[smufl-discuss] Various remarks on current plainchant support

[Grzegorz Rolek]

Hello Daniel et al.

If I recognize correctly, the plainchant section in SMuFL is implemented
more or less after the Caeciliae font project by Matthew Spencer. I
spent a great deal of time few years back analysing the decisions behind
the Caeciliae project (which, by the way, has never been actually
considered finished by the author himself), and today I've finally gone
through the plainchant implementation in SMuFL. Few of my remarks for
your consideration follow. This is a long message, but I've tried to put
it all as clearly as possible.

* There's currently no punctum deminutum within the single-note forms, a
  form of liquescent note resembling a small punctum inclinatum, that is
  used in liquescent neumes employing subpuncti [1]. (You can see this
  glyph in Caeciliae.)

* There's also no reversed form of virga, the glyph that can be used by
  itself [2] or in building up complex neumes like the porrectus
  liquescens shown in the implementation notes (now rather incorrectly
  rendered with connecting line instead of a proper entry stroke of such
  virga reversa). (Present in Caeciliae as well.)

* Entry stroke of the porrectus shouldn't be drawn from the connecting
  lines, either. Entry strokes are often rendered differently then the
  cut-straight connecting lines, and they should be somewhat more
  integral to the main glyph, just as it is in case of virga or clivis
  (porrectus is technically just a ligature beginning with the reversed
  form of virga, same is clivis). These entry strokes should be either
  part of the porrectus itself or simply added as separate entry strokes
  along the current connecting lines. Making them integral to the
  porrectus has a drawback in that it would actually require a second
  set of such porrectus forms, because a set without an entry stroke
  would still be needed for medial positions in neumes like ligated
  forms of torculus resupinus. I'd recommend the separate strokes,
  because they will be useful in context of other neumes as well.

* The forms we talk about that are now named porrectus are actually
  misnamed. Porrectus is the term describing the whole three-note neume,
  not just the ligated stroke alone. Porrectus just happens to be the
  most common neume employing this stroke. Proper term for it is simply
  ligatura, which maybe isn't too specific, but it's never meant to be,
  as it describes only the act of ligating two notes into one stroke
  within a neume, nothing more. Nevertheless, ligatura is how this
  stroke is being called in literature.

  There's actually a second form of ligatura used in neumes with more
  than one note after the ligatura itself. Porrectus flexus shown in the
  implementation notes is one example of such neume, although rendered
  with the wrong one. Proper form here simply wouldn't have a bend.
  That's because the bending accounts for the note immediately following
  the ligatura being turned backwards as in the basic form of porrectus.
  More notes after the ligatura make the bending not required anymore.
  Skimming through Liber Usualis or any similar book should give a lot
  of examples for both forms and how their context differs. This is a
  somewhat stylistic matter, anyway, so I'll leave it for your
  consideration how, if at all, introduce it into the spec and whether
  to do something about the example in the implementation notes.

* Punctum mora does not belong to the neumes; it is one of the editorial
  marks introduced by monks of Solesmes along with all the other
  articulations. It should move there if possible.

* Interval of a fifth is not the maximum interval found in plainchant
  literature. If there's any reasonable limit, that would rather be a
  sixth. This would imply adding one additional connecting line. In case
  of additional precomposed forms of podatus and clivis, though, please
  read on.

* There's a mistake in the implementation notes mentioning porrectus
  flexus resupinus. The name implies an non-existent combination in the
  notation's mechanics. Both the illustration and the construction
  recipe make the regular porrectus. Please change it to exactly that.

* There are currently no building elements in the spec for a podatus,
  which are necessary, especially the upper part, for constructing the
  proper porrectus. If you look closely at the porrectus in various
  professional publications, the backward-pointing note is not a regular
  punctum, but a top part of the podatus (for similar reasons as those
  mentioned already for the two forms of ligatura). This makes the
  porrectus in the implementation notes (the incorrectly named one)
  rendered not as the usual practice implies. It thus looks a little
  awkward, and the punctum would even clash with ligatura for shorter
  intervals (the top part of podatus is simply smaller).

* Four elements of the liquescent neumes never occur in combinations
  other than exactly two pairs; the beginning part (upper or lower)
  always depends on the ending part (lower or upper, respectively). I
  don't see why it shouldn't be made into precombined forms any less
  than podatus and clivis have precomposed forms now. My argument here
  is actually not for making more precombined forms, but against
  currently precomposed podatus and clivis. In other words, to have,
  aside from basic semantical units in the single-notes section, only the
  building elements within the multiple-notes section.

  Deconstructing podatus would require only two building elements and is a
  necessity anyway for the proper porrectus; the deconstruction of clivis
  would require no additional elements. The precomposed elements could
  now be removed entirely. New interval of a sixth would make it even
  more reasonable and the whole picture much more straightforward.

That's all from me. Thank you all for consideration.

Regards,
Grzegorz Rolek

[1] Dom Dominic Johner, A New School of Gregorian Chant, p. 24,
<http://www.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/13/08/19/15-38-42_0.pdf>
[2] <https://mail.gna.org/public/gregorio-users/2012-10/msg00005.html>


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