Writing About Music

Two similar “roadmap” symbols that are often confused are DC and DS.

DC, which stands for “da capo,” means “go to the very beginning and play it again.” Think, C stands for cap, which you wear on your head. “Take it from the top.”

DS, which sands for “dal segno,” means “go to the funny looking ‘segno’ symbol (sign), and play from there.” It is always paired with the aforementioned funny looking segno symbol. Think, S stands for silly sign.

DSs are most common when there is an introduction that you don’t want to repeat.

Either can be paired with a further direction after you repeat, such as “al Fine” (play until the Fine sign, and then stop) or “al Coda” (play until the coda, or follow the “to coda” direction).

In this example of a DC al Fine, we do this:

1. Play measures 1 to 8.
2. Play measures 1 to 4, and then stop.

In this example of a DS al Coda, we do this:

1. Play measures 1 to 12.
2. Play measures 5 to 8.
3. Play measures 13 and 14, and then stop.

Some of the “rules” of music notation are really more appropriately considered “ideals, if you can manage it.” One of these is the desire to set four bars per system.

Often, this is great idea. So much music is based on phrases of four bars, and if you can keep a phrase intact, it is easier to read. Here’s an example of where this works out nicely.

But what if there was a busy bee-like accompaniment, say sixteenth note runs? Fitting four bars per system here would be pretty hard to read, even if we reduced the notation size to make it fit.

Tempting would be to set just two bars per line. This would preserve some sub-phrases and give the sixteenth notes room. However, it would also make the score a lot choppier to read, not only because of the system breaks, but also the additional page breaks that would be required. Figuring three systems per page, we’d need five pages, which is very obnoxious on a music stand or piano desk.

In this case, the best compromise would be three bars per line for the first two systems. Overall, this would be the most readable solution, and the whole piece would fit on three pages—relatively managable. Though the phrases don’t correspond to the systems, the notes are all clear, and this needs to be the primary consideration, in an imperfect world.

I might vary the number of bars per system, to make page breaks easier, and to generally cause logical groupings, where appropriate. The important thing is to let go of the sense that “the rule says four bars per line,” and to choose a measure layout that provides for the most readable score.

Discussions of imaginary barlines tend to get very mathematical. It’s easier to think of them in terms of clarifying syncopation.

An imaginary barline is a notation convention designed to help the music reader know what’s syncopated—off the beat—and what’s not. It’s not an actual notation mark; it is an understanding and a notation convention.

In 4/4, the imaginary barline separates beats 1 and 2 from beats 3 and 4. Only whole notes and non-syncopated half and dotted half notes can be notated as “crossing the imaginary barline.” No other note durations can cross them. Rather, they must be rewritten as pairs of tied notes, with beat 3 being shown. This makes the notation much easier to read.

So, these are acceptable:

The ones below are not acceptable. Again, the reason is that the notes crossing the imaginary barline disguise the fact that the music is syncopated.

Much easier to follow are the following revisions. The notes are tied, and the target note of the tie re-articulates beat 3, and thus clarifies where the syncopation lies.

In some Latin music, there is a notable notation exception to this convention: bass lines with the following syncopated rhythm. But this is a rare acceptable exception to the general rule.

Beams never cross imaginary barlines. Some publishers group beats on each side of it together, while others begin new beam groups on every beat. These are other ways to clarify the metric organization.

These are correct:

These are incorrect:

Similarly, beams are used to clarify other meters besides 4/4, and the other rules of imaginary barlines also apply to them. Many of these signatures can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and thoughtful beaming can greatly clarify how the music is to be performed. Again, it’s about clarifying subdivisions and which beats are emphasized. Meters have subdivisions every two or three beats, and more complex time signatures (e.g., 7/8, 12/8) might have multiple imaginary barlines to consider. Below, the beams show how some other meters are commonly organized. Other options are available.

This concept of clarifying syncopations also applies when you drill down deeper, into smaller divisions of the measure. For example, this notation clarifies beat 2, and thus the fact that the notation is off the beat. This is a clear way to write that rhythm because the relationship between the sounding notes and the meter is clarified, via the tie.

Here, however, the syncopation is more difficult to figure out, and thus, to be avoided.

These “rules” of notation help make music as easy to read, and thus, interpret. When the notation follows the music’s intent, it becomes much easier for the reader to understand, especially at a glance.

There are a number of ways to integrate music notation into text. See, you can do this:

Best practice, the text is set in a text-editing program, such as Word or Word Perfect. These programs are optimized for issues related to text, with features such as spell-check, text find/replace, and easy ways to edit the text’s font, style, and so on. For informal final products, such as exercises for students, a good word processing program might be all you need.

For more formal publications (books, ads, coffee mugs, etc.), you might eventually import your text into desktop publishing software, such as InDesign or Quark. These give much more control over placement. For Web use, you might use a Web design program. This blog is created using WordPress. But I always start my writing in Word, just because it’s optimized for editing text.

Then, you have to get the notation in a form where it can be imported into the software that will eventually house all the content. All these programs have ways to import graphic files. In Word, you can choose Insert > Picture > From File. Some programs use other terminology, such as Place or Set (even Browse), accessed from a menu called something like File or Import.

The notation itself has to be a graphical file: EPS, TIFF, PDF, JPG, etc. The different file formats have different strengths and limitations. EPSs provide best quality, but there are often font compatibility issues with them, which is an issue if multiple people are working with the file. TIFFs are very portable and predictable, but they distort if you change their size, and they are much larger files than EPSs. Not all formats are compatible with all software.

Anyhow, notation must somehow be converted into one of those graphical formats. Handwritten notation scan be scanned. Better, though, is to generate notation with dedicated notation software, such as Finale, and then render it as a graphic.

Finale has a Graphics tool that lets you define a notation region (drag a marquee box around what you want your graphic to be) and then “export” it from Finale (Graphics > Export Selection) to your hard drive. Then, that exported file can be imported into Word, InDesign, or whatever.

You could also use a screen capture program to grab your graphic. The Mac OS has a handy shortcut: Command-Shift-4, then drag. This lets you take a screen shot of part of your screen. I do that for this blog, mostly because it is very quick. The print quality isn’t so great (it’s a low res jpg), but it is handy for this relatively informal purpose, particularly because it is intended to be displayed on a computer screen.

Once you can integrate notation and text, you can write books, articles, classroom assignments, and much more. If you are writing for a publisher, discuss with them what the best delivery format will be, and if they have any file organization parameters. I’ll discuss some of the Berklee Press preferences for file organization in a future post.

A “pickup measure” is a running start to bar 1. Pickup measures contain fewer beats than a complete measure—often just one quarter or eighth note. Essentially, it is “measure 0.”

Measure numbers start after the pickup measure so that there is an intuitive relationship between bar numbers and musical phrases. If you’ve got a 12-bar blues, the first phrase is most intuitively referenced as measures 1 to 4, not 2 to 5. Or, in a 16-bar form, your chorus should start at bar 9, not bar 10. Most popular music is constructed in 4-bar phrases, and it is usually clearer for the measure numbers to support the song form.

In Finale, set a pickup measure via Document > Pickup Measure, and then choose the duration of the pickup measure. This will set the measure numbers correctly so that you don’t have to control it via Measure > Measure Numbers > Edit Regions.

Set a double barline between the pickup measure and bar 1, just to signal to the reader that the first physical bar is actually a pickup measure.

If your pickup note begins off the beat, perhaps on the eighth note at 4+ (subdividing sixteenths 4e+a), it’s helpful to your readers if you also give them an eighth rest, just to clarify that the pickup is off the beat. (Note that the measure number for bar 1 is generally omitted; I’m including it for illustration purposes only.)

Another issue at “measure 0” is whether to have an opening repeat symbol if the whole form repeats. Though you’ll find many examples in the field where this is omitted, best notation practice is to include it. This way, the reader has an immediate indication that the form is going to repeat.

Don’t leave it out, as below. Though you’ll see this done even by smart, caring writers, it’s not as clear as the above example.

In recent Finale versions, the contextual menu for the Repeat tool has made adding repeat symbols so easy. Just Control-click a measure or highlighted measure region, with the Repeat tool active, and choose the symbol you want.

In grammar and style guides, a tremendous amount of ink has been devoted to the topic of when to use words and when to use numerals. Many book publishers, including Berklee Press, use the Chicago Manual of Style as their guide for such things. Although CMS makes a valiant attempt at clarifying this topic, the needs of music writing are very specific, and other resources have been necessary in our quest towards clarity and consistency with this.

I found that the most helpful resources are ones devoted to the most technical forms of scientific writing. Fun reading, let me tell you. In this post, I will share some of the insights I’ve gained about when to use numerals and when to use words.

A guiding principle, though, is this: Numerals are different than words, and they are an interruption to the reader’s general flow. They can be a great help in clarifying comparisons and names, but they should be used thoughtfully because there is the danger that they can become annoying.

As with all matters of writing, clarity is key.

The CMS general rule is to write out all whole numbers from –100 to 100. A-hah, you say! You should have written “minus one hundred to one hundred.” Well, I wish I could have, but when quantities are set in close proximity, as in a range, it’s clearer to use numerals.

See the game?

Here’s a sentence that took a ton of research to construct, the process of which was extremely helpful to me in understanding how to render numerals.

1. “A 12-bar blues has three 4-bar phrases.”

[applause, please…]

Here, we have two types of quantities: types of musical constructions (12-bar, 4-bar) and a quantity of objects of these types (three). It’s clearer to have a distinction in how these differing logical organizations are rendered. Compare that above sentence to the alternatives:

2. “A twelve-bar blues has three four-bar phrases.”

3. “A 12-bar blues has 3 4-bar phrases.”

The eye has to puzzle out examples (2) and (3) in a way that it doesn’t have to puzzle out (1). Example (3) is particularly difficult, figuring out the 3 and 4. It’s an example of a numeral being annoying and disruptive rather than clarifying.

By the way, I set parentheses around example numerals because I don’t want to confuse the other numerals with my example numerals. So, each type of number gets a unique treatment, and reading comprehension is served, hopefully.

This gets hairy, hairy, hairy. One of the most difficult types of writing to do is writing about music theory for guitar, as in Jon Damian’s recent book, The Chord Factory. Why? Because there are a great many types of numbers involved. You’ve got:

String numbers
Fret numbers
Finger numbers
Interval numbers
Chord extension numbers
Scale tone numbers

With your first finger on the 1st fret of the 6th string and your third finger on the 3rd fret of the 4th string, play a fifth from the root, and then imagine the C9 accompaniment….

[more applause, please….]

It’s quite murderous, tracking these over hundreds of pages (not to mention, hundreds of books).

Beyond just specifying rule after rule, there are a couple principles that I find helpful to keep in mind.

1. If something is identified or categorized by its number, then use the numeral (or “ordinal” form of the numeral, e.g., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). 16-track unit, 1st fret, fret 1, page 6. Cmin7(9)

2. If there are two different types of numbers that are likely to be discussed in close proximity to each other, see if there is a logical way to make them different, even if it forces you to violate some “rules.” “Put your first finger on the 1st fret.” Or, rework: Put your 1st finger on fret 1.”

3. If you are comparing more than two quantities, use numerals. I have 2, you have 6, and she has all 9.” That’s an example of numerals being clarifying.

It is a great challenge to make sure that these are stylistically consistent at the book and catalog level, and this is where lists of rules can be helpful. Again, though, you sometimes need to violate the rules to achieve clarity.

Here are the “rules” listed in the Berklee Press Style Guide, which have a specific slant towards music writing and are thus supplementary to CMS. Unfortunately, this list seems to be ever expanding. I think it was originally compiled by Susan Gedutis Lindsay.

Words

Whole numbers (zero to one hundred, including negative numbers)

Numbers that begin a sentence (Three thousand fifty-five people…)

Intervals (Play both notes of the minor third in measure 3.)

Also note: In labels in musical examples, intervals are abbreviated using the numeral and its quality. M (major), m (minor), and P (perfect), as in M7, m3, P5.

Note values up to sixteenths (whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, but 32nd note, 64th note, etc.)

Beat quantities (A half note lasts for two beats.)

Measure quantities (Vamp for sixteen bars.)

Inversions (first inversion)

Finger number (Third finger)

Numerals

Numbers with decimals and fractions (1.56, 2 1/2)

Measure numbers (measures 3–11)

Item names where numbers are important (16-track recorder, 12-bar blues)

Model numbers (DX-7, Hammond B3 organ)

Money ($25)

Note values larger than a sixteenth note (32nd note)

Beat numbers (beats 2 and 4)

Scale degrees (Degree 4 of C major is F.)

Chord degrees (A major triad has a major 3rd.)

Chord numbers (Substitute VI for II at the coda.)

Metronome markings (Set the quarter note to 88 bpm.)

String number (First finger on the 3rd string.)

Fret or position (7th fret or fret 7)

Time signatures (4/4)

Forms (12-bar blues)

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