Comments on: TeX and LaTeX for chants http://boyinthebands.com/archives/tex-and-latex-for-chants/ Scott Wells on the practice of Christian faith Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:47:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Scott Wells http://boyinthebands.com/archives/tex-and-latex-for-chants/#comment-36051 Scott Wells Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:00:30 +0000 http://boyinthebands.com/archives/tex-and-latex-for-chants/#comment-36051 Hardcore, indeed. Wouldn't have it any other way. Hardcore, indeed. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

]]> By: Dan http://boyinthebands.com/archives/tex-and-latex-for-chants/#comment-36050 Dan Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:41:00 +0000 http://boyinthebands.com/archives/tex-and-latex-for-chants/#comment-36050 Beautiful stuff. But. You have to be a very special kind of geek to want to learn neumes, *and* a special variant of TeX that can depict neumes. And really how many musicians do you know who can sightread neumes (or mensural notation for that matter)? Frainkly, I don't know any. I know the purists will gasp and tell me I am a heretic (oh wait I *am* a heretic), but really plainsong chant (and mensural notation) can be adequately notated in conventional musical notation.... Right now, I'm looking at a nice edition of Hildegards' "Songs for the Blessed Virgin Mary" put out by Hildegard Publishing House of Bryn Mawr, Penna., an edition which uses slightly modified standard musical notation (the only non-standard thing is that the note heads don't have stems). For those of us who just want to play the music, it makes Hildegard's chants accessible. Neumes, and then TeX to boot -- oy. That's really hardcore. Beautiful stuff.

But. You have to be a very special kind of geek to want to learn neumes, and a special variant of TeX that can depict neumes.

And really how many musicians do you know who can sightread neumes (or mensural notation for that matter)? Frainkly, I don’t know any. I know the purists will gasp and tell me I am a heretic (oh wait I am a heretic), but really plainsong chant (and mensural notation) can be adequately notated in conventional musical notation….

Right now, I’m looking at a nice edition of Hildegards’ “Songs for the Blessed Virgin Mary” put out by Hildegard Publishing House of Bryn Mawr, Penna., an edition which uses slightly modified standard musical notation (the only non-standard thing is that the note heads don’t have stems). For those of us who just want to play the music, it makes Hildegard’s chants accessible.

Neumes, and then TeX to boot — oy. That’s really hardcore.

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