[14.]—The characters which will correctly represent the given rhythm having been determined, the second point is the correct placing of them in the measure. Mentally, at least, the measure should be divided into as many equal portions as there are beats in it. One well-known composer, it is said, rules beat-lines in light pencil, as well as bar-lines, in his full scores. In very elaborate music this symmetrical arrangement cannot be fully carried out; sixty-four sixty-fourth notes cannot be written in the same space as one whole note; and a whole note would look lost in the space required for the sixty-fourth notes. But simple music can be made quite symmetrical, and in all music such beat-lines, actual or mental, are an invaluable check and guide.
Each note should be placed in the left-hand end of its space. This is for the simple reason that music, like words, is read from left to right and, roughly, space represents duration. Any other arrangement is misleading, as may be seen from old music, in which a note was often placed in the middle of its space. The following ([Fig. 9]) is an example from an organ work of Rinck's (1770–1846).
Fig. 9.
But for the fact that in open score half notes below the middle line have their stems turned down, even an expert would not improbably suppose the time to be four half notes in the bar. This is not the case, the time is two half notes and the whole note is to be sounded simultaneously with the two half notes.
“Confusion worse confounded,” is, so far as the eye is concerned, hardly too strong a term to apply to the results of this illogical method when applied to polyphonic music. Compare a and b, [Fig. 10], in the former of which four notes intended to be begun simultaneously are no two of them in line, owing to each being in the middle of its space!
Fig. 10.
This practice was consistently carried out, even when it involved writing a note on the bar-line! or a note in one measure and its dot in the next (see [Fig. 11]).
