James Allwright writes: | On Tue 18 Dec 2001 at 01:00PM +0000, Erik Ronstr=F6m wrote: | > Consider "standard" music notation: | > My theory is that once upon a time, the repeat sign consisted of two | > dots (:), and always coincided with a bar line.=20 | | An interesting theory, but I don't buy it because your symbol is=20 | symmetrical and so you can't tell the difference between a start | repeat and a end repeat. Suppose your music has the form | | A |: B :| C |: D :| E | | you are now in big trouble if you can't tell the difference between | a start repeat and an end repeat.
Anyone have any actualy history of this? I did a quick check in a number of my music theory/history books, and couldn't find anything meaningful on the subject. I also did a few web searches. I found a few sites dealing with music history, but nothing on this topic. In all the cases where I've seen a bare colon (or four dots) used for a repeat, it has always been at the start of a line. O'Neill does this, for example. When the repeat is in the middle of a line, it always has a bar line on one side or the other. Of course, O'Neill published in the 1920's, so we're not talking about a lot of history here. I haven't found much in the way of examples from before 1600. The earliest examples that I have, from the mid 1600's, look pretty much like modern notation, including the inconsistencies. The ambiguity argument is useful, but not conclusive, since musicians are quite well known for using confusing and ambiguous notation at all times in history. This is part of what makes historical research so much fun. -- What if the Hoky Poky really IS what it's all about? To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
