Re: arrow heads as accidentals

Douglas (and everyone else),

I know they are already listed is some form. The problem is that they 
aren't listed as accidentals specifically. For some music notation 
software (MuseScore, for example) they must be listed as accidentals 
specifically to be able to be used as such. It is for that reason that 
I'm requesting the addition of similar symbols as accidentals.

A less important detail, is that the Up and Down accidentals tend to be 
less sharp (i.e. have slightly less sharp angles) than the arrow heads. 
They look a bit more like logic symbols ∧ (and) and ∨ (or).

In my previous email, proposing these accidentals, I forgot to specify 
some details, by the way. I'll make up for that here.

symbols:
∧
∨
> 
<
All the same size as note heads, and aligned with note heads. All four 
should be the same symbol, but rotated.
Accidentals are used on their own or in front of another accidental. 
(Including in front of the same. 22EDO Porcupine notation uses ∧∧ and ∨∨ 
accidentals, for example.)

names:
accidental up
accidental down
accidental more
accidental less
I suppose it might be useful to add some further identifier after 
"accidental", but I'm not sure what that identifier should be as these 
symbols are used in several notations. The most important for the first 
two is Up/Down notation, but "accidental up down up" sounds like a very 
bad idea.

pitch offset values:
All four have slightly different functions depending in which notation 
they are used for.
∧ : one degree up (e.g. 54.5c in 22EDO, 38.7c in 31EDO, etc.) or 33/32 
up (53.3c).
∨ : idem, but down.
> : 64/63 up (27.3c) or notation-specific small upwards offset.
< : idem, but down.
(As mentioned before, the first two are used by far the most, and have – 
for that reason – more determinate values.)


Best,

Lajos



On 19-06-2020 2:57, Douglas Blumeyer wrote:
> Lajos,
> 
> My friend and colleague Dave Keenan — co-creator of Sagittal and has
> contributed many microtonal accidentals to SMuFL in addition to of
> course the Sagittal symbols — points out that these accidentals _are
> _already present in SMuFL:
> 
>> 
> https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/tables/arrows-and-arrowheads.html
>> U+EB88 arrowheadOpenUp
>> U+EB8C arrowheadOpenDown
>> U+EB8A arrowheadOpenRight
>> U+EB8E _arrowheadOpenLeft_
> 
> I hope this helps. Thanks for pushing for better microtonal notation
> support!
> 
> Best,
> Douglas
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:49 AM Lajos Brons <mail@lajosbrons.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> Several microtonal notation systems use arrow heads (looking like ^,
>> v,
>>> , <) as accidentals. These include:
>> 
>> - Up/Down notation, which is more or less the standard notation in
>> 22EDO
>> and 31EDO, but also used elsewhere. Lacking ^ and v ("up" and
>> "down")
>> users often resort to other symbols, however.
>> - Porcupine notation, which also uses ^ and v.
>> - Helmholtz/Ellis/Wolf/Monzo (HEWM) notation, which uses all four
>> arrow
>> heads (hence, including "more" and "less" in addition to "up" and
>> "down") as well a many other symbols.
>> 
>> The addition of "up" and "down" (^ and v) accidentals to SMuFL is
>> sorely
>> needed, but it seems silly to not add right/more and left/less at
>> the
>> same time. Given that the latter two don't have standardized names,
>> I
>> propose to call those "more" and "less", respectively.
>> 
>> Neither size and shape of these symbols is standardized (because
>> users
>> have to resort to various tricks to get anything resembling them),
>> but
>> in all cases they are intended to have the same size as a note head.
>> 
>> In case of Up/Down notation and HEWM notation (but not Porcupine
>> Notation), arrow heads are used on their own and in combination with
>> 
>> other accidentals.
>> 
>> I'm not sure where exactly these four new accidentals should be
>> added,
>> but "Other accidentals" seems the most obvious location.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Lajos Brons

Received on Thursday, 18 June 2020 22:39:55 UTC