# I always wondered why it was called "engraving"



## Thonex (Dec 15, 2006)

Wow!!!

All I can say is ... wow... 

T


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## JBacal (Dec 15, 2006)

I will never look at sheet music the same way again!

--Jay


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## mathis (Dec 15, 2006)

Thanks for pointing to this. Amazing. Really.


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## Frederick Russ (Dec 15, 2006)

Watching that is almost akin to watching a tightwire act - no mistakes allowed! Truly a lost art.


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## Chrislight (Dec 15, 2006)

Thonex @ Fri Dec 15 said:


> Wow!!!
> 
> All I can say is ... wow...
> 
> T



I'll double that WOW! Gosh, as a graphic artist, I used to hand ink complicated forms pre-computer and thought that was tedius! This really is amazing. :shock:


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## sbkp (Dec 15, 2006)

If I tried to write music like that it would come out looking like one of the later "Peanuts" comic strips.


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## synthetic (Dec 15, 2006)

Very cool video. As much as I erase when I'm writing or copying music, I think I would have a lot of plates in the garbage after 6 hours of work.


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## ComposerDude (Dec 16, 2006)

VERY interesting! Thanks for posting this.

It also indirectly explains how slurs are tapered thin at the ends -- greater hand pressure on the cutting tool in the middle.

Also interesting that the engraver freehand-cuts the straight lines for barred/ledger notes in line with his forearm, utilizing biomechanics for stability -- rather than perpendicular to the direction of his forearm, the way we'd normally write on the manuscript in pen or pencil...

-Peter


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## Thonex (Dec 16, 2006)

Not to mention it's all done backwards... like mirror image.... 

T


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## tgfoo (Dec 16, 2006)

Wow, that's really something...I wonder how much this is still done anymore. It's amazing how much more you appreciate current technology when you look at how things used to be done, yet at the same time it's amazing to me how to look back at how things used to be and realized that many of us couldn't operate like that anymore (not just with music stuff either). I know for myself I look bad to a couple years ago and wonder how I managed without all of the cool things I have today. Very interesting.


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## Jackull (Dec 21, 2006)

That's the real ART there.

I wonder how long did it took him to master his craft and if he has any protégé or successor so to preserve the art of engraving music.


Thanks for sharing...


jackULL


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## sbkp (Dec 21, 2006)

The neighbor kid probably has a hacked version of Sibelius


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## José Herring (Dec 21, 2006)

That's really remarkable! Wow, I thought composing was the hard part. Pfft, composing is childs play compared to that art. Imagine doing an entire symphony that way. Must take a year.

Jose


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## thegetawayplan9 (Dec 21, 2006)

Thats really amazing. I guess thats why some old books are so expensive. I always thought that stuff was done by like writing it out by hand. I think most work is done on computers now which is a shame because it's not as pleasing to the eye as that stuff is.


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## synergy543 (Oct 17, 2010)

I just ran into this for the first time. Absolutely amazing!

The video link posted above is dead, though you can find it at:
http://www.henle.de/index.cfm?open=04

Click on "Music engraving: Video and pictures" and scroll to the middle to watch the full 7m video.


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## Guy Bacos (Oct 18, 2010)

Seems they removed it from Youtube. I'm glad I was able to see it in time when Greg sent me this link. As everybody else here I was: Wow!


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## dedersen (Oct 19, 2010)

Yeah. "Wow" seems to sum it up pretty well. Eight hours of work for one page! For some reason him drawing the slur in freehand really amazed me.


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## stevenson-again (Oct 19, 2010)

that was absolutely amazing. my wife is trained as a typesetter using the old fashioned system - computers came in half way through her apprenticeship - macs....

i reckon she would have loved this. amazing skill and precision.


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## David Story (Oct 19, 2010)

Beautiful. This hidden category of music will probably be a lost art soon. Non-notated music is king today.


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## stevenson-again (Oct 20, 2010)

> Non-notated music is king today.



err...come again?


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## sbkp (Nov 9, 2010)

I updated the link in the original post. Thanks!


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