NOTATIO

BTW, my question about the spacing of seconds have thus far been ignored by the staff on the Dorico forum. This leaves me a bit worried whether they actually intend for Dorico to handle these situations similarly to Lilypond or not, that is: correctly or incorrectly, at least in my personal opinion.

Knut wrote:BTW, my question about the spacing of seconds have thus far been ignored by the staff on the Dorico forum. This leaves me a bit worried whether they actually intend for Dorico to handle these situations similarly to Lilypond or not, that is: correctly or incorrectly, at least in my personal opinion.

Where is the post? I couldn't find it.

tisimst wrote:

Knut wrote:BTW, my question about the spacing of seconds have thus far been ignored by the staff on the Dorico forum. This leaves me a bit worried whether they actually intend for Dorico to handle these situations similarly to Lilypond or not, that is: correctly or incorrectly, at least in my personal opinion.

Where is the post? I couldn't find it.

Here: https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewto ... 6&t=104529

Knut wrote:I suspect I'll find the compensation in your screenshot to be too much, but it's har to tell with the vertical guidelines going through the staves. Could you add a screenshot without the guidelines to your post?

I am glad that you can relate to this, Knut, but I am not sure I understand your request. The first quarter beat in each of the four cases (A B, A, C) is intended to represent the case without the guidelines. And this was only intended to be a rough illustration of a concept, not a perfect product, so too much or too little is not really the point.

The point is that if a notation product doesn't do this kind of thing automatically, I, for one, must do it manually and need the tools to do it easily. That, in a nutshell, is my problem with software that thinks it's smarter than it is, yet discourages human intervention.

Oh, I see.

It would be great if a program could do this automatically. But if not, my mistake illustrates that I'm to used to seeing them perfectly aligned to really be bothered by, or even noticing it in most cases.

Knut wrote:But if not, my mistake illustrates that I'm to used to seeing them perfectly aligned to really be bothered by, or even noticing it in most cases.

Sorry, Knut. I'm thinking I wasn't clear enough in my first post. So please bear with me and let me clarify:

In cases A and B, the note heads ARE perfectly aligned according to the Finale default.

Yet here is what I see: in Case A, the noteheads do NOT appear to me to be aligned on the "ands" of the beats, even though they are. The LH notes appear to be too far to the right. (I'd be very interested to know if it looks like that to you as well.)

For this reason, we are provided with a some fudge-factor to even things up in cases like this by moving the 1/8th note (or even the 16th) as needed as in Case C (approximately).

As you said, this is the kind of adjustment that plate engravers used to do by eye. Since I think that artistic plate engraving (circa 1890-1920) represents a high water mark, it is my own ideal, and what I would like my engraving to look like.

John Ruggero wrote:

Knut wrote:But if not, my mistake illustrates that I'm to used to seeing them perfectly aligned to really be bothered by, or even noticing it in most cases.

Sorry, Knut. I'm thinking I wasn't clear enough in my first post. So please bear with me and let me clarify:

In cases A and B, the note heads ARE perfectly aligned according to the Finale default.

Yet here is what I see: in Case A, the noteheads do NOT appear to me to be aligned on the "ands" of the beats, even they are. The LH notes appear to be too far to the right. (I'd be very interested to know if it looks like that to you as well.)

I'm inclined to agree, at least at first glance, if the notes are far apart. I do think, however, that the perceived misalignment is negligible, and any adjustments in it's regard may easily result in overcompensation.

As you said, this is the kind of adjustment that plate engravers used to do by eye. Since I think that artistic plate engraving (circa 1890-1920) represents a high water mark, it is my own ideal, and what I would like my engraving to look like.

Even though I've indeed seen this done in scores from the golden age of plate engraving, my impression is not that this is in any way a entirely common practice. I think it depends on the situation (vertical distance being one factor I've already mentioned) as well as the individual engraver. I've at least seen just as many scores where this practice does not appear to be upheld at all.

Knut wrote:I'm inclined to agree, at least at first glance, if the notes are far apart. I do think, however, that the perceived misalignment is negligible, and any adjustments in it's regard may easily result in overcompensation.

Here is the same example with the staves close together. For me, the effect is actually intensified. While I was only suggesting this as a fudge-factor, I do prefer the adjusted form and would concur with those engravers of the past who did this on a regular basis; it looks much better to my eyes.

If only there were documentation concerning the engraving practices of that time. Was it only passed on orally?

Brilliantly illustrated, John! I was going to suggest the same idea, before your first example yesterday. But I didn’t feel confident that anyone would agree if I didn’t have the time to illustrate it properly. Good to know this was indeed an engraver’s trick for optical alignment.

John Ruggero wrote:Here is the same example with the staves close together. For me, the effect is actually intensified..

This is very strange, as it gives me the exact opposite impression. The compensated beats now look clearly misaligned to me.

John Ruggero wrote:While I was only suggesting this as a fudge-factor, I do prefer the adjusted form and would concur with those engravers of the past who did this on a regular basis; it looks much better to my eyes.

Do you know of any publisher who used this technique more or less generally in their publications?

John Ruggero wrote:If only there were documentation concerning the engraving practices of that time. Was it only passed on orally?

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing there exists literature on the topic of music engraving in both german and french libraries, attics or cellars, but nothing generally available. Ross's book clearly seems like an effort to remedy this situation, but unfortunately it does not deal with the craft at this level of detail.