Music Nib Vs Italic Nib - Very Different?

[Cassotto]

I often write music by hand, and I've been curious about music nibs since I first heard about them.

 

Maybe mine is a silly question, but I've come across a Pilot 74 with a music nib at a reasonable price, and I'm not sure whether it's worth my buying it or not. I'm not a pen expert, and I'm wondering whether I'll really be able to tell the differene between that nib and others I have which are italic (whether true italic, pseudo italic, fake italic or any other sort of italickish nib, I don't know): a Rotring ArtPen 1.5, a Pilot 78G with a BB nib and a Lamy Safari with a 1.5 nib. I'm bad at understanding the nuances described in comparisons between different types of nibs (italic, music, stub...), so I cannot make up my mind without help.

 

What would you recommend?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[jekostas]

Pilot's Music Nib is still tuned to write best when it's held at a 90 degree angle to paper, such as if you were writing on a music stand while seated. It doesn't mean it won't write when sitting at a desk with the paper flat on the desk (ie. at a 45 degree angle), but it may not write as well. Broad italic nibs really won't give you that issue. On the other hand, broad italics won't have the flexibility of Pilot's Music Nibs either, though.

 

Most Italic nibs sold these days are closer to stubs than true italics. The corners will be rounded off instead of sharp transitions. It gives less line variation in day-to-day writing, but they're also easier to write with as they won't catch on to paper if your alignment isn't perfect.

[Driften]

I don't know about the Pilot 74, but my Platinum 3776 Music nib is not as sharp as a normal stub nib.

[Cassotto]

Thanks for your answers! I had heard that it takes some weird hand position to write with a music nib, but I think I can do that. And, if not, I had already thought of putting the paper on a stand so it stays vertical while I write.

 

What I don't really know is whether my music will look noticeably different when using a music nib. Nowadays, I mostly use the Rotring ArtPen 1.5 when writing music (and I must hold it in a weird way, too, if I want the vertical lines to be very thin), and just noticing the difference between that and a 'normal' nib with regular line width makes me feel well. But I was wondering whether a music nib would be even better.

 

I'd heard that the Pilot 74 has a semiflexible nib, which I'm curious about, and it's when I saw this one that the thought came into my mind. Previously, I had seen at a shop a Taccia Spectrum with what I was told was a music nib, only it wasn't flexible. It was a bit more expensive than the Pilot, though it looked gorgeous. And now I don't know whether I should buy one, the other, or none at all.

[jekostas]

Pilot's music nib is very interesting to write with and it is quite flexible. That said, it's probably not going to make any kind of practical difference in your writing.

[Inkyways]

Just two weeks back,I bought a Sailor pen with a Music nib. I knew Sailor had this nib not closer to all other music nibs but it is just a rounded Broad Stub .This nib was notorious, as skipping the writing all the time and that is proved with my pen. It has not two tyne slits but one as a just a normal nib. I am going to custom grind this nib to a Cursive italic and that is the only way I can use this pen.

This is why Sailor pen M nibs is cheaper to all the other Music are cheaper. It was the reason too I thought to buy it and have a try.

[jekostas]

Sailor's music nib is absolutely ground to be used at a 90 degree angle relative to the paper, NOT at a "normal" writing angle. You assumed the pen would do something that it wasn't designed to do, and it's not the fault of the pen.

Edited March 30, 2018 by jekostas

[sidthecat]

My dad wrote music in pencil, sensibly, and the couple of times he needed lead sheets or arrangements he sent his music to a copyist. Sadly, I never saw how she worked but I still have some of her work.

About the time he died in the early 90s, they were just starting to computerize sheet music so he didn’t have to deal with that complicated issue.

[Gutfinski]

Have others noticed, that of the Japanese Big 3 premium gold nib fountain pens, Platinums all seem to write excellently on the back of the nib, while Pilots and Sailors do not? This seems to be true with music nibs as well as regular nibs.

[inkstainedruth]

Of the Japanese Big 3, the only pen that I know I can write upside down with (although mostly don't) is actually a Sailor -- a Pro-Gear Slim with a zoom nib.

As for music nibs, I only have one (real -- as in 3-tine) music nib. It was harvested from a no-name lever filler that couldn't be easily taken apart for repairs, and the nib and feed are now on a Parker Parkette. I don't use the pen a lot, because it does go through ink pretty quickly. But it's a lovely flexy writer.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Estycollector]

Today I learned about music nibs.

[Ed333]

I don't know about the Pilot 74, but my Platinum 3776 Music nib is not as sharp as a normal stub nib.

I agree.

[Honeybadgers]

Pilot's music nibs are ground to work flawlessly (seriously like hot buttered glass) when held 90 degrees to the paper. And the one I got, at least, was scratchy trash at normal angles. It required a LOT of work but turned into a respectable italic with nice semiflex characteristics.

 

My sailor MS nib wrote great at all angles with consistent stubby line widths

 

My Platinum MS nib also wrote great.

 

They are all more stubbish than italic. I crisped up all of them because that's what I like, but as far as music vs stub nibs, no real difference. The only one with any flex at all was the pilot #5 14k one.

[tinta]

I can only speak for Sailor's 14c MS nibs.

My very first Sailor, a 1911S sported one of these 1.15 mm two-tine nibs. The MS nib was a wet "stubby" writer with much more tooth than I was used to. If you are looking to produce dramatic line-width-variation, this nib is not going to do it.

 

Before going to Sailor, I was a happy daily user of a Pelikan 400NN with a 14c. OBB. This fine pen served me for more than four decades (through my whole teaching career). About ten years ago the piston mechanism stopped failed. Not liking to tinker, I reached out to the American distributor of Pelikan, to try to get a fix.

My word! Chartpak was going to charge me 80.00 USD + shipping, yet could not guarantee a successful repair of the piston. For me that was a lot of Canadian bucks, so I decided to pay my pen forward to a nice lady living in the UK. We are good pen friends to this day.

 

Anyways, I had to replace my broken pen with one that had a gold nib & one that would be able to lay down lines about as wide as my old OBB used to do. The price of Pelikans then was out of the question. I had to shop for a new fountain pen. The owner of Laywine's in Toronto suggested that a Sailor 14c. MS nib would at least give me a similar tip width as my vintage OBB (1.0 mm.). After testing the nib I settled on the Sailor pen. I left the shop a happy camper,... a new Japanese fountain pen & a bottle of Sailor Jentle in hand.

 

Of course at this time I didn't know that for years I had been using an "oblique" nib. I only found out the difference between normal edged nibs & obliques after I joined FPN, but that's another story.

While I got used to the music nib's 90 degree writing edge, I struggled with its toothy feel on the paper. That feel may have been the hint of "feedback" that Sailor pens are known for & what I now quite appreciate.

 

On these pages here, I discovered that there are people who actually make a living re-grinding factory nibs. After a lot of reading about various customization services, I finally sent my first 1911S to nibs.com (no affiliation) to grind the pen's music nib into an 0.8 mm stub. John also adjusted the nib's flow to be a little less enthusiastic. I was absolutely thrilled with my first custom italic nib.

Four more excellent edged nibs came from this shop, all starting their life as MS nibs. Then Mike Masuyama customized a Sailor 14c music nib into his signature 0.6 mm. "round-nose" CI. A smooth forgiving cursive italic, designed for daily writing.

 

In my limited experience, I think that the Sailor (14c) music nib may be more suited for writing musical notation, than for writing regular cursive script.

I presently own a 1.1 mm C., ground by John Mottishaw from an MS nib (almost as wide as the original stock nib). While it's lovely for lettering, this edged nib is also not well suited for daily writing.

On the positive side, the massive 1.15 mm tipping on these two-tine Sailor MS nibs, makes makes them a great starting point for customization.

Edited May 1, 2020 by tinta

[tinta]

This post may shed some more light on the Japanese two-tine vs three-tine music nibs.

• Japanese Music Nib shootout by jandrese

[sidthecat]

Last year I was looking around randomly on eBay - as one does - and I had a close look at a blackened, crusty old Warranted nib...and saw two slits! If memory serves, I got it for starting price or close to it. It’s not just a music nib, though: it’s a FLEXIBLE music nib. Only problem with it is that it’s big; too big for any of my ringtops.

Still figuring out what to do about that.

[amberleadavis]

Last year I was looking around randomly on eBay - as one does - and I had a close look at a blackened, crusty old Warranted nib...and saw two slits! If memory serves, I got it for starting price or close to it. It’s not just a music nib, though: it’s a FLEXIBLE music nib. Only problem with it is that it’s big; too big for any of my ringtops.

Still figuring out what to do about that.

 

 

Well, put it in another pen and try it out!!!

[uticarose]

A word or two to add about music music nibs from my experience. They show off, like BB nibs, the full brilliance of the ink you are using. Im quite simply intrigued by the classic music nib because it had three tines and thus sometimes called a trident nib. Nakaya, Platinum and Pilot offer them in gold, and ASC commissioned German nibmeister, Peter Bock, to make one for its Pavarotti. Sailor and Taccia offer two-tine music nibs. They all perform like versions of stubs and BBs. The only one that I find distinctively different is Franklin-Christophs three-time music nib, available only in steel. Its the broadest of them all and adds a calligraphic flare to your writing. Its my favorite.

[como]

I used to have a pen with a 3-tine Bock music nib on it (1.1mm, I think). It wrote like a very soft stub and smooth enough. I didn’t like it so much because it bothered me that 3-tine nibs were almost never totally aligned. It’s only visual and if tuned correctly, you won’t feel the misalignment in writing experience. Still it bothered me. I know a few music teachers. None uses fountain pen to write music notes. All pencils and highlighters.

[Intensity]

I‘Ve tried a Pilot Music nib in a store in Japan, and it seemed pretty stubby, thick, but no problem with my normal 45-degree angle for cursive writing. Might have been because it was a well-used display model.

 

I’ve had 2 Sailor MS (Music) nibs, and both didn’t perform well at 45-degree angle. There was some skipping and uneven edges to lines, and hard starts. Moving up to 90 degrees helped, but I don’t write like that. I’ve traded my first MS nib for a Fine, and my second was ground to a traditional crisp italic at a pen show, and is now fantastic at 45-degree writing.

 

This is specific to Japanese nibs, perhaps—the tuning for high writing angle for both stub and music nibs. Pilot Vanishing Point stub nib is also very picky with orientation, for example.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Intensity