Re: Issue 1701 in lilypond: default accidental style prints too many 'extra' naturals

[Keith OHara]

bruys . <notenoir <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I came across a further reference, in Richard Rastall's The Notation of
> Western Music (2nd edition), if you look at the main index reference under
> "accidental" (I'd quote the page number, but I don't have the book with me),
> you'll see that he explicitly refers to cancelling single accidentals. He is
> talking about the rise of the notation of tonal music, and mentions Bach's
> Well Tempered Clavier on the same page. The issue of whether this was
> practiced in the 19th Century, to any great extent, is still open.

I was at the library so I read that book.  It is a history of notation, 
not a textbook on how to notate.  He does say that the shift to tonal music
resulted in:
1) regular use of the natural sign to cancel flat and sharp
2) standardization of the double-sharp and double-flat signs
3) canceling one accidental, before the introduction of another, with 
natural-flat (after double-flat or sharp) and natural-sharp (after double-
sharp or flat)

Point 3 says people put a natural between gis and ges in tonal music, if that
transition ever happened in tonal music.

The only extraNatural Rastall's book is when sharp follows a double sharp.
The only example in his book where sharp follows flat (Berg, 1907) is printed 
without the extraNatural.

Maybe the textbooks are silent about the old rule for when gis follows ges, 
because that happened too rarely to have a standard while the old rules were 
current.