As a student composer in the late 1960s and early 70s, one of the greatest pleasures was hand-copying music. No, really. In those pre-digital, pre-photocopier days (!) there were basically two ways of distributing music: either typeset by a publisher, or hand copied on vellum (onionskin, a semi-transparent parchment-like paper that once was made out of soaked calfskin; the modern version is a cotton fiber product) and then reproduced. Everything about the process had an old-world craftsman like feel about it, from selecting the paper to choosing the type of fountain pen and nib. There were two basic styles of music calligraphy: either one could use a calligraphy pen freehand, which produced thick/thin lines and looked a little like the modern equivalent of 16th century manuscripts; or you could use music templates and a hollow-tip pen and carefully trace in every symbol using the template, which gave a uniform, printed appearance.
Since one was using indelible india ink on vellum, mistakes couldn't be "erased." You had to either use a razor blade to scrape away the mistake (and risk tearing the paper) or cut out the mistake and patch in a new piece of paper. And if you messed up something fundamental like spacing or transposition, you had to start the page or project over.
It sounds incredibly time-consuming, and it was. But the mental and physical process of copying a long manuscript was very relaxing (as long as you weren't under pressure to get something ready for an immediate performance) and meditative. The main supplier of manuscript paper, vellum, pens, and templates was--and still is--Judy Green Music in West Hollywood. Looking at the Judy Green catalogue, a thick paperback illustrated with manuscript papers, or going to the actual store, was an exercise in imagination and anticipation. All that blank paper, so many possibilities. The act of buying a thick sheaf of orchestra manuscript paper suggested a symphony was in the offing.
In between the complex and full featured notation applications that we use today, and the era of hand-copied music, was the Music Writer, a typewriter for music notation invented by the composer Cecil Effinger in the 1950s. Incredibly expensive ($300 in 1955) and unwieldy to use for all but the simplest projects, the Music Writer did offer uniform appearance without using templates, and in later versions, the ability to correct mistakes. The Music Writer sold well into the early 1980s, when it was made obsolete by digital software.
Next time: the two latest notation packages, head to head.
Since one was using indelible india ink on vellum, mistakes couldn't be "erased." You had to either use a razor blade to scrape away the mistake (and risk tearing the paper) or cut out the mistake and patch in a new piece of paper. And if you messed up something fundamental like spacing or transposition, you had to start the page or project over.
It sounds incredibly time-consuming, and it was. But the mental and physical process of copying a long manuscript was very relaxing (as long as you weren't under pressure to get something ready for an immediate performance) and meditative. The main supplier of manuscript paper, vellum, pens, and templates was--and still is--Judy Green Music in West Hollywood. Looking at the Judy Green catalogue, a thick paperback illustrated with manuscript papers, or going to the actual store, was an exercise in imagination and anticipation. All that blank paper, so many possibilities. The act of buying a thick sheaf of orchestra manuscript paper suggested a symphony was in the offing.
In between the complex and full featured notation applications that we use today, and the era of hand-copied music, was the Music Writer, a typewriter for music notation invented by the composer Cecil Effinger in the 1950s. Incredibly expensive ($300 in 1955) and unwieldy to use for all but the simplest projects, the Music Writer did offer uniform appearance without using templates, and in later versions, the ability to correct mistakes. The Music Writer sold well into the early 1980s, when it was made obsolete by digital software.
Next time: the two latest notation packages, head to head.
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