Re: mensural notation

[Pal Benko]

Hi Jürgen,

> > > What I do not understand, if you want neo-mensural noteheads, why not just
> > > doing "\override Voice.NoteHead #'style = #'neomensural"?
> >
> > As far as I can see, the main difference between neomensural and mensural
> > notehead are (besides the different parameters) that mensural noteheads have
> > diamond shape at their centerline, while neomensural heads have it at the
> > outer boundary, and I just need this.  Note that with my patch the mensural
> > and neomensural noteheads still look different.
> > My main point is to have bigger noteheads, almost two linespaces high;
> > but it should not be so big that a notehead between two stafflines have
> > those lines visible in the interior hole.
> >
> > p
>
> Ah, ok.  But I would not like to completely drop the current mensural
> shapes, since I have seen quite some printed ancient examples (mostly
> in [1]) with noteheads very similar to the current mensural shapes.

Let me clarify me a bit: my core problem with the current official ancient
noteheads is that they are way smaller than those I've seen in manuscipts and
Petrucci prints.  First I wanted to have larger mensural noteheads, and then
I saw the problem written above, i.e. for a note on a staff-line the line did
not cross the left and right corners of the notehead (and if I interpreted
the comments correctly, that is a problem for you as well).  I've tried to
modify the description, but didn't succeed; and then I found out that
neomensural heads can be parametrised so that I get what I want.

I have seen such tiny noteheads in modern print (Wolf, Crevel's edition of
Obrecht's Missa Maria zart), but these are not facsimiles.  I'll check MGG.

> But maybe you can convince me that your shapes are
> the more authentic or the more beautiful ones...

I can make scans of the facsimiles I have.  Perhaps it would be good anyway
(e.g. Lilypond doesn't have Gamma clef).

> So, maybe for the time being, we should just add a
> new notehead style?  Do you have any idea for a naming convention (for the
> clefs, we e.g. have mensural and petrucci style)?

My style is quite close (a little bit bigger) to that of Petrucci;
if you think it's worth the trouble, I'll scan some Petrucci, magnify it,
take exact measurements and then we can call the style in the patch
Petrucci-style.

Cheers,
p