[smufl-discuss] Re: Various remarks on current plainchant support

[Grzegorz Rolek]

Daniel, Everyone

Please let me give few addenda to the remarks I sent earlier, again as
short recommendations with some discussion in-between:

* New single-note form: Strophicus

I didn't notice the last time that it's missing from the spec. It's not
that widely used, probably because its individuality, as found in the
manuscripts, have been long ignored in print until the thirties last
century. Nevertheless, its significance is mentioned in Willi Apel's
Gregorian Chant, p. 106, with illustrations of how it appears in a few
relatively recent publications. It's also being mentioned in Caeciliae's
tutorial [1] and the glyph itself is present in the font (under the 's'
code, if I recall correctly).

* Different naming scheme for the liquescent forms

Problem with the current one is such that a 'liquescent descending,
lower' form can also exist as an ascending first note, the so-called
initio debilis. I would thus propose the scheme similar to one used by
Gregorio or Lilypond, with the two bigger forms denoted by 'auctum' and
the smaller forms by 'deminutum', both common names in this context:

U+E8F8 Auctum, ascending
U+E8F9 Deminutum, upper
U+E8FA Auctum, descending
U+E8FB Deminutum, lower

If that would be the case, then the 'Punctum inclinatum, small' form I
already suggested, being one of the 'diminished' forms, would be
probably better named as 'Punctum inclinatum deminutum', after all.

* New illustration for the ligature strokes with the straight form

This is really a minor issue, if issue at all. I said earlier that there
are two forms of such strokes, a straight and a bent one, and that
bending is to account for the next note that turns backwards, as in
porrectus. This makes the straight form actually the default form, and
the bent one a mere typographic variant. Unfortunately, Caeciliae
doesn't have the straight form in its repertory, but it's being widely
used in Liber Usualis and many similar books and should be easy to draw.
It's not perfectly straight, by the way, but the curvature is just a
typographical nuance, almost unnoticeable.

* Finally, a quick fix: the current illustration for 'Punctum' has
  superfluous episema above.


Having said all this, Lilypond's documentation page for its chant
typesetting capabilities [2] give, in fact, two additional single-note
forms, the auctum variations of other notes: punctum inclinatum auctum
and strophicus auctus (as stropha aucta). These, though, are not know to
me. They seem to fill out the overall table of different neume variants
quite nicely, but that is exactly why it looks to me as if they were
there just to ensure any mix of the input commands would split out
expected result, regardless of how obscure a neume could be. I hope
someone with enough knowledge could say something more about those two.

Thank you everyone, especially Daniel, who has to parse all this, for
your patience indeed.

Kind regards,
Grzegorz Rolek

[1] <http://marello.org/files/Caeciliae%20Tutorial.pdf>
[2]
<http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.16/Documentation/notation/typesetting-gregorian-chant#gregorian-square-neume-ligatures>


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