Re: Lettered tablature patch

[Trevor Daniels]

Hi Dana

Many thanks for this.  It is not only interesting and useful, but 
quite a bit _is_ new to me.  The variability it exposes is rather 
daunting!  Makes me wonder how far we shall get along this road, but 
we'll proceed one step at a time and hopefully arrive somewhere 
useful.

Trevor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <address@hidden>
To: "Lily-Devel List" <address@hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: Lettered tablature patch



> For example, the third fret on a Baroque
> lute is indicated by "r" rather than "c", as "c" can easily be
> confused with "e".

not quite right.  I know none of what I say below is new to you 
Trevor,
just trying to present a clear picture for the  other readers here.

Baroque tabulature for plucked strings (it was used for cittern and 
guitar
as well as lutes) evolves from the notations invented during the
renaissance (before 1500).  Three distinct major forms are known, 
each
with subvariants which may have been inspired by commercial 
interests
(circumvention of printing privileges) or are something akin to the 
folk
process.  Modernly we speak of German, Italian, and French major 
forms,
with Polish, spanish, and Neapolitan subforms.

You are working on the French form, which uses alphabetical symbols 
to
designate frets.  Renaissance players used scordatura much as todays
guitarists use it, but generally the presumed tuning would have 
employed
the intervals 4,4,3,4,4 on a six course instrument, instruments with 
7, 8
or more courses had basses below that set of intervals which were 
tuned
adhoc  The tunings for citterns and guitars vary far more than those 
for
lutes, it seems each publication had its own 'new improved' system.

Baroque players had other tunings in use (I dont play later music, 
so I
leave you to other sources for that information).  Another 
difference lies
in the use of an elaborate set of markings to indicate decorations 
such as
backfalls, trills, mordents, shakes...  These began to appear in 
late
renaissance pieces and the markings and their meanings vary by the 
piece,
by the scribe, by the phase of the moon... and are still a subject 
for
interpretation today by musicologists and bewilderment to players. 
Lots
of articles on this topic in EM, JLS, JLSA, LSAQ and other 
periodicals.

The 'hands' used in england, france, and the netherlands at that 
time had
all the letter forms we use today, but some letters were used 
differently
than we are accustomed to today:  i and j were not distinguished, 
readers
saw them as graphical variants on the same letter.  Miniscule 'c' 
had a
form that modern eyes see as miniscule 'r', but it was understood as 
the
letter c by both those writing and those reading it.  The 'r' used 
then
was quite different than it is now, and had several forms, one of 
which is
like a z, others a high-tailed w or u.

Lutes were 'short' necked, generally, they had no more than 12 frets 
with
8 or 9 being tied on, the rest glued.  Citterns were longer necked,
tabulature for them requires 20+ fret designations.

French tab designate frets using a letter sequence that omits your 
choice
of the letter pairs i,j and u,v. Most of the printed tablulature 
employed
special fonts with symbols devised to be distinct; many of these 
were
incomplete, especially my favorite, cut by Granjon and used by 
Fezandat,
Le Roy & Ballard, and others from 1551 on into the 18c.

lute - a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,k,l,m,n
cittern - a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u

A complication remains for citterns which employed fixed frets and 
had
intonation difficulties under the modified 1/6 comma meantone tuning 
one
sees in the few surviving instruments; these difficulties were 
tackled by
omitting frets 4 and 18 altogether and using partial frets in a 
variety of
patterns that was mostly chromatically complete for upper courses, 
but
diatonic for the lower courses.  Just to make life interesting, 
there are
also surviving instruments which are fully fretted.

[c] (Actually it was originally a Greek gamma...)

I wonder if it is fair to make that connection here as if it was a
deliberate choice by the inventor of the scheme of french 
tabulature.  The
same glyph is seen in court-hand which was the common hand used for 
prose
(not music) from late 15c well into the jacobean era in england, 
france,
and the netherlands.  I note that greek preexisted roman, I 
postulate a
much older connection between these two letters, each the third in 
its
alphabet; I think it most likely that the reader simply had eyes 
used to
seeing a gamma-like 'c'

Trevor, the following booklet was helpful to me (not expensive 
either).
Google the ISBN and look for the WH Smith link

Alf Ison, _A Secretary Hand BC Book_, Berkshire Family history 
research
Centre, Yeomanry House, 161 Castle hill, Reading, RG1 7TJ ISBN 
0950836605

It should be noted that the set of symbols used to designate frets 
often
requires ligatures, and will be best served by a list rather than 
some
calculation scheme.  Some of the common lists might be predefined 
and
invoked by reference, but the ligetured symbols might not always 
exist in
a unicode font, so reference to a particular font (supplied by user) 
might
be needed.  Yes, not for French, altho bass stops will be a 
challenge (/a,
/b,/c.. //a, //b, //c ///a...) as will free bass strings (/11 ..)

Italian will need more than numerals when you get around to it. 
Frets
beyond 9 are designated in a variety of ways, dots over an X, or 
other
letters (X,E,T) are common, but then its on to digit pairs.
{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,11,12,13...}.  In short, it is wise to leave 
this
specification flexible.

Ideally a dual specification to support transliteration is 
desirable;
however that might better be left to a tool external to ly, 
hopefully one
with a gui (precise layout is not needed for transliteration alone, 
or for
general entry for that matter, but I am drifting off topic).

Instruments with more than six courses (ca 1500?) present a 
challenge to
the scribe.  Note that this challenge occurred gradually over time 
as
players and builders interacted to make instruments with more and 
more
courses.  Six courses (ca 1470-) are readily presented on a 
five-line
staff.  Seven courses (ca 1500?), no problem, add another line. 
Eight
courses (ca 1540?) is a problem, seven line staves are hard to read
easily.  Use of course eight is uncommon, and especially uncommon 
with a
stop on course seven, so distinct symbols were invented for course 
eight
and both are displayed on the same row (player can of course add the 
other
note by choice).  For french you have {a b c ...}  and over-lined 
letters
{/a /b /c ...}.  On beyond eight uses two, then three lines, but 
four
lines gets crowded and those are almost always free basses that cant 
be
stopped anyway (no fingerboard under them), so for 11+ one uses 
numerals
to designate the open string as in /11.

Both italian and french notation use the line representing the 
lowest
course conventionally for instruments with free (unstoped) basses. 
This
row displays symbols for both the lowest stopped course and the free
courses, and will need special interpretation, much as is needed 
for
german notation (below).  Some instruments are made with narrow 
fretboards
that limit the player to stops on courses 1-6, others are wider, 
1-8, even
1-10 are known.  Use of stops on course 10 is rare in the literature 
and
presents physical challenges to the player.

I understand that German tabulature is beyond this effort, but be 
aware
that it uses an extended alphabet of symbols that map the entire 
gamut of
notes on the instrument; all frets, all strings, all free basses; 
using
ligatures that are not in common use for any other typographical 
purpose
(unlikely to exist in ordinary unicode fonts).  German tabulature 
displays
the polyphony using that alphabet to populate each of several rows,
displaying the polyphonic lines of the music (not the individual 
strings).

To 'read' the music from the symbols is a different process for each 
of
the three systems as the row ordering differs in french and italian, 
and
the use of rows differs in german.  (row, symbol) maps to (course, 
fret),
which then maps to pitch.

> Following a suggestion by Neil I have also made the whiteout 
> behind
> all fret numbers optional.  This is controlled by the 'whiteout
> property of TabNoteHead.  The default is #t to preserve the 
> current
> behaviour.

Some 'scribes' used the 'staff' lines to represent the strings, 
others
used the lines as visual separators.  In the first case lines pierce 
note
heads.  With single impression printing fonts the line(s) and the 
notehead
were on one piece of type and the line is continuous (or was 
intended to
be, edges wear quickly and the line segments on printed copy were 
not
usually well aligned, appearing as a wavy dashed line).  Engravers 
using
stamps would also have left the lines uninterrupted I am thinking, 
way too
much work to clean up the intersection or (alternatively) to 
interrupt the
drag of the raster tool; but that is speculation on my part, not 
worked on
copper sheet plates at all, only read some about it.

--
Dana Emery



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