31 August 2020

Rastrum

"A rastrum (or raster) is a five-pointed writing implement used in music manuscripts to draw parallel staff lines when drawn horizontally across a blank piece of sheet music. The word "raster" is derived from the Latin for "rake". Rastra were used to draw lines on paper that had not been pre-ruled, and were widely used in Europe until printed staff paper became cheap and common in the nineteenth century. Some rastra are able to draw more than one staff at a time."

5 comments:

  1. Composer here (https://www.broadheath.com). Pics of two other varieties on Wikipedia. I got one of the pen-nib kind, long long ago, but couldn't get the hang of it: the nibs were unworkably stiff, and paper of suitable quality was no cheaper without the pre-printed staves than with. The roller kind was actually invented by Stravinsky, but he didn't manage to get it patented.

    I still sketch in pencil (0.5mm, 2B) but it is really very difficult now to imagine going back to pen on paper, the software has (finally!!!) gotten so good.

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  2. When I was in music school I made one of these by taping together 5 ball point pen refills. It sort of worked.

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  3. We used a similar kind made of formed wire and a wooden base in college. It held five pieces of chalk to draw lines on the chalkboard. It worked extremely well!

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  4. The word "raster" also is used in connection with computer printing, roughly the same as "bitmap" and to be distinguished from "vector." Vector graphics scale well; raster images do not.

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  5. You can still buy the roller kind: https://xviolins.com/en/music-staff-stamp-fidolino

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