Regarding the incorrect octave designations 15ma and 22ma (LOL! OMG OMG)

You will note she also doesn't like minim and crotchet, which aren't going away anytime soon. These are far more confusing to me than 15 or 16.
Question: When is an A3 not an A3?
Answer: When it is an A1, of course.

Personally i don't have a problem with 15 or 16. They both arrive at the same note. One gets there by simple counting. The other by 2*8. You don't need to count or multiply if you know what they mean.

Well, if you actually read that article, you'll see that the author very explicitly states that it "was" and "is" 15 and 22. She is recommending that it should be 16 and 24.

However, her argument is inconsistent, at best. If she accepts the jazz intervals then the quindecisema is a logical extension of that. But while she accepts the jazz intervals at one point, she then proceeds to deny them at a later point.

Her statement that "'15ma' is an archaic symbol not commonly understood even by trained musicians." is utter nonsense. Any trained musician knows and understands 15ma (and, by extension, can figure out the much-less used 22ma). They have wondered about it and then accepted it as simply one more part of the chaotic swirl of Western music theory.

If she's going to argue as she has, then it would make much more sense to call the octave 12 and the double-octave 24, rather than 8 and 16.

"No octaves for you! One year!" (to misquote a classic)

"The meaning of 16va/16vb is implicitly understood by anyone familiar with 8va or 8vb."

What's 8vb?

8va is short for "ottava". Whether it is an octave up or down is indicated by position above or below the stave and, usually, a bracket or dotted line. There never was an 8vb until someone misinterpreted the meaning of 8va and chose to think that it meant "ottavava alta" so then there "must be an ottava bassa, right?"

When an 8va is marked above a stave it indicates that you should move your pitch reference up an 8th, which is to say that your starting note is 1 and your final note is 8 which is really just adding 7 notes to your original. I have never heard anyone ask for it to be 7va, though. This makes sense because most musicians know that a third means notes 1, 2 and 3 and not 1 +3; an octave means notes 1 thru 8. and not 1 + 8.

So, when you move up an octave, you are really only adding seven notes but you count the first note as 1 (not zero) and add seven and get eight - an octave or an ottava. When you move up two octaves, you move from a starting note of 1 to a final note of 15 (1 + 7 + 7), and thence to 22va (1 + 7 + 7 + 7) etc.

The final argument against 16va and 16vb is that an overwhelmingly large number number of pieces have already been written with correct indications (8va, 15va, 22va) so changing it now without any clear logic is more of a personal preference/campaign/vendetta than a logical move.

Wow...

> It was, is, and always will be 8va, 16ma, and 24ma, not 8va, 15ma and 22ma. <
> ...an overwhelmingly large number number of pieces have already been written with correct indications (8va, 15va, 22va) <
> Any trained musician knows and understands 15ma (and, by extension, can figure out the much-less used 22ma). <
> "16" and "24" appear to have meaning in one interpretation; "15" and "22" appear to have meaning in another. <
> The meaning of 16va/16vb is implicitly understood by anyone familiar with 8va or 8vb. <
.

I just finished reading this thread and oddly feel like......

I'm in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
I'm in a maze of little twisty passages, all different.
I'm in a twisty maze of little passages, all different.
I'm in a little twisty maze of passages, all different.

(@TheHutch... 10 points!! ;-)

if 16vb is trying to express that the octave is a doubling, then it al goes to Sh*t when you realize that 24vb isn't a doubling at all (16 x 1.5).