[smufl-discuss] Re: unison whole?

[David Webber-2]

From: Glenn Linderman

> Some music I have seen, the unison whole/semibreve appeared to be
flatter and larger than the individual whole/semibreves. From
Alexander's Hymns #3, USA edition, 1915, Hymn #248 (I think downloaded
from Google Books).
http://nevcal.com/temporary/ss_20141224_164524.png<
>...

Interesting.   It looks to me (and I'm only guessing) if the engraver has
used a slightly different sized stamp, and rotated it slightly.    This may
be because the traditional method of placing the stamp on the metal sheet
and hitting it with a hammer causes to much 'interference' if the symbols
overlap too much.  In other words it may be a consequence of having to use
the symbol twice in overlapped positions.

> On that particular music font, the whole and half noteheads appear to be
the same, which isn't always the case, either.

Yes, they've used minim (half note) symbols instead of semibreves (whole
notes).    That suggests to me that they weren't worried too much at that
level of detail.  For standard symbols: minims have the thick strokes at top
left and bottom right; semibreves have the thick strokes left and right, and
they are thicker than the minim.  Also the semibreve should be significantly
wider than the minim.   Also the black notes are very small!     The "1915
edition" may be a clue: there was a war on (over here at least, and I can't
imagine that the USA was entirely unaffected before it joined in).   Music
printing at that time definitely tended to be cheap and cheerful, and done
on very thin paper, so heavy symbols would have been avoided.

Coming back to the overlapping semibreves: if they're drawn with proper
stroke thicknesses, it turns out that it is very difficult to get a good
image when they overlap - the semibreve side strokes are basically about as
thick as the hole in the middle, so the overlap is a mess.  I hadn't
thought of this before, so I dug out my copy of 'Behind Bars' by Elaine
Gould, and she is very clear.  Proper stroke thicknesses *are* important for
legibility, but unison semibreves are not nowadays drawn as overlapped.
Rather they are displaced further so that they touch but do not overlap.

I'm not sure when the current minim and semibreve symbols became firmly
established, but (empirically) it looks like overlapping semibreves had to
become touching semibreves when that happened.

Time to stop messing about now and prepare for the arrival of excited small
granddaughters for Christmas dinner.   Merry Christmas to everyone. :-)

Dave

David Webber
Mozart Music Software
http://www.mozart.co.uk/


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