Marking Rests in Olden Days

[robcat2075]

How to notate multiple measure rests, from a 1751 flute method by Michel Corrette
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MichelCorretteRests.jpg

[VJOFan]

So they didn't need numbers at all and the space indicates the relative length of time. The copyist needed to be on point though. Much easier to make a great horizontal slash an scribble a number above.

[harrisonreed]

I've occasionally seen the markings for 2 and 3 bar rests as seen above, but they've also had numbers above them. It's a practice I'm glad has changed.

If you are marking 50 measures of rests in a block, regardless of using numbers or weird bar symbols like this, you are either:

1. Trying to conserve ink and copyist time in the 18th century
2. You actively hate the musicians playing your piece
3. You've written some really bizarre piece without and kind of phrasing or landmarks.
4. You suck at engraving or arranging music.

There is really no excuse for not breaking up multi-rests based on phrases, or writing in small cues so the musician can follow the piece while they sit out.

[Doug Elliott]

Aren't most classical orchestra parts marked that way, with a number over them? I know I've seen those markings but it's been a while since I played an orchestra gig. I kinda like it.

[Finetales]

I've only seen these symbols without numbers over them in baroque stuff and earlier. It's a holdover from when there weren't bar lines either so the only way to notate rests was with different symbols. In that context these symbols are the only way to go.

As Doug mentioned, it's very common in older orchestral editions to do this with numbers over them through 8 or 9 measures, and anything higher is a bar rest. I actually really like that system, as it provides more visual difference than just having everything 2 and up be a bar rest.

You can actually do this in notation software. In Sibelius it's literally a single setting in the Engraving Rules, and I do use it from time to time. I like it!

[AtomicClock]

You can actually do this in notation software. In Sibelius it's literally a single setting in the Engraving Rules

Lilypond does it by default for rests up to 10 measures long.

FunnyRests.JPG

It can be changed with:

Code: Select all

\override MultiMeasureRest.expand-limit = #1

[Doug Elliott]

Cool. Maybe I'll start using it in Sibelius. I'm sure my players will be amused.

[Finetales]

Here's an example in Sibelius. Not engraved yet, but even as is I think the old-style multirests look great. If I remember right it only does it up through 8 measures and then switches to bar rests at 9+, which I think makes the most sense.

[robcat2075]

Yes it's all correct and legal, but carrying this practice out to 40 or 50 measures speaks to the excessive love of graphic complexity in that era.

It is an outlook in which more is more and never enough. "Why use three strokes when we can fit in 10?"

Look at this front page. The whole book is set in this ornate italic.

MichelCorretteFront.jpg

It is possible that he is just bowing to realities and wanting to prepare his students for notation they might encounter in the real world. And any student can look at that and dream of the day they become so accomplished that they have occasion to complain that they are being paid to count 50 measures of rest.


But when the new century dawns some good sense has begun to creep in. Here is a page from an 1809 edition of Beethoven's 5th. Twelve measures seems to be the editor's limit; beyond that he puts in the simple bar we know today.

Beethoven5Trb.jpg

[LeTromboniste]

As Tiffany noted, these symbols originate from a period where barlines where not used. If you don't have any barlines in the music (and therefore no bars), you can't use multirests that indicate a number of bars. The only thing you can do is show the actual rest values. It's quite common in early music prints to find annotations by musicians of the time who added the number of rests (usually the amount of whole-note rests to count) above larger groups of rests. It's also not very common to find such long rests as worth 40 or 50 whole notes, to be fair. Also, you'll notice that the rests in the examples are usually grouped by 8 (sometimes by 4), with each group of 8 shifted up and down in altetnation, so that's its visually easy to count them, even when there's no number above the staff (which earlier is usually the case).

These rests are counted differently depending on the time signature, by the way. If it's "alla breve" and you're counting two whole notes per large beat instead of two half notes, one rest covering two spaces is worth 2 large beats of two whole notes, each, instead of 4 large beats of two half notes. Because when you have no barlines, you can't use the whole note rest as shorthand for a full bar rest regardless of time signature anymore than you can use multirests. The rests shown have to reflect the actual absolute value, not a number of relative units.

I'm a bit puzzled by the surprise expressed here. That's standard notation (although up to a smaller number before they switch to multirests) until the 20th century not just a weird baroque thing. Most of the Common Era repertoire is notated like that, including a lot of famous trombone solo pieces. Open your David and Guilmant, and you'll see rests notated according to this convention.

[LeTromboniste]

It is possible that he is just bowing to realities and wanting to prepare his students for notation they might encounter in the real world.

I think that's what's going on here. Its a method book, just showing you what you need to know, not necessarily reflective of what you'd find in an actual piece. I play from old notation much older than Correte and without barlines all the time, and we only very rarely encounter rests that long. It just doesn't really happen. I think he's just demonstrating here something along the lines of "if you see these rests, here's how you can count them and can quickly recognize the length without having to count the spaces covered by each individual rest"

[LeTromboniste]

Here's a page from a 1629 trombone part. Not many rests here, except that one chunk in the middle (where the trombone rests while the two soprano instruments have a solo passage, in response to the trombone's solo just a bit earlier), which is worth 14 whole notes plus an 8th note.

You might notice that counting the rests is not exactly the most difficult thing to deal with her, either in terms of reading the notation or in terms of playing!

[tbdana]

I've seen those rest markings used as late as Strauss.