Re: School of Syncopation - Jazz, Stride, Novelties & the Li
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 12:55 pm
Hello,
HHH, Yes "segno" is definitely getting closer in terms of the word to describe the symbol. The Oxford Companion to music (Scholes) 10th edition has a Table 20 - the segno (Italian = sign) is depicted as a sort of crossed out 8 (or S in inverted commas) - I can't reproduce it here. Al Segno - "To The sign", meaning go to the mark (crossed out S / 8). But apparently it may mean different things. The segno here obviously became the 'conventional' sign. In complicated music of repeated passages, for the purpose of saving ink, paper and typesetting or engraving costs, there were sometimes more thsan one "segno" in use. (I mean distinct symbols as opposed to "segno 1 & segno 2".
The sign or mark therefore could, (as I surmised) really be any squiggle one chooses, and maybe once depended entirely on a publisher's whim, but as Livefor Piano has pointed out the modern convention is the dotted bar. Even if the crossed out S / 8 is used and is called "segno" by typesetters, the one on pages 6 & 8 must surely have been distinguished by typesetters as something other than just "segno" - e.g. double segno, super segno. extra curly segno or whatever (and whatever the german equivalent may have been!).
I don't know why this piques my interest or bothers me so much ! In terms of function it is clearly only a repeat, and maybe merely whimsically designated by this particular publisher as the in-house "segno", even if not conventional. The fact that it wasn't conventional, prompted me to ask the original question and wonder whether it had any additional function and, (for esoterically trivial reasons), any additional or differing function to the conventional "segno" and especially whether that particular symbol / segno had an individual name.
Groves doesn't illustrate any repeat signs, but does state that the use of the repeat sign was inconsistent both in publishing and performance.
I'm still looking for my musical notation encyclopaedia - maybe that can provide further enlightenment.
What started as a casual aside is proving to be quite interesting.
Will keep looking and report any discoveries!
Thanks for the input.
Regards,
tobyjj
HHH, Yes "segno" is definitely getting closer in terms of the word to describe the symbol. The Oxford Companion to music (Scholes) 10th edition has a Table 20 - the segno (Italian = sign) is depicted as a sort of crossed out 8 (or S in inverted commas) - I can't reproduce it here. Al Segno - "To The sign", meaning go to the mark (crossed out S / 8). But apparently it may mean different things. The segno here obviously became the 'conventional' sign. In complicated music of repeated passages, for the purpose of saving ink, paper and typesetting or engraving costs, there were sometimes more thsan one "segno" in use. (I mean distinct symbols as opposed to "segno 1 & segno 2".
The sign or mark therefore could, (as I surmised) really be any squiggle one chooses, and maybe once depended entirely on a publisher's whim, but as Livefor Piano has pointed out the modern convention is the dotted bar. Even if the crossed out S / 8 is used and is called "segno" by typesetters, the one on pages 6 & 8 must surely have been distinguished by typesetters as something other than just "segno" - e.g. double segno, super segno. extra curly segno or whatever (and whatever the german equivalent may have been!).
I don't know why this piques my interest or bothers me so much ! In terms of function it is clearly only a repeat, and maybe merely whimsically designated by this particular publisher as the in-house "segno", even if not conventional. The fact that it wasn't conventional, prompted me to ask the original question and wonder whether it had any additional function and, (for esoterically trivial reasons), any additional or differing function to the conventional "segno" and especially whether that particular symbol / segno had an individual name.
Groves doesn't illustrate any repeat signs, but does state that the use of the repeat sign was inconsistent both in publishing and performance.
I'm still looking for my musical notation encyclopaedia - maybe that can provide further enlightenment.
What started as a casual aside is proving to be quite interesting.
Will keep looking and report any discoveries!
Thanks for the input.
Regards,
tobyjj