Finale Forum

I came across these in the Fravura Extra font, and I wondered what they mean. Could they be for measured pause: 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 seconds?

It looks like shorthand for repeated notes over a quarter note, probably (could be a longer note). So the 2 would be 2 equal notes. On a quarter, that would be 8ths. 3 would be a triplet, etc.

Just guessing based on similar notation found in Finale.

Zuill

I can confirm zuill's interpretation. It's an abbreviation for writing triplets and other tuplets. I do see this kind of notation regularly in entertainment music from the late 19th/early 20th century ("Salonmusik"), when the spacing was quite dense to save paper (and engraving time).

Harald

Don't the dots mean staccato?

Not in this context, I believe. But I'm probably wrong. generally a slur is used for similar notation. For brass, isn't this similar to double and triple tonguing? I can't say for the larger numbers.

Zuill

I'd recommend downloading the SMuFL/Bravura PDF in these cases as it gives each music symbol a more or less self-explaining name.
And as Fravura Extra is based on Bravura, it must be documented there.
The latest PDF is version 1.18: http://www.smufl.org/files/smufl-1.18.pdf
Newer versions are only available as web pages ( https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/ )

According to the SMuFL documentation these symbols are accordion notation:
the 2 means "Ricochet (2 tones)", the 3 "Ricochet (3 tones)", etc.

For the "pistol" percussion instrument, I guess.

FYI:
In accordion playing technique “Ricochet” mean tone repetitions done via a special type of Bellows Shake where the direction is not just {out - in}, but rather {up - down}.
With Ricochet technique it is quite easy to do triplets: {out - in - up}, {out - in - up}, &c.

The stem of the note is slashed as usual to show measured repetition and the marking in question applied above it. So it is a supplement to show when measured repeated notes are tuplets rather than even note values.