The flats and sharps of Arabic music are semantically the same as in Western music, departing from Pythagorean tuning, then, but the microtonal accidentals are different: they simply reused some that were available. By contrast, Persian music notation invented new microtonal accidentals, called the koron and sori, and my impression is that their average value, as measured by Hormoz Farhat in his thesis, is also usable in Arabic music. For comparison, I have posted the Arabic maqam in Helmholtz-Ellis notation [1] using this value; note that one actually needs two extra microtonal accidentals—Arabic microtonal notation is in fact not complete.
The E24 exact quarter-tones are suitable for making a piano sound badly out of tune. Compare that with the accordion in [2], Farid El Atrache - "Noura-Noura". 1. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2016-02/msg00607.html 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvp6fo7tfpk > On 27 May 2018, at 22:33, Philippe Verdy <verd...@wanadoo.fr> wrote: > > Thanks! > > Le dim. 27 mai 2018 22:18, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> a écrit : > Philippe is entirely correct here. The fact that a symbol has somewhat > different meanings in different contexts does not mean that it is actually > multiple visually identical symbols. Otherwise Unicode would be re-encoding > the Latin alphabet many, many times over. > > During most of Bach's career, the prevailing tuning system was meantone. He > wrote the Well-Tempered Clavier to explore the possibilities afforded by a > new tuning system called well temperament. In the modern era, his work has > typically been played in 12-tone equal temperament. That does not mean that > the ♯ that Bach used in his score for the Well-Tempered Clavier was not the > same symbol as the ♯ in his other scores, or that they somehow invisibly > became yet another symbol when the score is opened on the music desk of a > modern Steinway. > > On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 2:58 PM, Philippe Verdy <verd...@wanadoo.fr> wrote: > Even flat notes or rythmic and pause symbols in Western musical notations > have different contextual meaning depending on musical keys at start of > scores, and other notations or symbols added above the score. So their > interpretation are also variable according to context, just like tuning in a > Arabic musical score, which is also keyed and annotated differently. These > keys can also change within the same partition score. > So both the E12 vs. E24 systems (which are not incompatible) may also be used > in Western and Arabic music notations. The score keys will give the > interpretation. > Tone marks taken isolately mean absolutely nothing in both systems outside > the keyed scores in which they are inserted, except that they are just > glyphs, which may be used to mean something else (e.g. a note in a comics > artwork could be used to denote someone whistling, without actually encoding > any specific tone, or rythmic). > > > 2018-05-17 17:48 GMT+02:00 Hans Åberg via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org>: > > > > On 17 May 2018, at 16:47, Garth Wallace via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> > > wrote: > > > > On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 12:41 AM Hans Åberg <haber...@telia.com> wrote: > > > > > On 17 May 2018, at 08:47, Garth Wallace via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> > > > wrote: > > > > > >> On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 12:42 AM, Hans Åberg via Unicode > > >> <unicode@unicode.org> wrote: > > >> > > >> It would be best to encode the SMuFL symbols, which is rather > > >> comprehensive and include those: > > >> https://www.smufl what should be unified.org > > >> http://www.smufl.org/version/latest/ > > >> ... > > >> > > >> These are otherwise originally the same, but has since drifted. So > > >> whether to unify them or having them separate might be best to see what > > >> SMuFL does, as they are experts on the issue. > > >> > > > SMuFL's standards on unification are not the same as Unicode's. For one > > > thing, they re-encode Latin letters and Arabic digits multiple times for > > > various different uses (such as numbers used in tuplets and those used in > > > time signatures). > > > > The reason is probably because it is intended for use with music engraving, > > and they should then be rendered differently. > > > > Exactly. But Unicode would consider these a matter for font switching in > > rich text. > > One original principle was ensure different encodings, so if the practise in > music engraving is to keep them different, they might be encoded differently. > > > > There are duplicates all over the place, like how the half-sharp symbol > > > is encoded at U+E282 as "accidentalQuarterToneSharpStein", at U+E422 as > > > "accidentalWyschnegradsky3TwelfthsSharp", at U+ED35 as > > > "accidentalQuarterToneSharpArabic", and at U+E444 as > > > "accidentalKomaSharp". They are graphically identical, and the first > > > three even all mean the same thing, a quarter tone sharp! > > > > But the tuning system is different, E24 and Pythagorean. Some Latin and > > Greek uppercase letters are exactly the same but have different encodings. > > > > Tuning systems are not scripts. > > That seems obvious. As I pointed out above, the Arabic glyphs were originally > taken from Western ones, but have a different musical meaning, also when > played using E12, as some do. > > > > >
