Neumes plus Modern Notation in Musescore
  • GerardH
    Posts: 453
    Chant notation in Dorico has been much discussed recently. I thought I'd share this score of the introit Ne derelinquas me which I managed to produce in Musescore. It was... difficult. The accompaniment is not my own.
    Ne_derelinquas_me.pdf
    74K
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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,852
    Dan’s font?
  • GerardH
    Posts: 453
    No, just whatever font Musescore uses for "insert special characters"
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • GerardH
    Posts: 453
    In version two I have enlarged the chant further
    Ne derelinquas me v0.2.pdf
    67K
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,229
    Yeah. It’s awful. I wouldn’t even want Musescore’s devs to support it, it’s that bad — and they have other problems.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    The neumes are too disconnected… I don’t see what the reason is to do this.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,852
    I think it is to help the accompanist. (It would help me.) It’s not for the singers. They need a normal score.
    Thanked by 1GerardH
  • GerardH
    Posts: 453
    Precisely. On the occasions when I decide to use a composed accompaniment instead of improvising one, I find trying to follow the chant from the modern notes alone fairly difficult and unintuitive.

    This setup would also allow me to make chant scores on a modern staff, á la the Weinmann Graduale. I'll try and post one in the next few days.
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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,852
    This is precisely the type of thing I’m interested in developing too. I did my psalm setting two weeks ago in the same style (although admittedly, it’s simpler and just a psalm tone, but it’s the same idea). https://psallitedomino.com/blog/free-score-psalm-128-may-the-lord-bless-us-psalm-tone-viii-g-2024
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,469
    > I don’t see what the reason is to do this.

    This is approximately the same notation style as the 1906 uses for chant hymns.
    (The difference being those are not melismatic. But still... square note vocal line with modern notes accompaniment has several precedents... and yet it continues to be unsupported by the major notation softwares)

    @GerardH
    Have you tried Lilypond? (I don't *know* that it can do this, but I *think* it could)
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    Once you break the chant apart with large spaces it is easier for me to just read all modern notation… hey, but that is me.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,229
    Well Lilypond’s chant support is also bad. The example in the documentation is egregious.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    In creating a "hybrid notation" - incorporating GC notation with modern notation - it seems one should keep the chant notation in tact... (the philosophy of chant notation is that the words are king and DICTATE the rhythm [and spatial (horizontal)] display of neumes). When the neumes become disassociated from one another, the rhythm is fragmented.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 453
    Sure, but how do you indicate a harmonic change on the second note of a podatus (e.g. the salicus as notated in the old Solesmes, or the note above a quilisma)? When there isn't enough space for the accompaniment, something has to give. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,229
    It is (mostly) true that for Solesmes-style accompaniment that you would only change on an ictic note but I would either just annotate it or use modern notation to avoid ambiguity. Making the salicus look like not-a-salicus would be hard to use in other ways.

    A quilisma would be less challenging imho.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    @GerardH

    if you give me an example, I could demonstrate a good solution
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