Music engraving

Sample of hand-copied music manuscript, in ink, of a piece composed for piano

Music engravingis theartof drawingmusic notationat high quality for the purpose of mechanical reproduction. The termmusic copyingis almost equivalent—thoughmusic engravingimplies a higher degree of skill and quality, usually for publication. The name of the process originates in plateengraving,a widely used technique dating from the late sixteenth century.The termengravingis now used to refer to any high-quality method of drawing music notation, particularly on acomputer( "computer engraving" or "computer setting" ) or by hand ( "hand engraving" ).

Traditional engraving techniques

Elements of music engraving style

Mechanical music engraving began in the middle of the fifteenth century. Asmusical compositionincreased in complexity, so too did the technology required to produce accuratemusical scores.Unlike literary printing, which mainly contains printed words, music engraving communicates several different types of information simultaneously. To be clear to musicians, it is imperative that engraving techniques allow absolute precision. Notes ofchords,dynamic markings,and other notation line up with vertical accuracy. If text is included, each syllable matches vertically with its assigned melody. Horizontally, subdivisions of beats are marked not only by their flags andbeams,but also by the relative space between them on the page.The logistics of creating such precise copies posed several problems for early music engravers, and have resulted in the development of several music engraving technologies.

Movable type

Similar to book printing, music printing began in the fifteenth century with the use ofmovable type.The central problem posed to early music engravers using moveable type was the proper integration of notes, staves, and text. Often, staff lines were hand drawn prior to printing, or added to the printed music afterward.Ottaviano Petrucci,one of the most innovative music printers working at the turn of the sixteenth century, used a triple impression technique that printed staves, text, and notes in three separate steps.

Plate engraving

Music engraving on metal plates, demonstrated byG. Henle Verlag

Althoughplate engravinghad been used since the early fifteenth century for creating visual art and maps, it was not applied to music until 1581.In this method, a mirror image of a complete page of music was engraved onto a metal plate. Ink was then applied to the grooves, and the music print was transferred onto paper. Metal plates could be stored and reused, which made this method an attractive option for music engravers.Copperwas the initial metal of choice for early plates, but by the eighteenth centurypewterbecame the standard material due to its malleability and lower cost.

At first, plates were engraved freely by hand. Eventually, music engravers developed a number of tools to aid in their process, including:

• Arastrumto draw staff lines
• Scorers for staves andbar lines,the use of which inspired the termmusical score
• Flat gravers forledger linesandcrescendos and diminuendos
• Elliptical gravers forties
• Punchesfornoteheads,clefs,accidentals,and letters

Plate engraving was the methodology of choice for music printing until the late nineteenth century, at which point its decline was hastened by the development of photographic technology.Nevertheless, the technique has survived to the present day, and is still occasionally used by select publishers such asG. Henle Verlagin Germany.

Hand copying

Historically, a musician was required to draw his ownstafflines (staves) onto blank paper. Eventually, staff paper was manufactured pre-printed with staves as a labor-saving technique. The musician could then write music directly onto the lines in pencil or ink.

In the twentieth century, music staff paper was sometimes printed onvellumoronionskin—a durable, semi-transparent material that made it easier for the musician to correct mistakes and revise the work, and also made it possible to reproduce the manuscript through theozalid process.Also at this time, amusic copyistwas often employed to hand-copy individual parts (for each performer) from a composer's full score. Neatness, speed, and accuracy were desirable traits of a skilled copyist.

Other techniques

• Lithography:Similar to metal plate engraving, the music was etched onto limestone and then burned onto the surface with acid to preserve the stone plates for future use.
• Stencils,stamps,anddry transfers,including the Notaset, a system inspired by theLetrasetused in the twentieth century.Brushing ink through stencils was a high-quality technique used byAmersham-based company Halstan & Co.
• Musictypewriters:Originally developed in the late nineteenth century, this technology did not become popular until the mid-1900s. The machines required the use of pre-printedmanuscript paper.This technique produced low-quality results and was never widely used.

Computer music engraving

Main article:Scorewriter

With the advent of thepersonal computersince the 1980s, traditional music engraving has been in decline, as it can now be accomplished by computersoftwaredesigned for this purpose. There are various such programs, known asscorewriters,designed for writing, editing, printing and playing back music, though only a few produce results of a quality comparable to high-quality traditional engraving. One such program wasSCOREfor MS-DOS. Scorewriters have many advanced features, such as the ability to extract individual parts from an orchestral/band score, to transcribe music played on aMIDIkeyboard, and conversely to play back notation via MIDI.

Beginning in the 1980s,WYSIWYGsoftware such asSibelius,Mozart,MusicEase,MuseScore,Finale,andDoricofirst let musicians enter complex music notation on a computer screen, displaying it just as it will look when eventually printed. Such software stores the music in files of proprietary or standardized formats, usually not directly readable by humans.

Other software, such as GNULilyPondandPhilip's Music Writer,reads input from ordinary text files whose contents resemble a computermacroprogramming language that describes bare musical content with little or no layout specification. The software translates the usually handwritten description into fully engraved graphical pages to view or send for printing, taking care of appearance decisions from high level layout down to glyph drawing. The music entry process is iterative and is similar to the edit-compile-execute cycle used to debug computer programs.

Beside ready-madeapplicationsthere are also someprogramming librariesfor music engraving, such asVexflow(Javascriptlibrary),Verovio(C++,JavascriptandPython),Guido Engine(C++library), andManufaktura Controls(.NETlibraries). The main purpose of these libraries is to reduce time required for development of software with score rendering capabilities.

Further reading

• Elaine Gould.Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music NotationFaber Music Ltd, London.
• Ted Ross.Teach Yourself the Art of Music Engraving & ProcessingHansen Books, Florida.
• Clinton Roemer.The Art of Music Copying: The Preparation of Music for Performance.Roerick Music Co., Sherman Oaks, California.