I'll be teaching a Gregorian chant class for high schoolers at a homeschool tutorial this year. I thought it would be an interesting practice for them to draw neums. Are there any 4-line staff notebooks available for purchase? And the tilted pen for drawing neums. (I think we used them at the chant intensive course.)
Mia, those were fine tipped felt tip calligraphy pens, and they'll require a fair amount of "calligraphic" instruction/demonstration/practice by your youngin's. For making a four line staff, just go into your "paint" program on your computer's accessories under Programs, and make a document using the lines, the width of each line suited to your taste. Once you have a equidistant set of four lines both in width and length, use the select tool in paint, copy, paste for the screen page and you gotter done.
When I took the Chant Practicum with Ted Marier at Catholic University of America, I received a Chant Manuscript Book. The tearout pages are 7 3/4" high and 8" wide. On each page, there are six 4-line staves printed in red.
All I see on the cover is:
The Ward Method
Music Instruction for Catholic Schools
by Justine Ward
Chant Manuscript Book
The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C.
There is no stock number, and I have no idea if this item is still available. On the other hand, it's really not much of a problem to generate your own with any text editing program. Once you have created a horizontal line, it is easy to duplicate that line three times and then duplicate that set of four lines as many times as you choose.
If I don't have a notebook with me, I usually just print out some staff paper from www.blanksheetmusic.net. I just checked, though, and they have no option to use only four lines (which is strange, as they have all sorts of other options). Maybe I should email them a recommendation.
Thanks everyone. I was able to make my own from the computer program and also from http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/musicstaff/
This is a great site.
Now I have to go out and find right calligraphy pens.
Thanks again.
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