> In the attached PDF, I have assembled about 35–40 examples found on
> IMSLP, [...]
Thanks a lot.
> 1. There are clearly multiple styles for ledger lines (LLs) out
> there, as we began to establish yesterday on this
> thread. Broadly, there are two clusters: “ledger lines of
> uniform width” (always uniform within any given column) and
> “ledger lines of varying widths.”
Yes. However, the uniform-width style is clearly not the common one.
Note also that you provided many examples where a whole note has more
ledger lines than the other voice's note. Such cases are trivial and
not necessary to consider at all, since the longer ledger lines for
the whole note always 'override' the shorter ones for the other
voice's note.
> 2. Sometimes there is variation within a single edition/engraving
> (e.g., Berwald concerto, the piano part vs. the piano music
> within the full score).
IMHO, these are all side effects of the manual engraving process,
which in many cases show inaccuracies.
> 3. In the “varying widths” school/approach, often, LLs associated
> with half/quarter note heads are narrower than LLs linked to
> whole notes.
>
> 4. Often, consecutive ledger lines are not the exact same width, even
> when there are no note heads on them.
>
> 5. In particular, LLs often show “broadening out away from the
> staff” — in other words, as you move farther away from the
> staff, you see the LLs getting wider. Then again, the
> opposite, a “narrowing as you move away from the staff” can
> also happen; see the example from Act V of Les Troyens,
> specifically the measure comprising four quarter notes.
>
> 6. “Rule” 5 (not that it is really a strict rule) can conflict
> with “Rule” 3, as shown in the first example from Act IV of
> Les Troyens.
All these observation have the same cause, i.e., inaccuracies during
the engraving process.
Werner
