Talk:Mensural notation

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Wow, this is better organized, and new tables to boot!

Vaux

[edit] Charpentier example

The Charpentier example is more confusing than enlightening. It is fundamentally different from the white mensural notation because:

• it is not mensural and
• if anything, it is rather a black notation because it distinguishes the semiminima from the minima by adding a flag, not by coloration.

It is certainly an interesting notation, but I don't think it should be part of this article. — Sebastian 09:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Although it may not be canonical white notation, it certainly shows the vestiges of such notation long after most people think it was obsolete. What we need in order to give it some perspective is more examples of earlier white mensural notation. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but a more persistant instances are found in Fr. Couperin, while there are many examples of hemiola bars in Charpentier where three noirs equal two bars worth of blanches. I have access to facsimiles but no scanner or experience posting images to WP. Would a pdf be of use?Sparafucil 04:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

We can't use PDF files, but if you would like to send it to me, I could make a screenshot or two of it and post it here. — Sebastian 03:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I uploaded it - see below. — Sebastian 05:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Some notes in the last line seem to have no stems. Is this correct? —Wahoofive (talk) 02:59, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The noires (black notes) follow the same scheme as the blanches (white notes):

• No stem = longest value
• with stem = half of the above
• with flag = half of the above

However, I still don't see the point of the notation. At first I thought the noires indicated quadruplets, which would have been nifty, but I now realize that one unstemmed noire has exactly the same value as a stemmed blanche. Sparafucil wrote above "three noirs equal two bars worth of blanches". Since there are three (unstemmed) noires in bar 14, and all other bars have 3 stemmed blanches, that would make the unstemmed noires exactly as long as the unstemmed blanches, so there seems to be no point in differentiating them. So, Sparafucil, what's the point of this notation? — Sebastian 03:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the point is that unstemmed = unstemmed and that the coloration is alerting us to a hemiola bar in 3/1. Btw, sorry the time signature at the beginning isnt cleaned up yet (Charpentier uses 3); there's obviously some cludging involved in getting Sibelius to beam crochets. Sparafucil 05:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that seems like a very arbitrary idiosyncracy without any practical use. Lots of rennaissance music has syncopes that cross a bar line - why not just write bar 14 like this: ? — Sebastian 06:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole point was that this was an anachronism for Charpentier; the fact that there were conventional ways to notate this only underscores its idiosyncrasy. Still, our efforts would be better spent finding more typical examples from an earlier period. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me to get back on track. For me, before my curiosity distracted me, the whole point of this discussion was to find out if Charpentier's notation should be featured in this article. Can we now agree that it's just an idiosyncracy that does not make the bar for an encyclopedia? — Sebastian 20:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be valid if the article had more content. At the moment it kind of sticks out. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I substituted a chunk for the Te Deum example in the article. Since the history section touches on the 17c, it doesnt seem so out of place. We now have an example of the mensural system in full flower and one of its decadence; maybe an emergent example would be useful as well. Sparafucil 02:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice example. I note, though, that there are a couple of grayish quarter rests near the beginning and end, undoubtedly a side effect of the effort to convince Sibelius (or some notation program) to produce this weird notation. Possible to fix? —Wahoofive (talk) 05:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to diminish Sparafucil's effort of creating this picture, but I really don't think it belongs here. Let me rephrase my reason using what I learned from the discussion so far:

Charpentier's notation is not even close to a mensural notation: In all the points that distinguish mensural from modern notation, it resembles the modern notation. (This not only apllies to superficial similarity, but to all structural, syntactical and logical properties, such as context-independent note values, lack of ligatures, use of a dot for lengthening instead of signum perfectionis, and so on.) The only difference to modern notation is that it codes note values differently, using two parallel systems of blanches and noires, where each blanche has the same value as the noire. That, however, never was the case in any mensural notation!

I could imagine this notation to be covered in the article on Marc-Antoine Charpentier or in some article on unusual musical notations. However, even in that case, its notability would need to be established; currently, there are no sources for this which makes it look like original research. — Sebastian 18:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlike the Te Deum (where we seem to agree), this example cannot be correctly interpreted within the modern system: the point is that the black notes are _not_ the same values. It is of course arguable that coloration is not the most important feature of the mensural system, but this does represent pretty nearly its last gasp. I dont understand your point about "notability", or what sources should be given beyond the one I supplied; do you mean my reading of the ms. is original research? Sparafucil 09:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting tired and bored of the repetitive and silly argument that it's mensural just because it's not completely modern. (Your arguments are just red herrings: I agree that this example cannot be correctly interpreted within the modern system, but of course that doesn't make it a mensural notation. Likewise, the question if blanche=noire is irrelevant: This is not a criterion that distinguishes mensural from modern notation.) This is really getting too silly now.

Re: "what sources should be given beyond the one I supplied": There's not a single source in the whole 17th century section! Please read WP:CITE.

But above all, the question if this is mensural or not is not something that should be decided between you and me. Per WP:OR we need to base this on reliable sources. Since we have no source (not even an unreliable one) that backs up that section I will remove it. — Sebastian 16:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I assure you I am not being willfully boring and silly; I'm just unable to follow some of your argument: if it's not modern, what is it?. Perhaps the Charpentier example will be useful to someone doing an article on coloration. Our mutual incomprehension does highlight the article's lack of a clear definition of the word mensural. I take its essence to be the dependence of a note's rythmic value on mensural/time signatures, and I extend that to the implied time signatures of coloration. Different examples can be found in Monteverde, where in the Malpiero ed. music in common time is often interupted by a 3 followed by two bars of three whole notes each. The new complete ed. gives these as one bar of quarter note triplets with no change of time signature, which is clearly a mensural interpretation of the notation, whether one agrees with it or not. Sparafucil 12:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your polite reply; I apologize for my impatient statement above, and I value that you are deescalating it.

While I do enjoy discussions about music, this is unfortunately not the right place for it. I, too, got carried away and forgot that Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. There is a clear policy about that - Wikipedia:No original research - which applies exactly to our situation: The statement that Charpentier's notation is an example of mensural notation fits the definition of that policy that forbids "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories."

While it is irrelevant what you and I think about the example, our mutual incomprehension still bothers me, and I think I owe you a reply to your question "if it's not modern, what is it?". I think the answer is simple: It is Charpentier's idiosyncratic notation. It is derived from modern notation, just like shape notes or modern tabulature. Nobody says a notation can only be either modern or mensural. — Sebastian 22:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

No one ever claimed it was true mensural notation, just that it contained vestiges of mensural notation well after modern notation was broadly adopted. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I was just answering Sparafucil's question. You know what, this is not going anywhere. Please let's just stop it. It is a moot discussion anyway. As I said, it is irrelevant what we think about the example. — Sebastian 04:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the point you're making about coloration is interesting. I'll bring it up at talk:coloration. — Sebastian 23:44, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, in my haste to create a coloration (music) stub I moved your talk page, which belongs with the color disambiguation page. I can't find undo, but will attempt to move it back. Sparafucil 02:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for writing this; it seems to be fixed now. — Sebastian 04:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Black notation is red? I thought it just was called red note notation. ...

....Black Notation, colored notes were written in red.

If so, I have to rewrite Cordier and Chantilly.

[edit] previous comment by Shlishke

Sorry, forgot to sign. Shlishke (talk) 21:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)