preservation of music?? Ms. Schulter, anybody??

>Another subset of the most proximal quad produces a milder variety of
triple described by Jacobus of Liege around 1325, <break> but cites
a motet (happily preserved in the Bamberg and Montpellier Codices)
with an opening sonority of A3-C4-E4 to demonstrate that the converse
arrangement is also acceptable. <break>

Both Jacky Ligon and Ed Borasky have me now quite neurotic about
music preservation...

Well, I know about tape. I had early reel-to-reel tapes from the
late '60's, the only home format that existed, that have
disintegrated to the point that they are too fragile without
"restoration" to play...

And, Jacky and Ed are mentioning that DAT tapes last 10 years at
best... CDs, so I have heard, are really not all that much better.

So, the question arises as to how music, in general, is preserved.
It seems as though the written score, with repeated performances over
time is still the best way to preserve it (??)

I know I have seen books and scores in standard libraries that are
*at least* 70 years old, maybe even older. Some are "yellowed," but
they are clearly legible. Certainly I have seen scores from the
1920's and 30's still on library shelves...

How long have books generally lasted? Is it around 100 years??

And, if so, how do we have the works such as the Montpelier and
Bamberg codices mentioned above??

Did they use some special kind of paper... or was it something
*other* than paper...??

How can we possibly have music from 1325 or earlier?? Are these
really the original books?

And, if so, what were the books like in the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries? Did they last as long?

But, if they would only last 100 years, why would we still have
them?? Surely they would not be made as "specially" as the monks did
back in the 13th century (??)

Or have things just been re-copied and re-copied??

Does anybody know about this stuff, or where to look for information??

Thanks!

______ ___ __ __
Joseph Pehrson

> So, the question arises as to how music, in general, is preserved.
> It seems as though the written score, with repeated performances over
> time is still the best way to preserve it (??)

Anything open and digital, so it can be copied faithfully. Closed formats
can become obsolete. MIDI should be okay.:

> I know I have seen books and scores in standard libraries that are
> *at least* 70 years old, maybe even older. Some are "yellowed," but
> they are clearly legible. Certainly I have seen scores from the
> 1920's and 30's still on library shelves...

Yep, sounds likely.

> How long have books generally lasted? Is it around 100 years??

For wood pulp paper, that's the generally agreed timescale.

> And, if so, how do we have the works such as the Montpelier and
> Bamberg codices mentioned above??
>
> Did they use some special kind of paper... or was it something
> *other* than paper...??

Special kind of paper? Well, before about ... 100 years ago, most paper
was made of cotton. That lasts for centuries. So the worst preserved
books tend to be the earliest not to use cotton paper, rather than the
oldest books. If you want your music to last, buy acid-free paper.

Codices could be parchment (animal skin), I'm not sure. Papyrus also
seems to last. Clay tablets last for ages, if they're baked.

> How can we possibly have music from 1325 or earlier?? Are these
> really the original books?

I think so. I saw an old (probably the first) copy of Sumer is a Cumen
In (sp?) a few weeks ago. It was clearly legible, but not so easily
readable, in that it wasn't in modern notation.

> And, if so, what were the books like in the 16th, 17th and 18th
> centuries? Did they last as long?

Cotton paper, so pretty much.

> But, if they would only last 100 years, why would we still have
> them?? Surely they would not be made as "specially" as the monks did
> back in the 13th century (??)

Printed books tend to be easier to read than manuscripts. Although those
monks did a good job.

> Or have things just been re-copied and re-copied??

For the oldest books, like Homer, Plato, the OT that's the case. I don't
think we have complete manuscripts of any of these before the 2nd Century
AD. Hence my advice above: make it digital. Staff notation is fine, but
harder to copy than MIDI. It also helps for somebody to want to copy it.
If you want it to be discovered in 500 years time, print it clearly on
acid-free paper, and keep it safe and dry. Make any deviations from
conventional notation (such as alternative tunings) clear.

Another thing could be to put it on the Web, so that it gets cached all
over the place.

> Does anybody know about this stuff, or where to look for information??

I can bluff almost convincingly ;) Try dropping in at the British Library
next time you're in town. Or anywhere that makes paper from cotton -- I
think Wookey Hole does. But maybe this isn't so helpful ...

Graham

--- In tuning@egroups.com, graham@m... wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/16169

Thanks, Graham for the helpful comments on preserving music. I see
what you say about "open formats..."

Also, I had no idea that so many early "paper" books were cotton
based. It seems like this was a good thing... since so many
materials from those centuries have apparently survived... I guess
for the last century or so, we haven't been thinking so much in "long
range" terms...

>Try dropping in at the British Library next time you're in town.

Now that would be fun. Might drop in at the National Gallery as
well... That's a "mind boggeling" place. We don't get those kinds of
paintings here in Yankeeland...

Thanks for the info., and, of course, for the MIDI relay... the best
invention since Stonehenge...

___________ ___ __
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" wrote:

> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/16156

> Both Jacky Ligon and Ed Borasky have me now quite neurotic about
> music preservation...
>
> <snip>
>
> So, the question arises as to how music, in general, is
> preserved. It seems as though the written score, with repeated
> performances over time is still the best way to preserve it (??)
>
> I know I have seen books and scores in standard libraries that
> are *at least* 70 years old, maybe even older. Some are
> "yellowed," but they are clearly legible. Certainly I have
> seen scores from the 1920's and 30's still on library shelves...
>
> How long have books generally lasted? Is it around 100 years??
>
> And, if so, how do we have the works such as the Montpelier and
> Bamberg codices mentioned above??
>
> Did they use some special kind of paper... or was it something
> *other* than paper...??
>
> How can we possibly have music from 1325 or earlier?? Are these
> really the original books?
>
> And, if so, what were the books like in the 16th, 17th and 18th
> centuries? Did they last as long?
>
> But, if they would only last 100 years, why would we still have
> them?? Surely they would not be made as "specially" as the monks
> did back in the 13th century (??)
>
> Or have things just been re-copied and re-copied??
>
> Does anybody know about this stuff, or where to look for
> information??

Joe, the longevity of a printed document depends on many factors,
including the medium on which it is printed or written, the
chemical composition of both the medium and the ink, the climatic
conditions in which the document has been stored, the type of
handling to which the document has been subjected, etc. etc.

Music manuscripts from before the invention of the printing
press (c. 1450) are generally written on parchment, after that
they were usually written or printed on paper. Parchment
certainly has far better longevity than most paper, but again,
it depends on the composition of the paper... some paper is
quite durable and can last hundreds of years. There are
ancient Egyptian manuscripts written on papyrus (a sort of
paper made from reeds) which are over 4000 years old.

I had the great fortune a few years ago to be able to study one
of the manuscripts of the infamous _Musica Enchiriadis_ theoretical
treatise, stored in the archives of the Biblotheque Nationale in
Paris, which was written around 1000 AD. It was written on
parchment and bound like a regular book, and I had to go thru
some serious beaurocratic hoops just to be allowed into the room
in the first place. Then I wasn't permitted to actually touch
any part of the book with my fingers except for the cover; it had
to be placed on a wooden reading-stand, and I had to use a wooden
stick with a finger-like tip to turn the pages. Of course, no
sort of photographing or copying was allowed other than me writing
my own notes by hand. For a serious scholar like me, it was a
truly awesome experience.

My point in telling this story is to illustrate the care with
which good libraries handle their precious manuscripts.

As an example of how climate affects preservation, the Dead Sea
Scrolls are about 2000 years old and probably the only reason
they haven't disintegrated is because they've spent most of
that time hidden in a cave in the desert near Israel - the
dry climate is what preserved them. Had the cave been damp,
as most are, very little (if anything) would be left of them
by now.

In contrast, I found a copy of Alois Haba's first book on
quarter-tone theory at the U. of Penn library, and it's falling
apart. The library keeps it sealed in a hard brown manila
folder, tied shut with string, in an attempt to preserve it;
but still, pieces of it inevitably flaked off as I *very gingerly*
photocopied it, taking extreme care with each page-turn.
This book is only 78 years old. The reason for its deterioration
is that it was printed in Berlin in 1922, during a time of
bizarrely extreme economic inflation in Germany, and so the
paper is ridiculously cheap and of absurdly poor quality.
(List member Jan Haluska is helping me to translate this book
for a webpage publication.)

Before the invention of the printing press, manuscripts were
copied by hand. Of course, this caused many errors and minor
changes, so no two copies of any old manuscript are ever
exactly the same. Often, pieces of parchment was scrubbed
clean and reused; this is called a 'palimpsest'.

(Definition from the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

> Palimpsest: Manuscript in roll or codex form carrying a text
> erased, or partly erased, underneath an apparent additional
> text. The underlying text is said to be "in palimpsest," and,
> even though the parchment or other surface is much abraded, the
> older text is recoverable in the laboratory by such means as
> the use of ultraviolet light. The motive for making palimpsests
> usually seems to have been economic--reusing parchment was
> cheaper than preparing a new skin. Another motive may have been
> directed by Christian piety, as in the conversion of a pagan
> Greek manuscript to receive the text of a Father of the Church.)

This ability to recover the erased text has resulted in the
discovery of many previously unknown documents and musical
compositions.

A final side note: the most durable means of recording a written
document is to etch it into metal or stone. The next most
durable method is, perhaps surprisingly, the baked clay tablets
impressed with cuneiform writing, which was the earliest
technique for writing ever devised (by the Sumerians,
c. 3500 BC). Many of these tablets lie buried under the
sand of Mesopotamia for thousands of years before being
discovered in the 1800s. An additional, and often overlooked,
aspect of cuneiform tablets is that the writing is 3-dimensional.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'

--- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/16189

Thanks so much, Monz, for your comments regarding music preservation.
I found them fascinating, particularly your comments about
personally viewing precious ancient manuscripts!
>

> A final side note: the most durable means of recording a written
> document is to etch it into metal or stone.

I guess I was right about Stonehenge. So I guess we should find a
very big rock, and etch in microtonal abbreviations for our MIDI
files... That might even live past the DVD format!

Thanks again!

Joe
__________ ___ __
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <pehrson@p...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:
>
> I guess I was right about Stonehenge. So I guess we should find a
> very big rock, and etch in microtonal abbreviations for our MIDI
> files... That might even live past the DVD format!
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Joe

Yeah! Just chisel the hexadecimal code right into the stone. Someone
(or something) might unearth the treasure millions of years from now,
and start a new microtonal movement! Make sure to include your name
and face too. Those anonymously composed stones are such a pain!

It will be called the "Pehrson Stone"! Cooool! A little microtonal
time capsule.

: )

Jacky Ligon