Music Notation Development
The first known musical notation, indicating pitch and rhythm, was from a
Sumerian hymn, written in cuneiform, dating from 800 BC.
Example 1 – Musical tablet – c. 800 BC
This notation was based on the first 15 letters of the Greek alphabet.
Example 2 – Funeral Column with Greek Music – c. 500 BC
They used instructional signs, a form of tablature notation,
and symbols representing syllables.
Early scholars found ease in reading notation of music above the words.
This aided in the recollection of the melody.
Example 3 - Byzantine Music – dating back to around 600-700AD?
from - Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 256.
Byzantine note names
By 700/800AD the ‘neume’ system of notation had developed.
Example 4 - Neumed Music – c. 800AD?
from - Boethius's De Institutione Musicae
Of course, there were variations of neumed notation in different
countries, however they achieved similar results.
Example 5 is of early organum (polyphonic writing).
At the beginning of the music the pitches are written
at the front of the line with the syllables placed on the
line of the notes to sing. What a great idea, however it didn’t catch on.
Example 4 – Pitched organum – c. 860
Neume note names
Example 6 - Neumed Music with one line – c. 900
Remember, the monks knew these chants off by heart.
Example 7 - Neumed Music with one line – c. 900-1000?
The single line quickly developed to four, over a short space of time.
Example 8 - Neumed Music with two lines – c. 1000?
Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian monk, added a red
and yellow line to the staves of his time, creating the four line staff.
The red line indicated the note F, whilst the yellow specified C.
Example 9 - Guido d'Arezzo four line staff – c. 1025
Rhythmic accuracy was to happen another 200 years later.
Guido d'Arezzo (c.990-1050)
Guido d'Arezzo also invented the beginning of the sol-fa sytem.
He gave us; ut (later do), re, mi, fa, sol, and la.
Our tonic sol-fa was later systematized by an English
minister John Curwen (1816-1880).
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a German nun, is one of the oldest known female composers.
Her composition “Symphonia Harmonie Celestium Revelationum” uses the four line system with the red line indicating F.
Example 10 – The use of four staves by the mid 1100s
Notation began to change with the introduction of the quill pen.
It was more difficult to draw some shapes and lines.
However, even one hundred years later some composers were still
using various numbers of lined staves.
Example 11 shows the use of a key signature of F major.
The fourth line from the bottom is C.
This example is a round. It is one of the earliest known
pieces of music written in six parts.
Example 11 – “Sumer Is Icumen In”, a round notated with six line staff - 1240s
Franco of Cologne is credited with being first to systemize
the nuemes into related values in the 1200s.
This was the beginning of our present musical notes.
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) used a five line stave, however,
it was by need of the fifth line, like a ledger line is used today.
Note the use of the C clef on the centre line.
Example 12 - Neumed Music with five lines – c. 1320
from - Guillaume de Machaut “Oeuvres”
Interestingly, the music staff even increased above the five lines.
However, much of this was for instruments and polyphonic writing.
Example 13 - Neumed Music with nine and ten lines
English man, Robert de Handlo (early 1300s) broke Franco of Cologne’s
notation into 13 rubrics (keys to note values) which possibly laid foundations for
Italian mathematician and astronomy theorist Prosdocimus de Beldemandis’
(b.?-1428) notational divisions. He mapped out each notes relationship to another.
Prosdocimus de Beldemandis’ notational divisions
From - “New Grove Dictionary Of Music & Musicians” (2nd Ed.)
A system of notation similar to what is used today developed in the mid 1400s.
Example 14 – A page showing blank five lined stave – Late 1400
Note values had triple divisions, rather than our existing duple groupings.
Example 15 – Notes with stems and coloured heads – Late 1400
From – Opening of "Missa Ecce Ancilla Domini" by Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem (ca. 1420-97)
In 1476, Rome, the printing press and music were united.
Music was originally printed in two stages, notes in black and staff in red.
Example 16 – Roman missal printed in two stages red and black ink – c. 1476
The added extras, such as key signatures and meter are evident in example 17. The pause was added later.
Example 17 – Use of the key and time Signatures - Early 1500s
No doubt cost, and or publication matters, lead to black print.
However, still in the 1700s religious missals were printed using the two colours.
(See example 24)
Example 18 – Early printed music, black ink only - 1567
kyrie from Palestrina's "Missa Papae Marcelli"
More systemisation towards our present notation appears in the late 1500s.
Example 19 – Bar lines, alto and the bass clefs - Late 1500s
Even in the early 1600s there was no unified staff.
Example 20 – Use of six and seven line stave - Early 1600s
from – Opening of Fourth Toccata by Italian keyboard composer Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
Changes started to occur in notation very quickly.
Example 21 – Notation similar to that used today - 1669
From – an opera by Alessandro Melani (1639-1703)
Even the short period of ten years can show how the notes changed shape.
Example 22 – Notation changing quickly – c. 1680
from “Beati omnes qui timent Dominum” by Henry Purcell 1659-1695
Our present system of notation was not firmly in place until the 1700s.
Example 23 – from Couperin’s explanation of embellishments – 1716
The four line stave nueme notation was still being used in the church
possibly up to the 1800s and even later by monks.
Example 24 – Old notation still un use - 1754
from - 1754 Italy, Missale (Rubricæ Generales) [Private Collection]
From the mid 1900s, composers kept experimenting, not just with sound,
but musical notation and score techniques.
Example 25 – Abstract notation ? - 1975
from – Extract of “…as all get out…” English composer B Rands
And tomorrow…
