Re: Time signatures ¢¢ and cc

[Dan Eble]

On Sep 26, 2014, at 08:20 , Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> wrote:

> Am 26.09.2014 um 04:10 schrieb Dan Eble:
>> I have a hymnal in which many songs have time signatures with symbols
>> "cc" and "¢¢" [doubled cut-time symbol].  I can't find any information on
>> these online.  Does anyone know what they actually mean?  Were they
>> common historically, or is this hymnal just using them ad hoc?
>> 
>> My hypothesis based on the context and the feeling of the songs as they
>> are usually sung is that "¢¢" is 4/2 (i.e. 2/2 + 2/2) and "cc" is a misprint.
>> ("cc" appears very rarely.)
> I don’t think either of them is a misprint. The double cut c time signature 
> occurs in Schubert, op. 90, no. 4 (see 
> <http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/00364>, page 15) for example, 
> and I do recall having seen double c in a similar kind of music also, so this 
> kind of time signature has been in use historically: apparently mostly during 
> the early 19th century.
> Now the interpretation and history of the various time signatures derived in 
> some way from mensural notation is a complex issue, as is the disambiguation 
> of c and cut c. There are numerous historical dependencies, some 
> controversially discussed, and I don’t think it’s the music typographer’s job 
> to make any judgement. In any case, both the double time signatures you 
> describe add up to a measure length of 4/2, only the musical meaning may 
> subtly differ.

Thanks.  That’s very helpful information (it’s No. 3 though).  I’m now more 
inclined to consider ¢¢ as 2/1 and cc as 4/2.  (I am also rather puzzled to 
find that my hymnal also has a song in 4/2.  I’m not willing to give up the 
idea that there were a few lapses of editing.)

Since these time signatures are not available by default in Lilypond, I found 
the following way to get them.  They’re not quite as nice as in the Schubert 
score.  I think I’d need to change the spacing between the glyphs if I were 
going to use these.
— 
Dan

\version "2.18.0"

timeTwoOne = {
  \once \override Staff.TimeSignature.stencil =
  #(lambda (grob)
     (grob-interpret-markup grob
      #{ \markup { \musicglyph #"timesig.C22" \musicglyph #"timesig.C22" } #}))
  \time 2/1
}

timeFourTwo = {
  \once \override Staff.TimeSignature.stencil =
  #(lambda (grob)
    (grob-interpret-markup grob
     #{ \markup { \musicglyph #"timesig.C44" \musicglyph #"timesig.C44" } #}))
  \time 4/2
}

\relative c' {
  \timeTwoOne c\breve
  \time 2/2 c1
  \timeFourTwo c\breve
  \time 4/4 c1
}