Early noteheads

Is there any way in Dorico to obtain these early noteheads:

I think November 2 font has something like this?

[Roberday fugues, 1660]

Yes, this can be done. You have to create an alternate notehead set. Look at @benwiggy 's “If Dorico had Dorico”. It’s a beautiful example of what can be done. I used to have it hanging on my office wall, actually.

EDIT: it’s a shame, it appears that the link to the PDF file is now broken. Perhaps Ben would be kind enough to share it here again.

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Yes. The zipped PDF is still active. But here it is again.

Palestrina Dorico.pdf (399.5 KB)

SMuFL does contain glyphs for an extensive range of early music notation, including plainsong neumes.

I am currently working on a SMuFL font that uses 16th-century symbols in the default glyphs, so that you can just switch to it for instant effect.

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I’d be interested to know how you created such a clean illuminate D Ben?

Best
Edd

(Sorry, I didn’t feel like testing the zipped version. I was feeling lazy, lol.) But thanks for sharing again!

There are a number of lovely fonts available for this. Just search for “drop caps” on a font hosting website.

Nice! Thanks Romanos

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Yes. There are several similar fonts that are all versions of Goudy’s Cloister Italics, designed in 1918.

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@benwiggy that is truly beatiful engraving.

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Roberday somtimes uses shorter notes like quavers.

Can we do these?

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Just as a matter of interest… why? Devil’s advocate a bit but - I get wanting to be faithful to the score as much as useful, but this is just replicating the score exactly - why not just work from the score? The original copying is perfectly clear…

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I largely agree that too much fidelity is a bad thing: in the same way that we don’t quote or publish Shakespeare using the same spellings as in the First Folio. I would never produce a ‘serious’ edition in this format.

That having been said, the Early English Church Music series does use diamond-headed crotchets and minims with centred stems.

… with tenor G clefs. :laughing: You have to draw the line somewhere.

It’s useful for creating illustrations in academic texts, particularly if you’re talking about something specific to the original notation.

For me, it’s ‘just a bit of fun’.

Speaking of which, one Christmas I did have a bottle of Devil’s Avocaat.

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Fair enough - who am I to fly in the face of fun :slight_smile:

Hmm could you make Snowballs with Devils Advocaat?

Actually, having said that, I can see the sense in the Early Church Music series - it’s creating a full score from a part book but retaining the original notation system - this is a really nice way to do it I think without introducing bar lines. All of the information is there, and it’s lined up to give the singers a clue. I once sang Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus from partbook and it was brilliant - hardest thing to do though is count and be aware of the rests. In that instance I agree with the use of early notation - you can retain an authentic link to the partbooks but give yourself some help with the polyphony.

Completely agree about singing from part books. A very enjoyable and informative experience that a lot more singers would benefit from.

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I’m not sure what they do when a tied note over the system break is inevitable. I suspect they work very hard to avoid that.

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There were no tied notes in that period. It is extremely rare to find a note of e.g. 5 units duration (which would necessitate a tie in modern notation). They had one dot and that was all.

No: I mean in the modern edition. When you present polyphony in score, you will invariably have to break the system at a point where one of the notes actually continues beyond that point. So you’ll have to create an editorial tie.

Also, there are plenty of tied notes in 16th/17th century music; and even some in the example shown.

Making parts, bar numbers for efficient rehearsing and clefs indeed.