Re: preliminary proposal: New Unicode characters for Arabic music half-flat and half-sharp

From: Hans Aberg <haberg-1_at_telia.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 10:46:47 +0200

> On 31 Mar 2015, at 05:09, Asmus Freytag (t) <asmus-inc_at_ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/30/2015 1:54 PM, Hans Aberg wrote:
>>> On 30 Mar 2015, at 00:49, Asmus Freytag (t) <asmus-inc_at_ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> It would be worth to bring the collection of music symbols up to a more comprehensive set in one go, rather than to do it piecemeal.
>> There is a similar issue to that of the math symbols, namely, one might add some which are not actually in use currently,
>
> That is not what I had intended to imply, rather that the collection of music symbols encoded today might have left out a considerable number of lesser-used (not: never-used) symbols.
>
> The emphasis was on making sure that attested symbols don't dribble in; the recommendation would be to make a concerted effort to collect and process them in the largest chunks that are reasonably feasible.

One might reserve space (code point positions) in unclear cases, that might be filled in in the future.

>> added for future completeness:
>>
>> Persian music notation uses two microtonal accidentals: the lowering koron and the raising sori.
>> http://www.smufl.org/version/latest/range/persianAccidentals/
>>
>> Then intervals which will result in combinations of these are performed but not currently notated. This would be similar to the standard accidentals: koron-koron, koron-sori, and sori-sori.
>>
>> In addition, these accidentals are not exact quartertones, which means that a lowering of the sori interval is not a koron, and raising a koron interval is not a sori. The reason they are not present in Persian notation, is that one usually do not transpose, but it is easy to do that in modern music computer engraving programs, so it might be nice to have them for that reason.
>
> I could see additions like that if "modern music computer engraving program" suppliers were making a representation that this would solve a real or closely anticipated problem (and that they and the community of their users would expect to be able to use such symbols).
>
> A mere observation that these might "logically" exist, I would find much less compelling.

I have written C++11 code for an arbitrary number of generators. The traditional staff uses two generator, for example the major and minor seconds (traditionally the perfect fifth and octave). The Turkish, Persian and Arab music requires three generators. In Persian music, Hormoz Farhat, “The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music”, uses a neutral second for that description.

>> The same problem arises in Arab music notation, but possibly one might use some already present Western microtonal accidentals there.
>
> Again, if there's a consensus by practitioners that such notation is required, that would be one thing; mere speculation about them being logically necessary doesn't carry the same weight, because we know of many examples where actual practice ended up with illogical notation.

Right. That’s why I cc’ed some experts.

Personally, I prefer the Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation, which does not have those limitations.
  http://www.marcsabat.com/pdfs/notation.pdf

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Received on Tue Mar 31 2015 - 03:48:18 CDT

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