Music engraving
Notation denotes (analogous to text set in letterpress printing ) the preparation of notes in a form suitable for publication and reproduction.
The artisanal music notation by trained engraver and music engraver is displaced since the end of the 20th century from the computer music notation, which is used both in the artwork production as well as for the dissemination of music through electronic media.
The beginnings of music printing
Until the second half of the 15th century marks were exclusively handwritten reproduced and distributed. The oldest known, probably with wooden panels in block printing ( woodcut; see block book ) printed notes date from the year 1473 also the engraving was used for printing notes.. Both techniques were complicated and notes were accordingly using these techniques rarely duplicated.
Printing with movable type
Ottaviano dei Petrucci (1466-1539) developed a technique that worked as well as the Gutenberg text set with movable types. In this way, music could be located and printed in large print runs for the first time.
Petrucci printed in printing many staves, musical symbols and text. To bring pressure phases precisely to cover, was very expensive. Pierre Attaingnant (1494-1551) simplified the process by uniting staff lines and characters in a Type. This resulted, however, in the visible gaps in the staff lines (see figure), because these were compounded by a series of individual types. However, this method became widespread due to its cost-effectiveness. It was in use until the 20th century, especially for texts with musical examples. Even Jacques de Sauleque (* 1558, † 1648) is cited as the inventor in some works. Which was in the Baroque evolving notation with this method, however, adequately reflect no more. Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719-1794) divided the types therefore into smaller segments to make it more flexible combined. But even this method was compared with the handwritten notation severely limited.
Copper engraving
Since the Ätzradierung allowed greater flexibility, it has been very commonly used in the Baroque period to touch pressure - even Johann Sebastian Bach used this technique to reproduce his music. The handwritten document was soaked with oil, to make it transparent, and transferred by tracing with carbonless paper backwards on the wax-coated pressure die. To save money, this work resulted in the composer himself often.
By tightening all lines and note heads with a chisel the engraver could then there remove the wax layer. This was followed by an etch bath, which generated at the respective locations in the matrix depressions. After cleaning the printing plate for this gravure process was finished. Since we wanted to avoid a costly second pass at high pressure, letter for lecture titles and headings could only be attached by hand.
The music engraving with steel dies
Around 1730 the Englishman John Walsh invented ( 1665-1736 ) the music engraving with steel dies and united so that the benefits of the flexible copper engraving with those of the efficient type pressure. Instead he used punch types that could be beaten at any point with a hammer in a pressure plate made of soft pewter. Text could also be taken by a stamp in the plate. Lines ( staves, barlines, stems and beams ) and sheets were still stung similar to engraving. Pewter is an alloy of lead, tin and antimony, which was previously for the manual stitch in use. Subsequently, other metals such as tin were used.
From the engraved plate was printed in the gravure printing process. One plate was used but only for a limited number of prints. Due to wear, the print image gradually lost its sharpness. Lithography and later photo-mechanical reproduction methods made it possible with a single deduction from the engraved plate to printing large quantities.
The profession of engraver was passed as a craft from generation to generation and perfected. The lesson lasted 6 years. Our present idea of the appearance of the notation elements and their arrangement was decisively influenced by music engraver craft. The quality of produced by experienced music engraver artwork applies virtually unsurpassed. Therefore, all subsequent proceedings are based on the score down.
Alternative methods for artwork production
The photomechanical reproduction technology made it possible to use any black-and- white graphics as artwork. It was therefore sought economic alternatives to materials and labor-intensive music engraving. The easiest way was to use written notes by hand ( so-called Autografien ). Experienced graphic score, the notes recorded in ink on transparent foil or paper could achieve results that are indistinguishable from engraved marks only on closer inspection.
Inspired by the music engraving there was the so-called Stempelautografie and Notaset. The chosen at random by the stamp mark was applied here by the stamp and ink or by rubbing the character of manufactured for this purpose Abreibefolien on transparency film or paper. The engraved with the traditional engraving stamp elements were drawn with pen and ink.
Machine set
Computer typesetting
Compared with the text set usable software solutions for music notation have been developed relatively late. On one hand, the structure of the notation is more complex than that of normal text, on the other hand, there are no binding rules for the exact arrangement of the central characters. In artisanal music notation the positioning of the characters was often based on historical experience and aesthetic sensitivity.
The first automatic music formatters therefore found primarily for simple situations like the notation of melodies use. In the early part such as arches had to be added manually. A current, advanced formatting program is Lilypond. It has no graphical user interface. Using a command language semantic information about pitches and durations, pauses, bracing, etc. input, which are converted by the program in a graphical notation. For the production of artwork for the publisher moderate Notation find pure formatters today, however, no longer apply.
One of the earliest still in use applications with a graphical user interface is score, the relatively strong based on the score down. The first loud score maker San Andreas Press published as a computer set piece of music in 1971 six Bagatelles for piano score of the author Leland Smith. The printout issued on a plotter. Similar to printing plates stores the program music page for page in separate files. As when working with steel dies to position the notation elements very freely allowed. Formatierungsautomatismen are, however, possible to user command. Although the program's future is uncertain, it is still in professional music translators who work for renowned publishers, application.
The now world's most popular notation programs, which are used both in the professional music notation as well as those of other users are Finale and Sibelius. You are the one so comfortable to use that it can be used by laymen, and also be sufficiently flexible in order to thus produce notes for the pressure. Slightly less extensive, but often cheaper notation software is available in large numbers.
For exceptional notation of Contemporary Music and vector graphics programs are used. Elements of traditional notation can be created with music notation programs and changes in the graphics program or compiled. Critics are of the opinion that even with better computer typesetting programs notes will in many cases look unaesthetic than those that were made by trained translators note craftsmanship. Core point of criticism is that the placement of the notation elements is no longer based on the know -how and the aesthetic sensibilities of a human touch translator, but predefined algorithms is left. These algorithms, for example, to determine the horizontal spacing of the notes, on the one hand less flexible than a music engraver and rely on the other hand often not on traditional methods that have been largely forgotten because they were mostly passed on orally in the training of music typesetter. Martin Gieseking writes in his published 2000 Dissertation: " The trained eye [ recognizes ] effortlessly, whether a score was designed on the computer or on a printing plate. In addition, there is no particularly many small publishers of detailed knowledge about the notation, without a computer, as noted, provides only moderate results. From a complete automation that takes into account all special cases, we are still far away. "However, the quality of the results depends on each note rate method crucially on how well knows how to use the possibilities of the art of music typesetter. Powerful music notation programs now offer a fairly free positioning of the notation elements by circumventing the predefined algorithms.
The computer music notation has many economic advantages over the traditional methods. It is less time consuming, allows extensive and quick fixes and improves archived and reusability of already set scores tremendously. There is no specific cost-intensive work required material. In case of heavy workload, it is less prone to errors, such as when to extract voices and the transposition or the automatic numbering clock. Through the use of the MIDI music engraver can check a score in addition to the hearing on error in addition to the visual inspection.