Re: Style for Editorial Rests

On Mon, 22 Jun 2026, Gabriel Ellsworth wrote:

> Kieren MacMillan wrote:
>
>> I would DEFINITELY go with the bracketed notation:
>>
>> %%%  SNIPPET BEGINS
>>
>
> Here’s how the Lassus example looks with bracketed “early release” rests:
>
> [image: image.png]
>

I have two issues with this draft output:


   1. To my eyes, the square brackets are a little too big on the page.
   There are so many of them in this system of music that (given the size of
   the symbol used) they are a bit distracting.
   2. In addition (and more important), as people have mentioned on this
   thread, by convention, square brackets mean something other than what I
   mean.

For those two reasons, I’m playing with angle brackets as an alternative:
[image: image.png]

My code is attached. The symbols that I am using are

‹ (U+2039)

› (U+203A)

At least one publishing house, A-R Editions, uses angle brackets for
editorial underlay in lyrics. Here’s how that style looks — a screenshot of
the same Lassus excerpt that we have been discussing:
[image: image.png]
This screenshot also shows how we dealt with early releases before I made
my edition. Someone wrote the quarter rests in by hand on a hard copy (and
also the dynamics), and then we photocopied that hand-marked hard copy. That
meant a loss of fidelity due to photocopying.

On Tue, 23 Jun 2026, Paul Hodges wrote:

> The conductor of the choir I sing in is very strict about early endings
> for breaths, but he expects us to note them in our copies in our own way as
> he specifies them -
>


There are two possible goals here, and they are in tension for my choir.


   1. One goal is “reproduce the 16th-century source material as exactly as
   possible.”
   2. The competing goal is “minimise time wasted in rehearsal discussing
   ‘Has everyone pencilled in the eighth rest that we are taking off the
   altos’ half note in measure NN?’”

I prioritise the second goal over the first, because I would rather save
time in my choir’s rehearsals … at the expense of seeing on the page
exactly the same durations that Lassus wrote.

The tension between these two goals has increased in the tablet age. More
and more singers are reading my scores off their iPads; they are reading
“clean,” unmarked PDFs that do not have the previous years’ pencil
markings, such as early releases, on them. That means more and more time
wasted making sure that everyone has the early releases (and dynamics)
marked … unless the engraver has already, in LilyPond, indicated the early
releases in every musician’s copy of the score.

The time that we *don’t* spend in rehearsal on confirming the early
releases is time that we gain to focus on expression, line, timbre … the
fun stuff!

and he may well change his mind during rehearsals about how long the break
> for a breath may be in a particular place.
>


Yes, there is always the possibility that my choirmaster will change his
mind mid-rehearsal! 🙂 And there’s no perfect solution for that
eventuality. But generally speaking, he knows the rest durations that he
wants in advance of the first rehearsal, and I can and will confirm those
rests with him when we review drafts together.

As for marking the rests as editorial, I would start with making them
> smaller - that's another fairly commonly used method (I'm surprised no one
> has mentioned it).  But marking the rests alone is inconsistent, because
> you are not indicating that the preceding notes have also been changed!
>

If I print a clear editorial note explaining what my label for early
releases (square bracket, angle bracket, markup above the staff, whatever)
means, then by logical necessity, the presence of a label on a note implies
that I as the engraver have changed the duration of the note immediately
before it.

I might try decreasing the rest size; that’s a good idea!