Ambitus Question

[Romanos401]

Greetings all--
Question about best practice since I've seen both:
When an incipit is provided to indicate vocal range, is it best practice to connect the notes with a line or leave them separate? (See attachment)

[Romanos401]

As a follow up, would you keep or ditch the brackets before the incipit?

[benwiggy]

The question is 'what information is being conveyed'? I don't think that the line adds any useful information (except the implied 'oh, and every note inbetween').
I couldn't find anything in Gould, FWIW.

NB: that's an 'Ambitus', not an 'incipit'. An incipit shows original clefs, key and note values in early music editions.

There was a discussion about Ambituses (ambiti?) on the Dorico forum, which discussed positioning and style. I think they tend to be in the main body of the staff, not separate, before the time sig.

[Romanos401]

Thanks for your reply. I also couldn't find anything in Gould, hence me outsourcing the question here.

Your point that the line doesn't add any useful information is a good one. Personally I think it clutters the page. And I'm grateful you mention "ambitus". I knew that once upon a time, but had forgotten the term, so I'm grateful for the reminder. (I have now corrected the title of this thread.)

[Romanos401]

Taking all of your remarks into account, here's the final result:

[OCTO]

Personally, I would like to see them connected with the line, otherwise I would assume something needs to be sung, intonated, or whatever else.

[John Ruggero]

The final version looks strange to me without initial clefs defining the notes of the ambitus.

How about:

example.jpeg (33.81 KiB) Viewed 13267 times

[Anders Hedelin]

Isn't the following the most natural and least cluttered way to do it?

Madrigal.jpg (70.96 KiB) Viewed 13259 times

I personally find it difficult to interpret the small noteheads before the TS as something that should be sounded, i.e. as anything else than the ambituses/ambiti(?) of each voice.

The example is from a popular, practical edition: Invitation to Madrigals, Stainer & Bell. In a more scholarly edition you would probably not expect to find any ambiti at all - or would you?

[OCTO]

In a more scholarly edition you would probably not expect to find any ambiti at all - or would you?

Agreed.

(Now looking again, I still prefer the top first example by Romanos401, preferably cue-sized.)

[John Ruggero]

I vote for the system shown in Ander's example, if the ambitus must be placed on the same staves or adjacent to the music. Otherwise put it somewhere else.