On 5 Mar 2010 at 21:56, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:

> So I would imagine that a large book company during this period
> was using much more sophisticated computers for text, but again-- what
> were they doing for music; and how would they marry computer generated
> mock-ups of text with plate engraving?

I would say it's likely that there was no computer engraving of music 
at that time except in computer science departments that had 
connections to music departments, such as at the University of 
Illinois.

Likely the music was done by hand in a form that could be pasted up 
into the photolithographic plates used at the time. Probably some 
form of what is described in this article was used to produce the 
plates for offset printing:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_lithography

I don't know the degree to which any of that process was computerized 
at that point. My bet is that the process by which music examples 
were produced was completely hand-done, and then transferred by 
photographic process to the plates. The exact process is probably 
outlined in the Grove Online article on music printing, but I'm too 
lazy to log onto Early Music America and pull it up (I get my Grove 
Online access as a benefit of being an EMA member).

-- 
David W. Fenton                    http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates       http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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