Notation

Notation describes (analogous to text typesetting in letterpress printing ) the preparation of notes in a form that can be published and reproduced.

The manual notation by trained engravers or music setters has been displaced by computer notation since the end of the 20th century, which is used both in the production of print templates and for the distribution of music via electronic media.

The beginnings of sheet music printing

Until the second half of the 15th century, sheet music could only be copied and distributed by hand. The oldest known notes , probably printed with wooden plates in block printing ( woodcut ; see block book ), date from 1473. Music printing in Italy began in 1501 with Ottaviano dei Petrucci . Also, the engraving was used for printing notes. Both techniques, however, were time-consuming and accordingly, notes were rarely reproduced using these techniques.

The pressure with moving types

Detail from a print of a song by Thomas Ravenscroft in movable type from 1609

Ottaviano dei Petrucci (1466–1539) developed a technique that, like Gutenberg's typesetting, worked with moving types. In this way music could for the first time be printed cheaply and in larger editions.

Petrucci printed staff, musical notes and text in several print runs. It was very time-consuming to precisely align the printing phases. Pierre Attaingnant (1494–1551) simplified the process by combining staves and symbols in one type. However, this resulted in visible gaps in the staff (see illustration), because these were put together by a series of individual types. Nevertheless, this method found widespread use due to its economic efficiency. It was used well into the 20th century, especially for texts with musical examples. Jacques de Sauleque (* 1558, † 1648) is also mentioned as the inventor in some works. The notation, which developed further in the baroque era, could no longer be adequately reproduced with this method. Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–1794) therefore divided the types into smaller segments in order to make them more flexible to combine. But this procedure was also very limited compared to handwritten music notation.

Copper engraving

Since etching allowed greater flexibility, it was used very often for printing music in the Baroque period - Johann Sebastian Bach also used this technique to reproduce his music. The handwritten original was soaked with oil to make them transparent, and by tracing with carbonless paper backwards on the wax-coated pressure die transmitted. In order to save money, the composer often did this work himself.

The engraver was then able to remove the wax layer by tracing all the lines and noteheads with a grave . This was followed by an etching bath , which produced depressions in the die at the appropriate points. After cleaning, the printing plate was ready for this gravure printing process. Since one wanted to avoid an expensive second pass in letterpress printing, letters for presentation titles and headings could only be added by hand.

The sheet music engraving with steel stamps

Around 1730, the Englishman John Walsh (1665–1736) invented sheet music engraving with steel stamps, thereby combining the advantages of flexible copperplate engraving with those of efficient type printing. Instead of types, he used stamps that could be struck at any point with a hammer into a pewter pressure plate, or “pewter”. Text could also be stamped into the plate. Lines (staves, bar lines, stems and bars) and arcs continued to be engraved in the same way as copper engraving. Pewter is an alloy of lead, tin and antimony that was previously used for manual engraving. Subsequently, other metals such as tin were also used.

The engraved plate could be used for gravure printing. A plate could only be used for a limited number of prints. The printed image gradually lost its sharpness through wear and tear. The lithography and later photo-mechanical reproduction methods made it possible with a single deduction from the engraved plate for printing large quantities.

The profession of engraver has been passed on and perfected as a craft from generation to generation. The apprenticeship lasted 6 years. Our current idea of ​​the appearance of the notation elements and their arrangement was decisively shaped by the music writing trade. The quality of the artwork produced by experienced engravers is practically unmatched. All subsequent procedures are therefore based on the grade engraving.

Alternative methods of making artwork

The photomechanical reproduction technology made it possible to use any black and white graphics as printing templates. It was therefore looked for economical alternatives to the material and labor-intensive note engraving. The easiest option was to use handwritten notes (so-called autographs). Experienced musicians who drew notes with ink on transparent foil or paper were able to achieve results that can only be distinguished from engraved notes on closer inspection.

Based on the engraving, there was the so-called stamp autograph and the nota set. The characters stamped in during the engraving were applied to transparent film or paper by stamping and printing ink or by rubbing the characters off of rub-off foils produced for this purpose. The elements engraved in traditional engraving without a stamp were drawn with pen and ink.

Machine set

The first music notation machine that could automatically record music played on the piano was invented in 1745 by Johann Friedrich Unger .

Computer note set

→ Main article : Notation program

In contrast to text typesetting, usable software for notation was developed relatively late. On the one hand, the structure of musical notation is more complex than that of normal text; on the other hand, there are no binding rules for the exact arrangement of the musical notation. In manual notation, the characters were often positioned according to experience and aesthetic perception.

The first automatic music formatting programs were therefore mainly used for simple situations such as the notation of melodies. In the beginning, some elements such as arches had to be added manually. A current, advanced formatting program is Lilypond . It has no graphical user interface . An input language is used to input semantic information about pitches and durations, pauses, verbalization, etc., which the program converts into a graphic score. However, pure formatting programs are no longer used today for the production of print templates for the printing of music by publishers.

One of the earliest applications still in use with a graphical user interface is Score , which is relatively strongly based on the note engraving. According to the score maker San Andreas Press, the first piece of music to appear as a computer set was in 1971 six bagatelles for piano by the score author Leland Smith. The printout took place on a plotter . As with printing plates, the program saves music page by page in separate files. As with working with steel stamps, it allows the notation elements to be positioned very freely. However, automatic formatting is possible on user command. Although the future of the program is uncertain, it is still used by professional music typesetters who work for well-known publishers.

The most widely used notation programs in the world today, used both in professional music notation and by other users, are Finale and Sibelius . On the one hand, they are so easy to use that laypeople can use them and, on the other hand, they are sufficiently flexible to use them to produce notes for printing. Slightly less extensive, but often cheaper, notation software is available in large numbers.

Vector graphics programs are also used for unusual notation of contemporary music . Elements of traditional notation can be created with music notation programs and changed or rearranged in the graphics program.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Critics are of the opinion that grades set with better computer typesetting programs often look less aesthetically pleasing than grades made by skilled musicians by hand . The main point of the criticism is that the placement of the notation elements is no longer based on the know-how and the aesthetic sensibility of a human notation, but is left to predefined algorithms . These algorithms, for example for determining the horizontal distances between the notes, are on the one hand less flexible than a music composer and, on the other hand, often do not rely on traditional methods that have largely been forgotten because they were usually only passed on orally in the training of the music composer . Martin Gieseking writes about this in his dissertation published in 2000: “The trained eye [recognizes] effortlessly whether a score was drafted on the computer or on a printing plate. In addition, many small publishers in particular lack detailed knowledge of musical notation, without which a computer, as mentioned, only delivers moderate results. We are still a long way from complete automation that takes all special cases into account. ”However, the quality of the results for each notation method also depends to a large extent on how well the composer understands the possibilities of the respective technology. Powerful music notation programs meanwhile offer a very free positioning of the notation elements while bypassing the predefined algorithms.

Compared to traditional methods, the computerized note set has many economic advantages. It is less time-consuming, allows extensive and quick corrections, and enormously improves the archivability and reusability of already set notes. No special, costly work material is required. If the work is made considerably easier, it is less prone to errors , for example with the parts excerpt, transposition or automatic bar numbering. In addition to the visual control, the composer can also use MIDI to check a score for errors with his ear.

See also

• Notation (music)
• Protection of music engraved images

literature

• Bernhard R. Appel, Joachim Veit: Edition guidelines for music. Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2000. ISBN 3-7618-1487-9 (A documentation of the musicological editions such as works / complete editions and monument editions located in the German-speaking area in 2000).
• Herbert Chlapik: The practice of the note graphic. Doblinger, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-900035-96-2 .
• Martin Gieseking: On the history of sheet music printing - an overview. In: Bernhard Müßgens, Martin Gieseking, Oliver Kautny (Hrsg.): Music in the spectrum of culture and society. epOs, Osnabrück 2001, ISBN 3-923486-36-7 ( online ).
• Elaine Gould: Head over heels. The notation manual. Edition Peters, Leipzig / London / New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-84367-048-3 .
• Günther Henle : Publishing service to the music . G. Henle, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-87-328-038-8 (including a chapter How is a music volume made ).
• Ted Ross: The Art of Music Engraving and Processing. Hansen Books, Miami 1970.
• Herbert Seifert : Sheet music printing. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 .

Web links

• Notation engraving : Video interview about the history, technology and work processes of traditional notation engraving in the virtual exhibition "Signs - Books - Networks" at the German Museum of Books and Writing
• "Production of a stitch plate for printing music notes" (1985) - film by Elinor Pavlousek from the collection of the Federal Institute for Scientific Film (ÖWF) in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Hader: From the workshop of a music engraver. Vienna, 1948, p. 17
2. ↑ The Pfennig magazine for the dissemination of non-profit knowledge, issues 353-404, Society for the dissemination of non-profit knowledge (Germany), 1840, page 371 “The art of form or wood cutting, the mother of the art of printing, remained the companion of the same for a long time (up to Late 17th century), being used to decorate books on the margins or in texts. In several books printed by Psister (1461 and 1462) we find the first woodcuts that appear in books with movable types. Under Dücec's successors in the 16th century, art began to decline and fell into complete decline in the beginning of the 18th, but has risen again since the end of the same and has recently been used very frequently to decorate printed works with images, a use that has become spread from France to Germany. Almost as old as the art of woodcutting itself is the art of Elichir, by which one understands the art of duplicating shaped cuts by casting or clapping in metal, which happens not only because of the necessary duplication, but also because the metal has more uniformly good impressions than the wood can withstand. In recent times the imitations or so-called cliches have been used frequently, especially in England and France. Among the applications of typography to particular branches of the arts and sciences, note printing should be mentioned first. The oldest book with musical notes is the Fust - Schösser'sche Psalter from 1457, in which, however, the notes are written; in a book published in 1500 they are made by woodcuts. As early as the beginning of the 16th century, type-like cast music notes are said to have been in use in Italy; In France, the famous type cutter and type founder Iacqlies de Sauleque (d. 1648) introduced the types of music which had been in use for over 100 years in a very poor form. The bookseller and printer Breitkopf in Leipzig can be regarded as the manufacturer and improver of this branch of art, who first made musical notes in 1754; Tauchnitz in Leipzig first applied the stereotype to music notation. However, since sheet music printing with types is more expensive than lithography and pewter engraving, where the notes are struck with steel stamps on tin plates, it is still used only to a limited extent; cultivation has recently been carried out in France in particular. " (online)
3. ^ History of the art of printing in its origins and training, Constantin Karl Falkenstein, Constantin Karl Falkenstein Edition 2, 1856, page 376 “The French, on the other hand, attribute this honor to their compatriot Paul Hautiu (around 1525). Most of the reasons, however, speak in favor of the famous type cutter and type founder Jacques de Sauleque (born 1558, died 1648), who is known to have been the first to produce and make known the types of music in France. " (Online)
4. ^ Karl Hader: From the workshop of a music engraver. Vienna, 1948, p. 28
5. ↑ Herbert Chlapik: The practice of the note graphic artist . Doblinger, Wien 1987, p. 29: "All those symbols that are not included in the program or that cannot be placed immediately due to their position must be added later by hand."
6. ^ Product page from San Andreas Press ( Memento from January 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (publications can be found in the lower part of the page) (see excerpt ( Memento from November 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
7. ↑ Description on the product homepage of Score ( Memento from January 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ James Ingram: The software I used to copy music (1993-2003). Retrieved November 3, 2010 . 
9. ^ Martin Gieseking: Code-based generation of interactive note graphics. Osnabrück 2000. p. 23. ( online ( memento of the original from June 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF ; 394 kB)