[mei-neumes-ig] Background

[Kate Helsen]

Scribal angle just means the generalized angle that the scribe uses to
express pitches going up or down within a neume itself. For example, in a
neume that represents three pitches going up and then two going down, the
scribe might write the three ascending ones almost right over top of one
another (a "vertical angle") and then the descending ones with more of a
wide angle - pointing sort of 'south-east', if you like. Another scribe
from a different geographic area might make the ascending pitches at more
of a 45 degree angle with the descending ones almost straight up and down.

I'm not sure that we totally *need* to express this in every neume, since
it is usually a feature of scribal habit or tradition and will be the same
throughout the entire manuscript - or at least everything that is written
by that scribe and others trained in a similar way. But it is something
that semiologists talk about a lot because it helps distinguish, at a
glance, one scribal tradition from another. (People often also talk about
how the more vertical renderings were more amenable to the musical staff,
once it came along.)

Cheers,
K

On Sun, Jun 12, 2016 at 9:50 PM, Ichiro Fujinaga <ich at music.mcgill.ca>
wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Perry Roland has graciously offered to help us with building the MEI Neume
> Customization Module.
>
> Here’s what I sent to him.
> If there’re any corrections or additions please post them here.
>
> He has questions which I will post separately.
>
> Ich
>
> > On Jun 7, 2016, at 11:28 AM, Ichiro Fujinaga <ich at music.mcgill.ca>
> wrote:
> >
> > That would be great!
> > Thank you for offering your expertise!
> >
> > I’ll try to summarize what we discussed:
> >
> > First, a neume consists of one or more neume component(s) (nc);
> musicologists call this a “pitch”.
> >
> > For each nc, there are two major (mandatory?) properties: “relation to
> previous” and “connection (type)”.
> > “Relation to previous” is basically the relative height position to the
> previous nc.
> > “Connection” is how the current nc is connected to the previous nc.
> >
> > There seems to be six (6) different types of “relation to previous”:
> High, Low, Neutral (or Unknown), Same, Same or higher, and Same or lower.
> >
> > The eight (8) “connection” types are: Curbed clockwise, Curbed
> anti-clockwise, Angular, Gap, Quilisma curve 2,  Quilisma curve 3, Looped,
> and V-shape.
> >
> > Then there are several optional attributes or modifications that can be
> applied to each nc:
> > Episema, Liquescent, Jagged, Oriscus, Long, Flat, and Crook.
> >
> > Finally, there are attributes/modification that can be applied to the
> entire neume:
> > Significative letters, After lower, After higher, Hispanic tick 1, and
> Hispanic tick 2.
> >
> > There are other symbols unrelated to nuemes, such as clefs, repeat
> signs, modal alphabetic letters, repetenda signs, custos, unknown or
> “Mysterious” symbols, and scribal angle (I don’t know what this means).
> >
> > I’m attaching a spreadsheet containing some of examples of neumes with
> some of the combinations of the above attributes.
> > There are some codings in there that needs clarification, such as “op”
> and “W3”. I will ask on the neume mailing list.
> >
> > I hope I’ve given you something to get started. Let me know if you have
> questions, most of which I will probably have to referred to the experts.
> >
> > Thank you again for your help!
> >
> > Ich
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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