does anybody know about these accidentals?

[Hans Åberg]

> On 26 Jul 2024, at 09:43, Werner LEMBERG <wl at gnu.org> wrote:
> 
>> Since the character is already encoded as a code point, and Unicode
>> never removes any one already there, the character encoding question
>> of this character is already settled.
> 
> Yes, but the shown glyph shape is disputable – or not, depending on
> the point of view.  After some thinking I now believe that they
> shouldn't be changed.  However, the description should be improved.
> 
> The two characters
> 
>  1D132   MUSICAL SYMBOL QUARTER TONE SHARP
>  1D133   MUSICAL SYMBOL QUARTER TONE FLAT
> 
> are actually not accidentals but *pitch modifiers*: they are *added*
> left to an accidental (or a note), indicating that the given pitch has
> to be raised or lowered by a quarter tone.  This usage is shown in the
> provided scans.

Good point!

To give some background for the readership:

An accidental is an interval of relative scale degree zero, that is, which amounts to the same thing, it is used to modify one interval to another one without changing its position in the staff system musical score.

A pitch modifier, as I take it, pushes the tuning of the whole musical segment, but does not change any interval sizes within that segment.

> I've just sent an error report via
> 
>  https://corp.unicode.org/reporting/error.html
> 
> suggesting to move these two characters out of the `@ accidentals`
> section into a new one, `@ Pitch modifiers` (to use the notation from
> `NamesList.txt`).