gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post Reply
User avatar
cmloegcmluin
Site Admin
Posts: 1700
Joined: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:10 pm
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Real Name: Douglas Blumeyer (he/him/his)
Contact:

gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by cmloegcmluin »

From viewtopic.php?p=959#p959:
Dave Keenan wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 3:00 pm We need more images of Sagittal on the staff, not merely in text.
This statement led to the discussion which became an effort to support typing full sheet music on the forum, which I think is a valuable pursuit.

I think it might also be nice to have a place on sagittal.org where folks can find a collection of existing music notated in Sagittal. I think this would be a great additional way for people to learn (by pattern matching), a way for people to verify conventions, get inspiration, etc. And it would be good branding, the more popular Sagittal seems to be.

We could set a formal system up for people to submit scores and specify certain metadata such as which notation they used (an EDO, Trojan/12R, high precision JI, etc.), which flavor, etc. and just have it sit out there on the site so new ones would come in over time.

Or we could just post something on mailing lists and Facebook groups asking for people as a one-time thing to send over anything they want to share now.
User avatar
herman.miller
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:27 am

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by herman.miller »

I've been using Dorico to try notating some of my music, but it's a time-consuming process and I don't have much that's complete. I do have a comparison of my 16-EDO etude in Easley Blackwood's notation and two Sagittal notations (the native 16-EDO notation and 48-EDO as suggested in the Sagittal paper).

https://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/pdf/1 ... arison.pdf
User avatar
Dave Keenan
Site Admin
Posts: 2180
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:59 pm
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Contact:

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by Dave Keenan »

All great ideas Douglas. Feel free to do whichever of them you see fit.

Thanks for that Herman. It makes it clear that we really need a standard format for a key or legend at the top of the score, spelling out what the symbols mean. Perhaps something like the abbreviated information used on the periodic table, as Douglas suggests here.
User avatar
herman.miller
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:27 am

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by herman.miller »

I have a partial score for my 20-EDO song "Ivari na taniravi" (without percussion). I'll need to add a key at the beginning, but it's basically :)~|: :)~!: = 1 step, :(|\: :(!/: = 2, :~||\: :~!!/: = 3, :/||\: :\!!/: = 4. Notated using Dorico 3.

Score: https://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/pdf/i ... niravi.pdf
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/morphosyntax-1/ivari-na-taniravi
User avatar
cmloegcmluin
Site Admin
Posts: 1700
Joined: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:10 pm
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Real Name: Douglas Blumeyer (he/him/his)
Contact:

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by cmloegcmluin »

herman.miller wrote: Sat May 16, 2020 12:24 pm I have a partial score for my 20-EDO song "Ivari na taniravi" (without percussion). I'll need to add a key at the beginning, but it's basically :)~|: :)~!: = 1 step, :(|\: :(!/: = 2, :~||\: :~!!/: = 3, :/||\: :\!!/: = 4. Notated using Dorico 3.

Score: https://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/pdf/i ... niravi.pdf
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/morphosyntax-1/ivari-na-taniravi
I love it! It's in that uncanny sweet spot of familiar and strange. You're quite the creative guy Herman.

How are you finding Dorico? Stephen Weigel shared it with us at Untwelve summer camp last year. But the last time I spoke with him about it he had identified some frustrating limitations in its microtonal capabilities. I wish I could recall what those were exactly.

And re: the notation, it's great to have an example of one of the bad fifth apotome fraction notations such as appear in the recently completed Periodic Table. Special thanks!
User avatar
herman.miller
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:27 am

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by herman.miller »

Dorico has advantages over Finale in some ways, but it does have some limitations. Dorico can handle large EDOs with ease, while Finale is constrained by the 128-note MIDI limitation. More complex temperaments including rank 2, rank 3, or JI can be represented as subsets of large EDOs. One of the things I tested when I was evaluating Dorico is a notation for marvel woo temperament, notated as a subset of 413-EDO with accidentals of 6, 11, 17, 18, 23, and 29 steps of 413-EDO. You're limited to 7 notes per octave for the nominals, though, and the octaves can't be retuned. Unlike Finale, you can have two notes representing the same pitch (e.g. E=F, B=C), which is useful for 15- and 20-EDO.

Another limitation is that if you change the size of the accidentals, existing accidentals in your score won't be retuned. If you change spacing of the notes to a different EDO, the accidentals remain in the old EDO. So you can't easily go from one meantone tuning to another, for instance. You can respell accidentals with a couple of keystrokes (E :b: - D :#: for instance), but I've found that to be unreliable with non-12-EDO tunings. Also, I haven't found a way to import non-12-EDO MIDI files as you can do with Finale. So if I'm working with 20-EDO, I can import the MIDI into Finale, using a notation where E and F, B and C are different pitches, export it to a MusicXML file, and import that into Dorico to get a rough start. Finale's MIDI importation needs a lot of manual work to clean up the notation, but with large scores like Mizarian Porcupine Overture, that can still save a lot of time.
User avatar
cmloegcmluin
Site Admin
Posts: 1700
Joined: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:10 pm
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Real Name: Douglas Blumeyer (he/him/his)
Contact:

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by cmloegcmluin »

Good to know. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I just found an old thread where @Dave Keenan talks about him and George getting consulted on "Steinberg's new product": viewtopic.php?p=119#p119 if you are interested.
User avatar
Dave Keenan
Site Admin
Posts: 2180
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:59 pm
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Contact:

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by Dave Keenan »

User avatar
Dave Keenan
Site Admin
Posts: 2180
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:59 pm
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Contact:

Re: gathering Sagittal-notated scores

Post by Dave Keenan »

[Post by @herman.miller Mon May 25, 2020 5:56 am Est Australian time]
[Recovered from browser cache after disaster.]
[Please repost it yourself, Herman, and I'll delete this copy]

I uploaded a full score of my marvel woo piece "Cave of Marvels".
Score as a PDF: https://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/pdf/0 ... arvels.pdf
YouTube video with audio and score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-212_R ... e=youtu.be
Post Reply