Re: Old-fashioned rest symbol

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Thursday 17 November 2005 12:58 pm, Daniel Johnson wrote:
> Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> 
> > Eduardo Vieira wrote:
> >
> >> Hello fellows,
> >>  
> >> Does anybody know why the symbol for a fourth-note rest that looks
> >> like an inverted "Z" does not feature in any font of music notation
> >> programs? I'm used to seeing that symbol a lot, especially in
> >> hymnbooks. I wonder why it is so discarded by music programs.
> >> Is it worth including it in Lilypond, since our program already
> >> support some ancient notation? Depending on your opinions, I sure
> >> could help sponsoring it.
> >
> >
> > Can you point me to an image of this symbol?
> >
> In my experience, this rest looks like a backward eighth-rest;
> occasionally one sees it with both an upper and lower flag, hence the
> "Z" -- though actually it's a backward "Z".  It seems to have been in
> fashion mostly in the late 19th century, and appears mostly in hymnals
> and the like, although I have also seen it in certain Bach chorale
> scores.  It is now considered obsolete (it's very hard to read IMO) 
but
> since Lilypond specializes in "obsolete" notation :-) perhaps it 
belongs
> here anyway?

First use that I know of is 1808.  It replaced the 'classical rest',
which was much too easily confused with the eighth rest.  The
advantage of the Z or S rest was that it was not nearly as tall as the
old rest which is in use now, which was simply a letter 'r' designed
to follow a straight sided letter.  The shorter height made it easier
to fit three or more parts on one staff.  It's still better for that.

With the virtual disappearance of guitar music publishing in the
1880's, music publishers reverted to the old blackletter Gutenberg 'r'.
The hymnbooks to which you refer were probably typeset.  Type was
used until it wore out, and that accounts for your seeing it in
later hymnbooks.

I posted a scan with lots of them some years ago.  In sum:

1.  It is the newest rest we have and therefore it is
out of fashion rather than obsolete.

2.  It was more early than late 19th century.

daveA

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