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.

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

    ReplyDelete
  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!

    ReplyDelete
  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.

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

    ReplyDelete