Printing music
Elisabeth Giselbrecht, Elizabeth Savage · 2018
This chapter suggests that early techniques of printing music, particularly printing in register, were neither exceptional nor specific &s;music-printing techniques&s; per se, but stock-in-trade skills. The main benefits of printing music from woodcut are cost and ease of use. As printing in register added time, risk and labour costs, Erhard Ratdolt&s;&s;s answer seems to defeat the ease and speed of printing music from woodcut. Ratdolt&s;s technical advancements in printing music and images may be closely related. Printing music, like printing text, images, or diagrams, would often involve more than one run through the press. It challenges scholarly consensus by demonstrating that the limiting factor for early music printing was the availability of materials such as music type, not the acquisition of specialist skills. Music has been largely excluded from technical histories of printing and of colour printmaking in fields including bibliography to art history. Ratdolt&s;s technical advancements in printing music and images may be closely related.