Ted Mook on Sims' 72-tET notation

Ted Mook has given me permission to post the following edited email exchange.

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I asked Ted:
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With regard to your page
https://www.mindeartheart.org/micro.html

I was wondering why the Sims system is preferred over the Tartini/Fokker
system in the case of 72-equal. The Tartini Fokker system requires only 4
new symbols rather than 6 (the sharp-and-a-half and flat-and-a-half being
transparent shorthand and not really necessary).

See http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/fokkerpb.html for examples of the
symbols.

I prefer the Tartini 1/4-tone symbols to Sims' because the Tartini symbols
_look_ like half of a sharp symbol and some kind of a flat.

Can you enlighten me?

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Ted kindly replied:
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As a performer, I worked with Ratios (Partch), Ben Johnston's lattice, and
various combinations of hooks and arrows. In my experience, Ezra's notation
was the most direct and accurate extension of "normal" notation based on
the ubiquitous ET tuning we all learn as string players in school.

None of the symbols are combined with anything other than sharps or flats,
they behave like normal accidentals, that is, they hold through a measure
unless cancelled or replaced.

There are no chains of accidentals, which is the reason for the 1/6 tone,
otherwise, you could have some construction that would be 1/4 + 1/12 sharp
something and double dotted to boot...it would take three feet of paper to
describe the pitch and its duration.

There is the issue of high speed reading: The Tartini single stroke sharp,
double stroke sharp and triple stroke sharp, at music stand distance, in
crummy light become indistinguishable without careful scrutiny.
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Regards,
-- Dave Keenan
Brisbane, Australia
http://dkeenan.com