Reddit mentions of Music Notation in the Twentieth Century: A Practical Guidebook

Oh. I have never used it, but there are some general tips for notating non-standard or extended techniques:

1. Try to get your hands on a book about twentieth century or contemporary notation/composition, and see if there is any codified way to notate the specific technique. Or,
   
   
2. Give the note some sort of articulation, like an accent or marcato (housetop), and then write what you want to happen above the note. (In English, if no other language is the standard.)
   
   For your example, I would just give the note a marcato accent and write "Scratch-tone" above it. Just try to be as clear as possible. Down the road, if a string player or someone knows of a better way for the notation, be receptive of their advice and change it.

Kurt Stone's Music Notation in the Twentieth Century is still pretty reliable.

>There are cases where it is not practical to have an extra 3rd staff, or to put 3 parts in one staff, or to have so many ledger lines.

What on earth are you writing then? This would be a lot easier if you provided an example.

>VisuallyI think it looks better to have 8va over the whole staff, to retain the standard SATP two parts per staff look, with specific 'loco' or the at pitch lower part, compared to changing the system layout, or excessive ledger lines.

Cart before the horse much? Ledger lines are preferable to octave signs most of the time. And if you have more than an octave between two adjacent parts, you're not following SATB rules anyway.

>Doesn't 65wint have actual engraving experience?!:)

Seems like a moot point. I do too. ;) Where does that leave you?

No notation manual talks about this because it's bonkers. I'm looking at Gould (2011) (the current standard), Stone (1980) and Nicholl/Grudzinski (2007). The only reference to this practice I can find is in Clinton Roemer - The Art of Music Copying (1973), and only in relation to a conductor part, "a highly condenser and compressed version of the score... made for arrangements to be used in night clubs, concerts and book shows, for stage band publications, and so on." (195) It's important to note that nobody actually plays off this part; it's there so that the conductor doesn't have to turn as many pages as they would with a full score. Conductor parts usually don't have all the notes, might have unconventional shorthands (like this 8va/loco thing... maybe; read on), and are used mostly to highlight entrances. Roemer doesn't even use the notation like you're talking about. Here it is. In that image, he even says "instruments should be written where they sound." And these are some of the guidelines to those parts:

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>>1. Conductor parts for simple instrumental arrangements can most often be written on a single line.

>>2. For more complex arrangements, it is better to use a braced part utilizing both treble and bass clefs. In this type of part, it becomes possible to write all Instruments where they sound.

>>3. Occasionally a vocal arrangement will require a three system part because of a duet that cannot be written on one vocal line, or because of a complicated orchestral part that requires two lines. Also, instrumental conductor parts for symphonic size orchestras often demand that a three, or even four system part be written. In all of these cases, 12-stave paper should be used.

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>That's what I was looking for, that centuries-old experience of engraving notation.

It sounds to me like you would be better off looking for sensible solutions to your easily fixable notation problems. Having edited manuscripts and engraved scores dating back to the 1500s, I can tell you that there's a lot of shitty, nonstandardized notation out there. But you do you, boo. A good rule to go by (although not always the best rule) is that if you see it in an engraved score from the 19th century, you can do it too. Good luck on that one.

>I took a masterclass recently in medieval/Renaissance organ music, and she mentioned the transition from movable type, to copper engraving, in the 16th century scores:) Interesting topic....she showed a score (the new at the time copper engraving) where beaming occurred, which wasn't possible (shwith movable type music notation. The 8th notes had a combination of flags and beams. Really nice looking

Huh?

When I was in school, we were required to use Kurt Stone's notation guide as a source of first resort for non-standard notation. It's a bit dated by now, but it is very thorough. I recommend it. If you or your library has a copy, take a look. There may some pertinent examples that you can adapt to your purposes.

I'm thinking that you don't need an ossia staff since you are not offering concurrent optional lines. You can just change the staff style for the moments of extended technique. I'd be especially precise about the effect you're looking for. If you care about pitch, even if approximate, you'll need some way to convey that. If you want indiscriminate slapping at whatever string happens to get in the way, you can probably just use an 'x' notehead and treat it more or less like a percussion element.

Lots of things to think about!