User:Basemetal/sandbox/Discussion3

A quaint way to write accidentals!

Could you take a look at this manuscript version of the Prelude in C-sharp minor (BWV 849) from WTC I?

If you look at m. 11 (RH Note: written in 1st line C-clef/LH), m. 12 (RH) and m. 13 (RH), the F-double-sharp (which is in modern editions of course written as a double-sharp) is in this manuscript written as an F-sharp. Same thing at m. 35 (RH/LH), m. 36 (RH/LH) and m. 37 (RH).

The F-double-sharp being written consistently as F-sharp in so many cases in the manuscript and it being so written in all relevant cases (i.e. it being nowhere written as a double-sharp) seems to preclude this being an isolated mistake.

The idea behind this seems to be that the accidental is written relative to the key signature.

In other words the F-sharp in the key signature and the F-sharp in the staff seem to work cumulatively to give an F-double-sharp.

In contrast, in our current convention, staff accidentals override whatever is at the key signature.

What do you think of these examples? Are you at all familiar with this way of writing accidentals? Have you seen it used anywhere else?

I could find nothing in the Accidental (music) WP article on this sort of convention.

If what's going on in this manuscript is indeed an alternative convention that was in use somewhere at some point, it would seem important to talk about it in the article, if only for the benefit of readers who'll have come across cases such as the one I've come across.

Contact Basemetal here 21:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting -- thank you for that. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen this before, but I haven't spent a lot of time with 18th century manuscripts. (Do you know anything about that manuscript? I can't find any metadata on a quick look on the IMSLP page.) It's quite obvious that the notes you point out are, indeed, double sharps but given just a sharp sign. All I can find in David Hiley's article in the NG is "The modern forms of double flat and double sharp were also accepted generally by the 18th century." Antandrus (talk) 06:28, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Here is the same manuscript but from the Bach-Digital site: Prelude in C-sharp minor (again) and the manuscript info is here. The scribe of this part of the manuscript is not old Bach but old Bach had a hand in the writing of other parts of this very manuscript.

But at the site they have another manuscript of the same work, this one apparently in the hand of old Bach himself: In Bach's hand with manuscript info here. Unfortunately this manuscript is a lot harder to read but it does seem to present the same feature of using F-sharp for F-double-sharp as the first one.

Finally, they also have a 1771 manuscript of the same work, copied by a German fellow, one Leonard Scholz (1720-1798). But, even though he was (judging from his name) German, Lenny didn't seem to like the way old Bach was doing things so he changed "Praeludium" to "Praelude" (maybe he thought that sounded more French?), the 1st line C-clef in the right hand to a G-clef, and the F-sharps-for-F-double-sharps all to F-double-sharps. His manuscript is here and manuscript info is here. If you're curious I've found something about Leonhard Scholz's biography and you can even see there what he looked like.

Contact Basemetal here 08:33, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

A quaint way to write accidentals!

Could you take a look at this manuscript version of the Prelude in C-sharp minor (BWV 849) from WTC I?

If you look at m. 11 (RH Note: written in 1st line C-clef/LH), m. 12 (RH) and m. 13 (RH), the F-double-sharp (which is in modern editions of course written as a double-sharp) is in this manuscript written as an F-sharp. Same thing at m. 35 (RH/LH), m. 36 (RH/LH) and m. 37 (RH).

The F-double-sharp being written consistently as F-sharp in so many cases in the manuscript and it being so written in all relevant cases (i.e. it being nowhere written as a double-sharp) seems to preclude this being an isolated mistake.

The idea behind this seems to be that the accidental is written relative to the key signature.

In other words the F-sharp in the key signature and the F-sharp in the staff seem to work cumulatively to give an F-double-sharp.

In contrast, in our current convention, staff accidentals override whatever is at the key signature.

What do you think of these examples? Are you at all familiar with this way of writing accidentals? Have you seen it used anywhere else?

I could find nothing in the Accidental (music) WP article on this sort of convention.

If what's going on in this manuscript is indeed an alternative convention that was in use somewhere at some point, it would seem important to talk about it in the article, if only for the benefit of readers who'll have come across cases such as the one I've come across.

Contact Basemetal here 21:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting -- thank you for that. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen this before, but I haven't spent a lot of time with 18th century manuscripts. (Do you know anything about that manuscript? I can't find any metadata on a quick look on the IMSLP page.) It's quite obvious that the notes you point out are, indeed, double sharps but given just a sharp sign. All I can find in David Hiley's article in the NG is "The modern forms of double flat and double sharp were also accepted generally by the 18th century." Antandrus (talk) 06:28, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I emailed to Richard Rastall, the author of "The Notation of Western Music", Travis & Emery Music Bookshop, 2008. At first not only did he say that his book didn't deal with the phenomenon, he even questioned whether that phenomenon really existed. That's until I emailed to him the score I referred to above. He then admitted that the phenomenon does indeed seem to exist and that the score does indeed present a legitimate example of it. This from the author of what I thought was a standard textbook on the history of Western music notation!!! The absence of any treatment in standard reference works of a significant variant in the notation of accidentals in manuscripts of a not insignificant composer seems very troubling. What article by David Hiley in the New Grove was that you took a look at? Contact Basemetal here 17:14, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Pretty sure it was the article on "accidental" (I'm at work and can't look it up at the moment). Honestly, I was surpised I'd never seen this before. I thought I knew most notation quirks from the common practice era. Perhaps one of my talk page stalkers or Jerome Kohl might know? It seems to make sense, in the development of musical notation, that a sharp or flat would at some time have been 'relative' rather than absolute. Anyway the F# in the example you gave is most definitely an F double sharp. Antandrus (talk) 18:06, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

<De-cloaking>Hiley's article on "accidental" does not directly address this question, but the anonymous NG article "sharp" is a little more helpful, observing that "In some early sources a double sharp is shown simply as ♯♯." In this example, that is exactly what Bach does. The key signature specifies four sharps in the usual manner; therefore, when Bach adds a sharp to a note already sharped in the signature, it means a double sharp. I don't know exactly when the modern double-sharp symbol became differentiated from the ordinary sharp, but keep in mind that in earlier notation there was only one symbol for transforming fa into mi, and that was the "quadratum" mark (originally a square letter b). Those accustomed to reading 16th-century notation will know that there are several variations on this symbol, which is used both to cancel a previous flat (in other words, where we today would use ♮) and to sharpen an ordinarily "natural" note. Sometimes these symbols are very close in appearance to the modern sharp sign, but more often they are set on a diagonal (therefore looking like two superimposed Xs), and sometimes they are just a simple X (the sign that eventually becomes our double sharp symbol). The comparative rarity of key signatures with more than three sharps in music from Bach's day and earlier probably accounts for the unfamiliarity of this practice of doubling up sharp (or "mi") signs, but it should also be remembered that accidentals did not "carry through the bar" at that time, which makes the use of "cautionary" accidentals less frequent, as well. This in turn makes it easier to remember that a sharp raises the pitch of any note: if it had a flat on it before, this means it becomes natural; if it was natural before, it becomes sharped; if it had a sharp already, then it becomes doubly sharped.

And thank you, Antandrus, for exempting me from the category of "page stalkers". I really have no idea what drew me here to your Talk page—I just had an intuition that my assistance was needed (sort of an invisible "Bat searchlight"?)<Re-cloaking>.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: I see that my "alerts" indicate that my name was invoked here. I assure you I had not seen this until after I had saved my reply. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Did you get a red "1" at the top of the page just from Antandrus referring to your user page? Just mentioning someone's user page (Jerome Kohl) would now work exactly the same as pinging them: @Jerome Kohl:? Forget your pal's dad's ghost, why and how (and who) changes at WP is what Horatio would have real trouble with! Incidentally I deleted some material I had inserted on this page in response to Antandrus asking above "Do you know anything about that manuscript?" I deleted it because it was sort of a digression from my main question (but you can see that material with hopefully an answer to Antandrus's question in this old version of this section). Richard Rastall and Don Byrd recommended the long article "Notation" in the New Grove, but I have no access. Are you familiar with that NG article? I'm told it is very long. What do you think of Rastall's book? Would you agree it is a standard textbook on matters of notation? Any other titles that mignt qualify as such? Contact Basemetal here 19:18, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, inserting a linked reference to a user such as yourself, Basemetal, will trigger an alert, just as if you did a "ping". I think it is a very useful shortcut. The NG article on "Notation" is quite long, though perhaps no competition for Harold Powers's article on "Mode". I don't know Rastall's book, and should certainly look into it. I'm afraid I am far enough behind the times to still regard Gardner Read's 1964 book as the gold standard (all the best sources were published in the 1960s, of course ;-).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:40, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you see any analogy between the quirk of notation exhibited in the score mentioned above and this (obsolete?) feature of figured chords whereby a sharp would indicate (a triad containing) a raised major 3rd above the bass even if that raised major 3rd happened to be a natural or a double-sharp, like so:

Whereas nowadays you'd be more likely to have this

The principle at work would seem to be the same. The value of the sharp was to be determined relative to the prevailing key signature. (Sorry for these examples. I wanted to have my G down an octave and not to have such long staves for just one note but I'm not yet very familiar with LilyPond). Contact Basemetal here 19:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is much the same sort of thing. The practice of crossing a 6 or a 4 with a single, short line has the same effect, of sharping that note regardless of whether the key signature specifies its normal state to be a flat, natural, or sharp. A crossed-4 over a C-sharp in the key of C-sharp (major or minor) would therefore result in an F.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:37, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

(Antandrus must love it! After taking over Hyacinth's talk page now we've moved to his! :) But this is just an observation regarding your edit summary "there is a rational explanation for everything in the 18th century".) One might be entitled to call the convention of writing accidentals relative to the key signature more "logical" even if it can be argued it is less convenient. Of course there must be a reason why the practice of not taking the key signature into consideration when writing accidentals (i.e. the convention that accidentals override rather than cumulate with key signature accidentals) finally prevailed. The old convention forces you to be aware of the key signature when interpreting accidentals in the score whereas the current convention doesn't and that may seem easier, although the current convention of course does require you to keep in mind the key signature when interpreting the "null accidental" (as a mathematician or a logician would put it) that is the notes that have no accidentals: that's the whole point of having key signatures. But here is an example where the old convention is clearly superior: have you ever tried that hellish exercise called "sight transposition" using (change of) clef and (change of) key signature to transpose at sight? Music students get it drilled into them in Europe. I don't know about North America, except maybe places where Europeans have been influential in shaping the curriculum? In any case, if the score is written according to the current convention not only do you have to imagine another clef and another key signature and read the score accordingly but accidentals in the score may also have to be changed, and there are several special cases taking into account the accidental, the actual key signature and the imagined key signature. It would be cumbersome to describe an actual case, and I'm not yet proficient enough in LilyPond to typeset an example but this is the idea. But if the score is written in the old convention then the only thing you have to do is to imagine your new clef and new key signature and you're done. No need to tweak the accidentals in the score. They're already as they should be. This is one type of reason one would be entitled to say the old convention was more "rational" as you put it. Contact Basemetal here 21:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

That all makes a lot of sense. But it's curious that none of us usual suspects have ever come across this before now. Which suggests the practice was comprehensively suppressed, despite its apparent merits. Fascinating stuff. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:45, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

But is this someone using an old fashioned notation when everyone had moved on or someone doing what's common around him? The example is from Book 1. Another case: the manuscript of the previous C♯ major prelude of BWV 848. There are 19 bars with double-sharps except that the modern edition I've looked at is not sure if the F in the LH at bar 34 is sharp or double-sharp. There are corrections. Were some double-sharps (current convention) changed back to sharps (old one)? How about 20 years later? If you find in Book 2 the convention is different mention it on my talk page. If you come across examples of the old convention also. I mean not just Bach. Watch for: sharp at key: sharp for double-sharp, flat for natural; flat at key: flat for double-flat, sharp for natural. In principle also double-flat for flat when sharp at key; double-sharp for sharp when flat at key, but I'm sceptical. I'll leave a note on the talk page to the Bach article so if anyone has come across something we'll know about it. Have fun reading Bach manuscripts e.g. at http://imslp.org or at http://www.bach-digital.de. As to updating actual WP articles we'll have to wait till RS notice the phenomenon. Contact Basemetal here 03:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Bach lived at a point in time when these notational conventions were changing. Keep in mind that he occasionally used the old-fashoined German organ tablature. As far as the WTC is concerned, there are also some instances (the D♯/E♭ minor pairs in both books, I believe are amongst them) where Bach transposed pieces from "easier" keys by simply changing clefs and key signatures. This must have caused in some cases awkward choices in added accidentals.

I had to laugh when I read your question, "have you ever tried that hellish exercise called 'sight transposition' using (change of) clef and (change of) key signature to transpose at sight? Music students get it drilled into them in Europe. I don't know about North America …". As a North American myself, I can testify that this is in general not common here, but North America is a big place, and in my own case I was encouraged to acquire this skill (though not "drilled"), by a professor who was accustomed to reading music from orchestral scores in this way and whose wife was a professional piano accompanist who transposed at sight in the same way. At about the same time, I began performing early music with a group led by a harpsichordist who had exactly the same view, and never saw the point when playing recorders (for example) to learn any but one fingering, since all the other options could be covered by a simple change of clef and key signature. Consequently, I long ago learned the skill, and find it amusing that some people think it "hellish". I personally feel sorry for those poor souls who never learned to do this, when they are compelled to play an F trumpet part on an instrument in B((Music|flat}} or C, and instead must transpose each and every note individually "by interval". Now that is "hellish"! I almost choked once when a colleague expressed alarm when I picked up a G-alto recorder to play a part being rehearsed for a concert that same evening, saying "Are you sure that's a safe thing to do in performance?" What, do you mean actually use an instrument to play an instrumental part? No, of course that's very dangerous. Maybe we should hide under the bed!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Another oddity: the fugue (5 v.) in C♯ minor (BWV 849) in the forementioned manuscript, m. 32 (RH), that's nine staves down, last bar of the staff, the E of the 2nd v. (a quarter-note) is drawn inside the E of the 3rd v. (a half-note). Has anyone ever seen anything like this in ms.? In print? Contact Basemetal here 19:40, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

To take a leave from this discussion and to abuse one last time Antandrus's hospitality, in the 4 part fugue from the Prelude and fugue in B minor BWV 869 look at measure 55. There's an F written with a ♯ (3rd beat, 1st eighth-note or 6th eighth-note if you prefer) in the left hand in the 3rd voice (tenor; only soprano, alto and tenor are speaking at that point; the bass is silent). In modern editions it's written in the lower staff in bass clef but in this manuscript it is written in the upper staff in 1st line C clef (soprano clef so called:) together with the soprano and alto (a mess). In this manuscript the fugue starts on its own page and extends over 3 pages. Measure 55 is the last (complete) measure of the 2nd page of the fugue. You can see at the bottom of the 3rd page "A fine" and Bach's well-known "S. D. G." since this is the last piece of book 1. See you later in 20 years in book 2 (maybe).

I'm mentioning this fugue not because I've checked all the pieces of book 1 and this is the only other example I've seen besides the ones I've already mentioned but because I was told that Philipp Spitta in his big book on Bach analyzed this 4 v. fugue (in an open score of 6 staves! isn't that odd? but that's what I've been told) and uses the same style of notation for that F, i.e. writes it as an F♯. For someone in the 19th century (if this is indeed the case) to use this style of notation this is noteworthy. But the person who told me this wasn't completely sure they remembered correctly as it had been several years since they had looked at Spitta. So just if you happen to have Spitta within your arm's reach and you don't mind taking a look, I'd be interested to hear what you found there. Just leave a message on my talk page, not to clutter Antandrus's page with more stuff. Thanks everyone. See ya. Contact Basemetal here 09:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)