On 23 Jan 2007 at 15:57, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > I have a general question about "daggers."
More properly, you should refer to them as "strokes," as that's the term used in musicological discourse on the subject, i.e., dots vs. strokes. It's a big controversy as to whether there is a performance distinction intended by the use of the two staccato symbols. > In early baroque music, a > long slash would be noted above (typically, but not always) string > figures. I've seen various ways used to engrave that symbol. Some use > the single quote (which is what I've done), others use an upside down > triangle symbol, that has a stubby wedge look. A friend of mine who is > preparing Graupner editions opted to use the long slash stroke > represented by the "|" symbol. In my experience, the vertical bar more closely replicates the symbol found in original sources, especially in MSS, where there's no real possibility of easily drawing a "dagger." In printed editions, the stroke was usually not engraved with a punch until well into the 19th century. Before that time, the corner of a cutting tool was used to create the stroke, and it was the profile of the corner of the tool that created the dagger with rounded top that is recreated in the Maestro font (there are two pairs of them, one with concave top, the other with convex). > The trouble I have using the single quote symbol is that it is pretty > hard to tell distinguish as a wedge/dagger or a staccato symbol. If > anyone was having vision trouble, they'd be hard pressed to see the > difference, I think. One possible solution is to increase the font > size for the single quote mark to make it a wee bit larger. > > I'm just curious what advice or your experiences have been. I'm not sure I know what you mean. Are you saying it's hard to distinguish a printed Finale dot from a printed Finale stroke? I can't see that. I use the two symbols all the time (before Maestro, I had created my own with the shape designer). -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
