Boy, things got busy all of a sudden! On Jun 20, 2008, at 2:23 PM, Paul Hayden wrote:
I quit using the ottava bassa sign (8vb) _under_ notes several years ago when I read (in Read's book and probably on this list) that the normal octave sign (8va) should be used.
That usage is very old-fashioned and IMO no longer correct. The rule is intimately connected to another rule--now abandoned for some 50 years--that held that "8va" should appear only above a treble staff (meaning an octave up) or below a bass staff (meaning an octave down). Strains in this custom began to appear when composers began writing piano music that required frequent clef changes in both hands. For most of the 20th c. , the standard and most clear notation *among classical composers* has been to write "8va" above any staff regardless of clef, and to write "8va bassa" (never "basso") below any staff regardless of clef. If you follow the old rule and simply write "8va" below a staff, it is bound to cause at least some confusion because it has become important always to indicate if the octave transition is up or down.
I noticed that FinMac08b uses 8vb by default when you use the Smart Shapes octave symbol (8va) below notes. (I reset the 8vb symbol so that 8va shows in the Smart Shape Options window.)
I had never seen or heard of "8vb" until I started using Finale in 1991. Until very recently it has been a strictly jazz/Broadway usage, and is the default in Finale because the original developers of the program came from the jazz world.
I was surprised to learn from this thread that it goes back as far as 1970, for right up to the end of the 20th c. it had no presence in the classical world at all.
The need for a compact octave-down symbol (as opposed to the standard "8va bassa") has been felt for quite some time now, and various streamlined versions have been used by various classical composers for the past half century or more; I particularly like Messiaen's plain "8" for up and "8ba" for down.
Anyway, "8vb" has started showing up in new classical scores precisely because it is the default in Finale! It is just one of a great many things that are changing in the notation of new music because they are particularly easy or particularly hard to do in Finale or Sibelius. Look, for example, at the profusion of musical graphics and unorthodox stems and noteheads used by classical composers in the 60s and 70s: these things are mostly gone in 21st century works, in large part because engraving programs find them difficult and arduous to handle.
Now, as to what the abbreviations actually mean. "8va" is indeed the Italian equivalent of "8th" and is used in that sense in all kinds of contexts, not just musical ones. Streamlined versions of "8va bassa" however often start with the idea tha "8va" abbreviates not "ottaVA" but "ottaVa Alta"--which reflects its actual meaning in recent music. If "8va" abbreviates "ottava alta," then "8vb" quite logically must symbolize "ottava bassa," and it is important to realize that if you use "8vb" (or "8ba" or any other similarly constructed reform notation) you *cannot* use "8va" to signify anything but an octave *up*.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://www.kallistimusic.com/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
