1420) was not used ? This would not have lead to any errors in naming but present only a *glyph* ambiguity as far as the SEMIMINIMA/MINIMA/FUSAare concerned. In other words, should this be displayed with a pre-1420 font ? Patrick Andries Sources : Dictionnaire de musique, Larousse Encyclopaedia Universalis (scanned copy can be sent) http://www.nmc.vt.edu/staff/Ed/music/glossary/appendix/notation/Noteshapes.html(only provided for the neat table I'm not able to reproduced)
Re: Square and lozenge notes -- Musical Notation 3.1 -- Mensural notation
Quick tangential correction to that table that Patrick Andries supplied a link to: it seems to imply that the Greek accents were musical notation; they were not. For ancient Greek musical notation see M.L. West, *Ancient Greek Music*, pp. 254-276, especially the table on p. 256. Patrick Rourke - Original Message - From: Patrick Andries snip Sources : Dictionnaire de musique, Larousse Encyclopaedia Universalis (scanned copy can be sent) http://www.nmc.vt.edu/staff/Ed/music/glossary/appendix/notation/Noteshapes.h tml (only provided for the neat table I'm not able to reproduced)
