Can we have a view of one of these pieces written with "modern
notation"?just to have a clue about what we are saying in here.
I don't have the time now to look for scores with didactic examples. I
made a small image which has the most used examples (or they wouldn't be
in sibelius). inside the black area [only the upper row, I notice now] are
the mostly used for 1/2 (chromatic) and 1/4-tone notation.
The accidentals with arrows can be interpreted on different ways depending
on the composer, but in most cases mean smaller inflection than 1/4 tone.
They can also mean a) 8th or 16th tones b) 1/4 tones (if the composer
doesn't use many) c) unscaled deviations, like natural harmonics d) 1/3
tones e) something else.
But main point is, they're used quite often, even if there's no standard
as traditional as for chromatic notation.
I guess main composers I was thinking of are Grisey, Ferneyhough, some
Nono, and lots of young people I know (more or less personally).
For example, my old composition teacher, Spahlinger, has a system for
32th-tones, but that I don't find it to be a standard.
I've played several pieces where composers like K. H. Stockhausen used
their own notation, not based on a standard, in fact there is no standard for
microtonal
the scores I have from Stockhausen are not microtonal yet, they're before
the Licht period. which scores are you talking about?
music because:
1/ this style doesn't exist since a significant enough amount of time.
true, notated microtonal music is around one century old now, although no
one play Wyschnegradsky or Hába nowadays. only from/after the 60s it
really kicked in in a systematic way.
2/ actually many different styles of microtonal music emerge from
different composers that uses their own notation system.
that was more the case in the 60s-80s - and the sudden notation expansion
happened with any kind of musical parameters, not just with pitch
notation. nowadays it's becoming slowly a standard, one symptom of it is
that all main notation programs offer the symbols I sent. also composers
nowadays are thinking more of 1/4 (and 1/8 tones) as part of the tempered
scale - of course, not all. and also depending on the geographic
(cultural) location.
3/ no one (that I know) has been able to find an harmonical relationship
that would introduce a real notation system like we have in classical music
notation.
don't know if I understand the problem exactly. anyway these systems are
built upon the classical "tonal" notation system, which doesn't make much
sense nowadays if we consider that each note is equal to each other,
instead of having a diatonic scale.
but I don't know if I understood what you meant, and if it even is that
important for the use of these symbols.