Ahhh... the life of an Early Music specialist! Even if you are highly performance based in comparison to the musicology/historical nerds that also share the field... well, you end up doing more than your own fair share of delving into historical archives and reconstructing, transcribing, and otherwise cleaning up old original manuscripts and facsimiles!

Now, the question is, why don't we just use the stuff that already exists in modern prints? Well, most of the music that we play hasn't been printed again since the original run! And those that have seen reprints, have also seen quite a fair share of well-intentioned but weird "improvements" that have stemmed from lack of understanding and knowledge from our dear Classical Music colleagues.

Anyway, after checking out of my accommodation in the morning, I had a few hours to kill before a concert... and the venue wasn't yet open. So, I figured I'd just find a cafe somewhere to hole up and do some transcription of some parts that I need for a modern ensemble that I'm directing later in the year. They can't read the old clefs, and they also struggle with the old notation and sometimes with the beautiful writing.

And in the end, I found a little area that had abandoned tables and chairs under cover... and opposite a police station! I think that there is a little cafe that operates out of the hole in the wall when it is the weekdays, but today was closed. So, took advantage... and dropped my violins, computer bag, and suitcase... and started to make myself at home for the next few hours!

Now, the thing about the transcriptions.. once I get in the zone, I'm pretty fast at it with the right hand "typing" the notes via the MIDI keyboard whilst the left hand controls the rhythmic lengths with the number row. Sort of like playing a weird arse musical instrument really! But they do need to be done steadily when I have time, otherwise it is a huge stress to get them done in time... and also means that players don't have the parts in time to practice them.

What would be really good would be if I could just type the rhythm by playing it... but that would require some decent software to pick up the implied rhythm and not the exact microsecond variances! After all, I'm a human musician and not a machine... or an orchestral player! (BURN!).

This was a particularly tricky one.... an Overture suite by Fischer. The 1st violins (Dessus) were in French Violin (a type of g clef), 2nds (Haute Contre) were in soprano clef (a c clef), Viola (Taille) in Tenor Clef (a c clef that modern cellos sometimes use), and the Continuo were in a regular Bass (f clef)... So, lots of switching to get them all down properly.

I often start with the Bass, as that is the fundamental of the harmony... after all, Baroque music is all about Harmony! And then slowly add the parts in ascending pitches.... that way, you can build up the harmony and notice anything that doesn't make harmonic sense... which likely means that there was a mistranscription!

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