Pre-printed blank manuscript paper.

[Rover_KE]

Who were some of the first composers to enjoy the convenience of it?

[Pulcinella]

Who were some of the first composers to enjoy the convenience of it?

I would have thought that sometimes it could be quite inconvenient, depending on the number of staves there were per page: too constraining?

[visualnickmos]

I've wondered that, too. Did composers actually have to draw their own staves? An incredibly laborious, time-heavy and mind-numbing activity - or were there people who worked in a sweatshop, producing hand-ruled reams of the stuff? Someone must be an expert on this kind of thing.

[Roger Webb]

I would have thought that sometimes it could be quite inconvenient, depending on the number of staves there were per page: too constraining?

Apparently Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the Road' using a typewriter fed by a roll of paper, rather than A4 sheets so as not to be constrained by having to 'fill' a page, and further to give the impression of a continuous journey. Shame we can't buy it in that format....perhaps achievable on a tablet?!

Ruling ones own manuscript paper with a five-nibbed pen and 'roller rule' was still common in Elgar's time to save money, as seen on Ken Russell's Monitor film.....You'd think, as his father owned a music shop, he could get at least get some 'trade', wouldn't you!

[Pulcinella]

I'm pretty sure that Stravinsky had or even designed a 'device' to draw his staves; not sure where in all the copious conversations I read about it, though.

[oliver sudden]

Stravinsky would certainly have been reinventing the wheel in that case… I’m fairly sure that pens for five-line staves existed for quite some time before he came along. And I’m quite sure that the composers themselves (as opposed to students, family members, or other minions) wouldn’t have been the ones ruling the lines unless the composers particularly wanted some meditation time.

Janáček is an interesting example of someone who started out using printed music paper but moved away from it.

https://www.leosjanacek.eu/en/how-he-created/#CREATIVE

I read at some point that he didn’t like feeling compelled to write more (musical) lines than necessary to fill up pre-printed paper, although that article doesn’t specifically say that.

[Pulcinella]

Stravinsky would certainly have been reinventing the wheel in that case… I’m fairly sure that pens for five-line staves existed for quite some time before he came along. And I’m quite sure that the composers themselves (as opposed to students, family members, or other minions) wouldn’t have been the ones ruling the lines unless the composers particularly wanted some meditation time.

...

I think that the wheel was exactly what Stravinsky might have used rather than a five-pronged pen: a device rather like those used for painting yellow lines on roads or the white edges to football pitches.

[visualnickmos]

I think that the wheel was exactly what Stravinsky might have used rather than a five-pronged pen: a device rather like those used for painting yellow lines on roads or the white edges to football pitches.

That sounds eminently plausible. Simple, really!

[oliver sudden]

And the name he gave it was typically modest.

https://www.antikeychop.com/stravigor

[Pulcinella]

And the name he gave it was typically modest.

https://www.antikeychop.com/stravigor

Thanks!
I knew deep down I wasn't dreaming.

I wonder if that was what led to him only drawing bits of the stave where he needed them (as in the Requiem Canticle or The Flood), because it was relatively easy to do?

[oddoneout]

And the name he gave it was typically modest.

https://www.antikeychop.com/stravigor

Reminds me a little of the patterned paint rollers originally much used in Eastern Europe as an alternative to wallpaper but have had some popularity in more recent times in this country as well.

[smittims]

According to Michael Kennedy, who discusses this in the DVD commentary to the disc of Ken Russell's Elgar, the shot showing Alice ruling the stave lines is incorrect and Elgar did use pre-printed paper. Russell can be heard saying he thought it meant the stave lines themselves , but Kennedy confirms that what Alice did was to rule the bar lines and insert the names of the instruments. She also wrote in the vocal parts when Elgar was writing the full score of vocal works.

Facsimile reproductions of Handel's op. 6 concertos, written in October 1739, show that Handel had pre-printed MS paper. Bach, on the other hand seems to have ruled his own, though the alignment of the lines suggets to me that he had a five-nibbed pen, such as was still on sale in the 1970s.

[Lordgeous]

I'm pretty sure that Stravinsky had or even designed a 'device' to draw his staves; not sure where in all the copious conversations I read about it, though.

In one of the Stravinsky documentaries available on YouTube he can be seen at composition running a small hand-held object fro left to right across sheets of paper. Sorry I can't remember which.

[Roger Webb]

According to Michael Kennedy, who discusses this in the DVD commentary to the disc of Ken Russell's Elgar, the shot showing Alice ruling the stave lines is incorrect and Elgar did use pre-printed paper. Russell can be heard saying he thought it meant the stave lines themselves , but Kennedy confirms that what Alice did was to rule the bar lines.....

Thanks for that clarification....I long since stopped believing everything shown in Ken's films, great director as he was!

I've the BFI re-issue of the Elgar, Delius and Debussy in one sleeve, and I don't think it includes the Michael Kennedy discussion.....but I'm sure the Birthplace Museum has a five-nibbed pen on Elgar's desk - perhaps Elgar just had it as a curio....I've many such things cluttering up my cottage....and I'd certainly buy it if I saw one in an antiques shop....I might even try it out!

Or I could buy a new 'Rastrum'

https://www.ackermanmusic.co.uk/manuscript-stave-pen-noligraph-8414878.html

Or this if a ballpoint version is required

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265237302784

[oliver sudden]

I bought a ballpoint version once upon a time for fun. It was rather less fun than I’d hoped, since getting all the tips simultaneously in contact with the paper, with the pressure that a ball point needs, turned out to be surprisingly unrealistic.