2.9.2 Ancient notation—common features
Pre-defined contexts
For Gregorian chant and mensural notation, there are pre-defined
voice and staff contexts available, which set all the various
notation signs to values suitable for these styles. If one is
satisfied with these defaults, one can proceed directly with note
entry without worrying about the details on how to customize a
context. See one of the pre-defined contexts
VaticanaVoice, VaticanaStaff, MensuralVoice,
and MensuralStaff. See further
See also
Music Glossary: mensural notation.
Notation Reference: Gregorian chant contexts, Mensural contexts.
Ligatures
A ligature is a graphical symbol that represents at least two distinct notes. Ligatures originally appeared in the manuscripts of Gregorian chant notation to denote ascending or descending sequences of notes on the same syllable. They are also used in mensural notation.
Ligatures are entered by enclosing them in \[ and
\]. Some ligature styles may need additional input syntax
specific for this particular type of ligature. By default, the
LigatureBracket engraver just puts a square bracket
above the ligature.
\relative {
\[ g' c, a' f d' \]
a g f
\[ e f a g \]
}
Two other ligature styles are available: the Vaticana for
Gregorian chant, and the Mensural for mensural music (only white
mensural ligatures are supported for mensural music, and with
certain limitations). To use any of these styles, the default
Ligature_bracket_engraver has to be replaced with one of the
specialized ligature engravers in the Voice context,
as explained in White mensural ligatures and
Gregorian square neume ligatures.
See also
Music Glossary: ligature.
Notation Reference: White mensural ligatures, Gregorian square neume ligatures.
Known issues and warnings
Spacing required for ligatures is not currently implemented and, as a result, there may end up being too much space between them. Line breaking may also be unsatisfactory.
Lyrics might not align as expected when using ligatures.
Accidentals must not be printed within a ligature, but instead be collected and printed in front of it.
The syntax still uses the deprecated “infix” style
\[ music expr \]. For consistency reasons, it will eventually
be changed to “postfix” style note\[ … note\].
Custodes
A custos (plural: custodes; Latin word for “guard”) is a symbol that appears at the end of a staff. It anticipates the pitch of the first note of the following line, thus helping the performer to manage line breaks during performance.
Custodes were frequently used in music notation until the seventeenth century. Nowadays, they have survived only in a few particular forms of musical notation such as contemporary editions of Gregorian chant like the Editio Vaticana. There are different custos glyphs used in different flavors of notational style.
For typesetting custodes, just put a Custos_engraver into the
Staff context when declaring the \layout block, and change
the style of the custos with an \override if desired, as shown in
the following example:
\score {
\relative {
a'1
\break
g
}
\layout {
\context {
\Staff
\consists "Custos_engraver"
\override Custos.style = #'mensural
}
}
}
The custos glyph is selected by the style property. The styles
supported are vaticana, medicaea, hufnagel, and
mensural.
\new Lyrics \lyricmode {
\markup { \column {
\typewriter "vaticana "
\line { " " \musicglyph "custodes.vaticana.u0" }
} }
\markup { \column {
\typewriter "medicaea "
\line { " " \musicglyph "custodes.medicaea.u0" }
}}
\markup { \column {
\typewriter "hufnagel "
\line { " " \musicglyph "custodes.hufnagel.u0" }
}}
\markup { \column {
\typewriter "mensural "
\line { " " \musicglyph "custodes.mensural.u0" }
}}
}
See also
Music Glossary: custos.
Snippets: Ancient notation.
Internals Reference: Custos.