NOTATIO

I am just curious what is the origin of these symbols.
They are really beautiful but I am not sure how useful they are... except for comparison of a transposed motive, but hey! - if you come to that level that way to show the transposition is not important.
I hope I am mistaken and happy to be able to learn more. O.

And 1# as opposed to #1 for intervals? Never saw it before. It's #1 in all the figured bass I've ever seen.

OCTO wrote:.
I hope I am mistaken and happy to be able to learn more. O.

That's a commendable attitude, OCTO!

John Ruggero wrote:And 1# as opposed to #1 for intervals? Never saw it before. It's #1 in all the figured bass I've ever seen.

This is typographically motivated, given that a ligature of #1 at the top would render the sharp much less legible when placed inside the eye of the clef. Take a look at the entire range in SMuFL/Bravura and you'll see that the accidental is placed before the number where this makes sense, typographically.

John Ruggero wrote:because anyone who can read a score knows the standard transpositions and anyone who plays the instrument in question doesn't need it either.

True... in most cases.
However, I could imagine it being useful to employ, for the horn, a bass clef with 5 below. That's one case where there (still) are two rather standard transpositions in use (fifth down or fourth up, in bass clef), and where there still can be confusion as to which one is being used. (I do have first-hand experience of such confusion, even with a professional horn player.)
Maybe there could be other comparable ambiguous situations.

John Ruggero wrote:And 1# as opposed to #1 for intervals? Never saw it before. It's #1 in all the figured bass I've ever seen.

In all my experience as a player of figured basses (and I'm talking about real music, not harmony exercices), I have seen both manners of notation so often that it's difficult for me to say which one has been more common throughout history. Personally, I actually prefer the number first (e.g. 1#).

I have never before seen a treble clef with 9b on top either, but... to specifically answer OCTO's original question:
Logically, a treble clef with 9b on top must mean: this will sound a minor 9th higher.
So, what existing instrument sounds a minor 9th above written pitch?
It's Piccolo in D flat.

You've got all the answers tonight, Ere. (-: I just opened Arnold's The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough Bass and in the first example I see a 6b rubbing shoulders with a b7. Never noticed it before. My appalling lack of continuo experience has been revealed to the world.

That is also an excellent point about the horn transposition. In that case and in any others similar, the use of numbers with the clef seems like an excellent innovation. Another similar case occurs to one, the infamous treble clef that is meant to be played an octave lower in older cello music. But that usage is obsolete and probably not relevant for a composer today, although it could be useful in editions of older music.

However, I think that the use of such numbers where ambiguity is not present is absurd. And a whole boatload of these "creatures" makes my flesh crawl.

erelievonen wrote:However, I could imagine it being useful to employ, for the horn, a bass clef with 5 below. That's one case where there (still) are two rather standard transpositions in use (fifth down or fourth up, in bass clef), and where there still can be confusion as to which one is being used. (I do have first-hand experience of such confusion, even with a professional horn player.)

Ted Ross' book features this exact application, and it's worth noting that this is the only glyph in this particular SMuFL group featuring the bass clef (or any clef besides treble for that matter).

Ere wrote:

In all my experience as a player of figured basses (and I'm talking about real music, not harmony exercices), I have seen both manners of notation so often that it's difficult for me to say which one has been more common throughout history. Personally, I actually prefer the number first (e.g. 1#).

The numbers used with these clefs does not appear to me to be figured bass of the practical type at all, since #'s are used instead of the slashes through the numbers that are most common in figured bass notation. For that reason and also because we say (at least in English, it would be interesting to know about other languages) "play a flat-five" not play a "five flat", (which is what I would probably do with the interval on the violin) I think that the numbers should display as in the figured bass used in music analysis.

Knut wrote:

This is typographically motivated, given that a ligature of #1 at the top would render the sharp much less legible when placed inside the eye of the clef. Take a look at the entire range in SMuFL/Bravura and you'll see that the accidental is placed before the number where this makes sense, typographically.

This might be typographically difficult; hopefully, the difficulty would be insurmountable! (-:

John Ruggero wrote: Actually, the numbers used with these clefs does not appear to be figured bass of the practical type at all, since #'s are used instead of the slashes through the numbers that are most common in figured bass notation. For that reason, and also because we say (at least in English, it would be interesting to know about other languages) "play a flat-five" not play a "five flat", (which is what I would probably do with the interval on the violin) I think that the numbers should display as in the figured bass used in music analysis.

This might be typographically difficult; hopefully, the difficulty would be insurmountable! posting.php?mode=reply&f=4&t=85#

Not being very knowledgeable about figured bass in it's purest form, my impression is that there is no real standard way of notating it. Like Ere, I've seen alterations represented by both accidentals or slashes through the numbers, for both sharp and flat.

Anyway, whether these clefs are necessary or not is one thing, but I for one wouldn't care much about the order of numbers and accidentals if they were. The most important thing to me would be legibility and clarity, and there is no misunderstanding the semantics, whichever way it's written.