Engraving models

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Ian Stewart
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Post by Ian Stewart » Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:33 am

Does anyone use a particular publisher, period of music, or score as a model for their engraving? My question is do you adjust things until they look good to you, or do you have particular score as an example and then emulate the margins, spacing, slur thickness etc.?
I'm curious how engravers arrive at their settings.
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Post by ebiggs1 » Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:58 pm

I do what I like. Probably why I am only moderately successful? :D After 40+ years of reading scores, however, I think my music looks pretty much like most other scores. I do have the luxury of a few great composers here at the University of Kansas. Robert E Foster and James Barnes and Gavin Lendt for example.

I do have several Finale templates already set to my preferences. Afterwards, lately, I run Perfect Layout on it and pretty much consider it done.
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Post by Ian Stewart » Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:33 pm

I have been studying a volume of Clementi's Piano Sonatas published by G. Henle Verlag, the engraving is clear and beautiful. However the clefs and braces are thin. The November 2 font that I use has quite thick clefs and braces, and even the Petrucci font is not as thin as the Henle edition. I could use the Petrucci clefs and braces but to me it seems wrong to mix fonts.
The note heads in November and the Henle are more or less the same; the beams are slightly thicker in November but the stems slightly thinner, however the difference is miniscule.
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:35 pm

When was that edition published?

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Post by Ian Stewart » Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:42 pm

It doesn't say but the Preface is dated Spring 1982. But, of course, it could have been a previous edition with new editing.
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Post by Peter Thomsen » Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:20 pm

Ian Stewart wrote:
Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:33 pm
… The note heads in November and the Henle are more or less the same; the beams are slightly thicker in November but the stems slightly thinner, however the difference is miniscule.
This is a misunderstanding.
Indeed noteheads are font characters.

But beams are not font characters.
Beam thickness is a document specific setting:
Document Options > Beams

And stems are not font characters.
Stem thickness is a document specific setting:
Document Options > Stems
(Stem length, too, is a document setting)
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Oct 02, 2021 11:21 pm

Ian Stewart wrote:
Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:42 pm
It doesn't say but the Preface is dated Spring 1982. But, of course, it could have been a previous edition with new editing.
At some point, Henle went from engraving copper plates to using Finale, but this would predate that.

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Post by Anders Hedelin » Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:32 am

I've the impression that publishers in general were more specific about visual appearance - fonts, line thickness, margins etc. - earlier on. During the last decade when I've been active in the field, I've met such demands just rarely, while the trend seems to be that publishers increasingly prefer - or have become used to - engravings made by composers themselves. With a less standard approach to engraving evidently. Which also means that a hired engraver has more freedom to use his own 'style'.
Last edited by Anders Hedelin on Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:09 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Hector Pascal » Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:39 am

I've lately been comparing a batch of scores to find the best features of them all. I compare a different batch every now and then, from the shelf at random.

Latest batch includes:
• Chopin Etüden Urtext (G. Henle Verlag), © 1983. (Op 25, Nr 1 uses various note sizes which is interesting). The paper size is bigger than what my printer can do, which makes me a bit green with envy! In fact nearly all the published volumes that I look at are on paper that is bigger than what I can print, which means that I can't really emulate the generously spaced published layout. I usually print on A3 and fold to A4 booklet.
• Beethoven Piano Sonatas Vol. III (Ed. Tovey & Craxton) London, Assoc. Board of Royal Schools of Music, 1931. I was looking at the use of sfz and sf. The beams are quite thick in this edition and the 16/32 beams get a bit furry, to my eye.
• Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics Vol106. Grieg Selected Compositions for the piano. Book 1. (1939). This book is easy to sightread. It uses accents twice the length of what I use in Finale.

I also like looking at the paper colour, weight and quality of publications. My laser printer's toner can sometimes look a bit shiny under lights, but I've now found a perfect paper and toner combination that prints matte, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I am yet to get fully organised enough to have all my score comparison research results inputted into my own "perfect" finale settings. But I found this interesting video that describes an approach to achieve this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Km6BspqEc

Thanks for the thread, which is an interesting one I think.
Cheers,
Hector.

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Post by Ian Stewart » Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:21 am

I have been copying the Henle edition and think I have got quite close. However I wish I could make the slurs horizontal without having to adjust everything manually - any suggestions really appreciated. Here are the original Henle first and next my Finale version. I have enlarged the images considerably so they can be compared.
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:20 pm

Looks great, Ian. That's a great way to learn about the various factors that produce good-looking engraving. There are settings to change the default shapes of the slurs that you could experiment with. Here are mine. They seem to work pretty well to avoid too much hand work. There's also slur contour settings that I would post if you are interested.
slur settings.jpeg
The overall look of the different major publishers is quite different. For me, Henle is the "coldest", Wiener Urtext, much "warmer". The plate engraving of turn of the early 20th century like the Breitkopf und Haertel Complete Works of Brahms, which I like to consult, is warmer still. Associated Board might be the warmest of all.
Last edited by John Ruggero on Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:27 pm

To me it looks more correct to put the staccati outside the slur, when there's no slur+staccato articulation (portato-staccato) intended. If not the spacing in big downwards leaps forces you to put it inside on the second note.
Slurs and staccati.PNG
Slurs and staccati.PNG (60.11 KiB) Viewed 5087 times
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Post by Ian Stewart » Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:59 pm

Thanks for your slur settings John, they work well on the work I am engraving and will explore them further. The Slur Contour settings are really useful and that seems to be the area I should work on. Slurs have been one aspect of Finale that sometimes give me problems.
I have just had a quick look through my music collection and there is a lot of music published by Henle and Associated Board. I also have the Augener edition of Bach's Two-Part Inventions, which is exceptionally clear to read, although more workman like than the other two. The Peters Edition of Chopin is too four square although easy to read - I don't like the appearance at all; however their printing of Debussy's Preludes is much lighter and an extreme contrast. That version was engraved in the mid-Seventies, when Debussy came out of copyright.

Next maybe I should explore the contemporary scores I have by Ricordi and Universal Edition. Music engraving has become much lighter, more spacious and airy since the mid 1970s - if my collection is anything to go by. The Schott edition of Toshi Ichiyanagi - Cloud Atlas looks computer engraved. Although the copyright is 1985 I think the version I have was published in 2004: I don't know though as it's in Japanese except for the year.

At the moment I find modern music engraving too light and much of the older engraving too heavy. I think somewhere between Henle and Schott's Toshi Ichiyanagi would be something to aim for.
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:46 pm

Anders Hedelin wrote:
Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:27 pm
To me it looks more correct to put the staccati outside the slur, when there's no slur+staccato articulation (portato-staccato) intended. If not the spacing in big downwards leaps forces you to put it inside on the second note.
Slurs and staccati.PNG
I've never seen it done that way, Anders. I have seen it done like this, however. As seen, it works better for larger intervals:
slur staccato example.jpeg
Gould mentions that placing an articulation on the outside of the second note of a tied pair converts the tie into a slur.
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:57 pm

Maybe it's just an idiosyncrasy of mine, then. To me, a staccato inside a slur automatically implies a sort of 'slur-and staccato' articulation. Or implied.

Then, I'm not quite sure what Gould means. A staccato placed outside a tie/slur would not have the same effect, or doesn't she take that possibility into account at all?

Her book now is, maybe not behind bars, but deep down in one of 40 boxes, because I'm in the process of moving - so I couldn't check.
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Post by motet » Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:47 pm

Anders Hedelin wrote:
Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:57 pm
Then, I'm not quite sure what Gould means. A staccato placed outside a tie/slur would not have the same effect, or doesn't she take that possibility into account at all?
I think she's talking about ties only, not slurs, as in measure 1 below. I personally don't like it, and would write it like measure 2 instead.
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:59 pm

Hm. Having a high regard for the conventions of engraving, I'm all the same considering hanging on to my idiosyncrasy. In my eyes at least it's quite unambiguous.

BTW your examples are quite clear too, John, but to me they look a little 'indecisive'.
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:28 pm

I agree about the imprecision, Anders, and use the standard way except for special cases, like very large compressed intervals, where it sometimes the only way to do it.

Motet, I agree. It's nothing I've ever seen, since placing the articulation inside the tie, as one usually sees it, does the same thing. This might be an innovation on Gould's part. But I don't think it will catch on.
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:40 pm

Here are my slur contour settings.
short span.jpeg
medium span.jpeg
long span.jpeg
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:41 pm

Doesn't seem to like more than three examples in a post. Here is the last one:
extra long span.jpeg
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Post by Ian Stewart » Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:07 am

Thank you for posting those John, apart from the short slur our settings are similar. However for me it is the short slur that is the problem, for example it is difficult to get a slur over two quavers, for instance falling from F# and C. I seem to have just about got it but it is the sort of slur that, for some reason, can look ugly. Your setting seems to have solved the problem in the piece I'm working on.
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Post by Peter Thomsen » Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:44 pm

Ian Stewart wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:33 am
… I'm curious how engravers arrive at their settings.
Traditional engraving follows some conventions.


As far as line thicknesses are concerned, the most common standard seemed to be that there are 3 “thickness categories”.
We could call them thinnest, middle, thickest.


In the thinnest category are the staff-lines.
Staff-lines are long. They are visible, even if they are thin.
Thinner staff-lines make the noteheads “stand out” better.

In the middle category are the stems.
Stems are shorter than staff-lines.
Hence it makes sense that stems are thicker than staff-lines.

In the thickest category are the barlines.
Some times stems are close to the barline.
Barlines need to “stand out”.
It makes sense that barlines are thicker than stems.


Then there are the other lines, such as lyric extension lines, ledger lines, tuplet brackets, crescendo hairpins &c.

In what “thickness category” they belong, may vary.
They could e. g. be categorized like this:

Thinnest: lyric extension lines (but they could also be in the middle category, or in the thickest category)

middle: ledger lines (but they could also be in the thickest category)

thickest: crescendo hairpins (but they could also be in the middle category)


The thickness ratio between the 3 categories can vary.

In some editions the difference is so small that the ratio {thinnest : middle : thickest} is about {1 : a : 1.5} where ‘a’ is something between 1 and 1.5 (like e. g. 1.25).
With such little “weight difference” the consensus seems to be that ledger lines, tuplet brackets and lyric extension lines are the same weight as barlines, and crescendo hairpins are the same weight as stems.

In other editions the {thinnest : middle : thickest} ratio can be as big as {1 : a : 2} where ‘a’ is something between 1 and 2 (like e. g. 1.5).
With such big “weight difference” the “category” of ledger lines, tuplet brackets, hairpins and lyric extension lines may
be different from the {1 : a : 1.5} case.
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Post by Ian Stewart » Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:28 pm

Many thanks Peter, that is really helpful. I shall also look out for those elements in the scores I am studying at the moment.
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Post by John Ruggero » Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:08 pm

There are extensive threads on line thickness and other such matters over at Notat.io from several years ago.
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:10 pm

Anders Hedelin wrote:
Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:32 am
I've the impression that publishers in general were more specific about visual appearance - fonts, line thickness, margins etc. - earlier on. During the last decade when I've been active in the field, I've met such demands just rarely, while the trend seems to be that publishers increasingly prefer - or have become used to - engravings made by composers themselves. With a less standard approach to engraving evidently. Which also means that a hired engraver has more freedom to use his own 'style'.
Hasn't anyone else noticed the same trend? Of course that does not mean that specific demands on engraving would be outdated, but my point is that the situation for engravers has changed, quite much actually.
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