Talk:Longa (music)

Correction?

According to this article, the longa has a stem, but the "double-longa" does not. What about the maxima - which has a longer stem than the longa, and is used in mensural notation to indicate a time period of two longas&hellip. True, neither notation is used much any more, but it is still being taught - at least at the university level.

Additionally, according to Wikipedia's own article on Mensural notation, the correct term is a "duplex-longa", not a double longa. Just wondering.... - NDCompuGeek (talk) 16:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The stem on the maxima is usually the same length as a long of the same size; it's the note head which is wider; usually twice the width in Renaissance white-notation scores, but often much longer in pre-1425 scores, especially at the ends of pieces where it sometimes fills the entire rest of the line to the right margin. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Stem

Wouldn't a longa with no stem be a breve? ²³¹₉₁Pa (chat me!) 13:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

yes. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Is the stem really (like in the image) coming out from the other side to that of, for example, a minim? Double sharp (talk) 15:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The stem of a longa is always at the right of the (square) note head, whether ascending or descending. In the notational practice of the period in which the longa was used, a minim usually had a lozenge-shaped note head, with the stem either descending or ascending from the centre. There is a table here that should clarify matters somewhat.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. (BTW, I meant the current minim, but that doesn't matter.) Double sharp (talk) 13:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I assumed you meant the current form of the minim. My point is that the longa is not really a part of modern musical notation, though I suppose it may occur, even if only rarely. Therefore one might reasonably expect that the rules of its formation may not conform entirely to those of modern notation.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:54, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

modern use

It sort of leads a phantom existence in MuseScore, where one way of inserting very long notes is to "spill over" to the next measure: the tying is automatically done. It gets a glyph for its note and rest and gets called a "quadruple whole note" in the glossary. (Not the maxima, though.) Double sharp (talk) 15:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Lilypond breve, longa, and maxima

So you can make them square! (@_@) You need to set the notehead style to Baroque (which also provides a glyph for the maxima: in default style, you can insert maximas but they won't show up). However it seems as though the Wikipedia implementation doesn't cover that. Double sharp (talk) 14:01, 4 June 2016 (UTC)