Notation for bow behind the bridge (cello)?

[David Ward]

Not my usual way of writing, but any advice for notating a brief passage with the cello bow behind the bridge? Gould, on p 408, suggests crossed noteheads at the pitch of the open string the right side of the bridge, plus the direction ‘arco behind the bridge.’ Is this the clearest and simplest notation?

Background info: as a non-commissioned little extra, I've decided to write a short duet for a brilliant professional cellist to play with a friend and amateur cellist who has been involved in the commission of my new piece for the professional cellist to premiere in November. The little extra piece is not intended to be taken too seriously, and I expect it to pass through several period styles, from mock renaissance to ‘avant garde’ (as was). The professional cellist gained a formidable reputation for coping with the most extreme demands of the avant garde, including Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet…

Whether or not the two, professional and amateur, will decide to add the little duet to the otherwise fully professional concert in November will be up to them, but I think it might be fun if they do.

[Knut]

I believe the most common contemporary notation is a half circle or bow through the stem, in addition to x-noteheads. SMuFL (and Bravura) has the whole range of symbols for this purpose here: https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/tab ... iques.html. It's actually labelled sul ponticello, but I don't think that is correct. I'll check Kurt Stone's book when I get a chance.

[David Ward]

Thanks. I have the Opus fonts from some years ago (with demo of Sibelius 6), and It looks as though Opus glyph 92 or perhaps better Opus Special glyph 72 might be OK for the half circle (as an articulation? or as an expression?).

[Knut]

Thanks. I have the Opus fonts from some years ago (with demo of Sibelius 6), and It looks as though Opus glyph 92 or perhaps better Opus Special glyph 72 might be OK for the half circle (as an articulation? or as an expression?).

I'm sorry, David, for taking so long to respond.

Yes, Opus also has a dedicated symbol for this. Alternatively, you could construct the symbol in the shape designer. Curt Stones suggested bridge symbol is somewhat tapered, so even using the slur tool in the shape designer could work well, depending on your document settings of course.

Note the following quote from Stone:

The stems must be fairly long, especially those with flags, to provide enough space outside the staff for the bridge symbol to be clearly visible.

In other words, this symbol should always be placed outside the staff, on the stem side.

Stone also suggests using a dashed continuation line whenever several consecutive notes are to be played behind the bridge. In this case, the symbol appropriate for whole notes (i.e., a short vertical stem through the bridge symbol) should be used.

[kirk miller]

Hello,

A couple of us are proposing the two bowing symbols to Unicode. Specifically, the empty and filled bows on a stem. (We've filled out the range of the current musical symbols block and have started a supplementary block.) However, we're having difficulty finding scores that use them, perhaps because all are so recent they're still under copyright. Do you know of anything? Although they have been preliminarily accepted as a reasonable request by the screening committee, the UTC is much more likely to ultimately approve them if we can demonstrate actual use.

[Fred G. Unn]

Here are a few pages from Christian Dimpker's book Extended Notation: The Depiction of the Unconventional (2013):

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Here's a page from Howard Risatti's book New Music Vocabulary: A Guide to Notation Signs for Contemporary Music (1975):

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In that book all the number codes at the end of the descriptions, like "121, 71-C; 57-B," reference a list of works cited in the back of the book. If there are any of those you want me to look up for a particular example, just let me know which numbers.

[kirk miller]

Thanks, Fred. I'll run them by my coauthor and see.

[kirk miller]

Fred, the 4th row [apart from 76] would be most relevant to our proposal. The 5th row might also be interesting. My co-author is also interested in the 2nd last, 104-B, as he was thinking of requesting something similar to that. Thank you.

[Fred G. Unn]

The publication date of the Risatti book is 1975, so obviously all the examples he cites are prior to that.

76: Miroglio, Francis. Phases (1968)
32-B: Curran, Alvin S. Thursday Afternoon (1967)
59-B: Kilar, Wojciech. Générique (1964)
9: Benvenuti, Arrigo. Folia (1963)
111-B: Serocki, Kazimierz. Segmenti (1962)
14-B: Boguslawski, Edward. Kinothe Na Orkiestre (1963)
97-A: Raxach, Enrique. Estrofas (1963)

58-B: Karkoschka, Erhard. Homo Sapiens (1968)
19-A: Bussotti, Sylvano. Il Nudo (1964)
89-D: Penderecki, Krzysztof. Fluorescences (1962)
89-C: Penderecki, Krzysztof. Passion According to St. Luke (1967)

104-B: Rudzinski, Zbigniew. Trio Smyczkowe (1965)

[Fred G. Unn]

I just realized that whole Risatti book is available on Archive.org. You have to be logged in to "borrow" it. Here's the link:
https://archive.org/details/newmusicvoc ... a/mode/2up