preliminary proposal: New Unicode characters for Arabic music half-flat and half-sharp symbols

[Ken Whistler via Unicode]

On 5/15/2018 2:46 PM, Markus Scherer via Unicode wrote:
>
>     I am proposing the addition of 2 new characters to the Musical
>     Symbols table:
>
>     - the half-flat sign (lowers a note by a quarter tone)
>     - the half-sharp sign (raises a note by a quarter tone)
>
>
> In an actual proposal, I would expect a discussion of whether you are 
> proposing to encode established symbols, or whether you are proposing 
> new symbols to be adopted by the community (in which case Unicode 
> would probably wait & see if they get established).
>
> A proposal should also show evidence of usage and glyph variations.
>

And should probably refer to the relationship between these signs and 
the existing:

U+1D132 MUSICAL SYMBOL QUARTER TONE SHARP
U+1D133 MUSICAL SYMBOL QUARTER TONE FLAT

which are also half-sharp or half-flat accidentals.

The wiki on flat signs shows this flat with a crossbar, as well as a 
reversed flat symbol, to represent the half-flat.

And the wiki on sharp signs shows this sharp minus one vertical bar to 
represent the half-sharp.

So there may be some use of these signs in microtonal notation, outside 
of an Arabic context, as well. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_(music)#Microtonal_notation

--Ken

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