NOTATIO

Greetings all--
Question about best practice since I've seen both:
When an incipit is provided to indicate vocal range, is it best practice to connect the notes with a line or leave them separate? (See attachment)

As a follow up, would you keep or ditch the brackets before the incipit?

The question is 'what information is being conveyed'? I don't think that the line adds any useful information (except the implied 'oh, and every note inbetween').
I couldn't find anything in Gould, FWIW.

NB: that's an 'Ambitus', not an 'incipit'. An incipit shows original clefs, key and note values in early music editions.

There was a discussion about Ambituses (ambiti?) on the Dorico forum, which discussed positioning and style. I think they tend to be in the main body of the staff, not separate, before the time sig.

Thanks for your reply. I also couldn't find anything in Gould, hence me outsourcing the question here.

Your point that the line doesn't add any useful information is a good one. Personally I think it clutters the page. And I'm grateful you mention "ambitus". I knew that once upon a time, but had forgotten the term, so I'm grateful for the reminder. (I have now corrected the title of this thread.)

Taking all of your remarks into account, here's the final result:

Personally, I would like to see them connected with the line, otherwise I would assume something needs to be sung, intonated, or whatever else.

The final version looks strange to me without initial clefs defining the notes of the ambitus.

How about:

Isn't the following the most natural and least cluttered way to do it? I personally find it difficult to interpret the small noteheads before the TS as something that should be sounded, i.e. as anything else than the ambituses/ambiti(?) of each voice.

The example is from a popular, practical edition: Invitation to Madrigals, Stainer & Bell. In a more scholarly edition you would probably not expect to find any ambiti at all - or would you?

Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑03 Jul 2021, 06:16In a more scholarly edition you would probably not expect to find any ambiti at all - or would you?

Agreed.

(Now looking again, I still prefer the top first example by Romanos401, preferably cue-sized.)

I vote for the system shown in Ander's example, if the ambitus must be placed on the same staves or adjacent to the music. Otherwise put it somewhere else.