On 27 Apr 2005 at 17:33, John Howell wrote:
The actual engraving of music--technical use of the term here, meaning the use of a sharp steel engraving tool to "write" the music, backwards, on a soft copper plate--dates from the 17th century, and since the engraver was literally drawing the music as if drawing a picture, both beaming and slurs now became possible. Trouble was, most engravers weren't used to seeing music that way, and tended to use individual 8th notes rather than beamed 8ths, but they did start using slurs to indicate melismas.
Why are you limiting your discussion to printed music? Manuscript music of the 17th and 18th centuries continues to use the practice you seem to be arguing was created as a result of using movable type. I'm not sure about Italian MS of the 15th and 16th century, but I do know that I remember dealing with quite a bit of Italian MS in my notation class where the beaming corresponded to the syllables (with single flags for syllabic sections).
I don't think we're really disagreeing. A given thing is possible or it isn't. With movable type, beaming was not possible. With manuscript it was. But the choice of whether to USE something that is possible depends on tradition, training, and fashion.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
