Notation

Musical notation is the art of representing musical tones by means of written characters. Letters, numerals, and signs of different kinds, have been used. The signs now almost univer. sally employed are called notes, and are written on a staff of 5 lines; hence, this system of writing music is termed Saf notation, (Comp. also Alphabetical notation, Neumes, Numerals.) 1. The lines and spaces of the staff indicate the pitch of the notes. The lines which Fiucbatd first used (about A.D. 900), served the same end by representing s¢rings; in the spaces between, the syllables of the words sung were written, the relative pitch of the succe ive tones being (sometimes) marked by the letters ¢ ( son us, whole tone), and s ( semitonium, semitone).—This system was also used later for noting the primitive part-music called or’ganum or discant; increasing the number of lines as far up or down as nece ary, and setting the syllables for the several parts vertically one above the other—An example of one-part notation acc. to Hucbald now follows: NOTAT ta T7 vere / Solution in choral notes: Ec-ce ve-re Is-ra-he - Nearly contemporaneously with Hucbald’s invention, an innovation appeared in neumatic notation; a red horizontal line was drawn acro the page, and all neumes written on this line were of the same pitch, this pitch being fixed bya letter /: set before the line. A second line, but yellow, was soon added for c! above the /-line (or below, for plagal melodies); the two greatly facilitated the reading of written music, Another improvement, in a different direction, is shown by an orderly system of lines marked in regular succe ion by Greek letters set ee them, the tones ‘ing re nite ints or dots on the'lines, To Guido'd' Arezzo is generally ascribed the systematization and introduction (about 1026) of the 4-line staff, in which both lines and Spaces were at length utilized; he retained the red and yellow lines, added a third (black) line between them for a, and a fourth (black) line either above or below these three, according to the range of the melody written, for e! or d; he did not use notes, but either letters or neumes. 2. A staff being thus established, and affording a firm basis for exactly fixing the pitch of written music, the neumes hitherto in ordinary use gradually lost their hieroglyphical appearance and became transformed into the Choral Notes of Plain Chant, the regular square form of which (qm) gave rise to the name nota guadrata or ips he other shapes occurring only occasionally in certain figures or a. The 4-line staff is still retained in Plain Chant; other staves, having from 6 to 15 or more lines, were arbitrarily emPerfect Imperf. Perf. Imperf. Breve- Semibr Large- Large Long- Longe rest _rest Test, fest resty__ Fests (Pausa) (Semipa ita, im quo do lus non est, ployed down to the rsth century, when the §-line staff for all vocal music except Plain Chant, and the 6-line staf for organ-music, were universally adopted; the present s-line staff superseded the latter after the invention of music-printing.—All this time the form of the clefs was lkewise changing, the original £ and ¢ becoming: (/) © ean as Stee etc.; the g also a umed a great variety Of fantastic shapes before the modern forms were finally settled, §3. Mensurable notation, differing from that of Plain Chant by expre ing a determinate (relative) time-value of the tones in its notes, which were invented for the exact indication of rhythmic relations, appeared near the beginning of the 12th century. The notes in use for some 200 years, and imitated from Plain Chant, were the Large (MMM) or duplex longa or maxima; the Long (M) or longa; the Breve (m); and the Semibreve ( or p); to which were then added the JMinim (4) and a Semi minim. Early in the 15th century the first five were supplanted by the open notes (large FH, long H+ breve Sl, semibreve Oor A, minim ), the smaller notes which had been gradually added being written in 2 forms: Semicroma or Semifusa [8] § oh Below are the corresponding rests: - Minim-rest Semi minim- Croma- Semicr.(Suspirium) rest rest rest Ly (Semisuspirium). 132 NOTA —The single notes were often joined in groups (comp. art. Ligature)—The angular notes of measured music were not finally supplanted by modern round notes, in music-printing, till about 1700, though in MS. music, they had been freely employed since the 16th century. For determining the relative time value of the notes, various and often conflicting rules were made for the Modus (mode), Tempus (time-value of the breve), Pro/a’ tio (prelation), Color, Position, etc.; a brief explanation of the 16th-century rules follows, premising, that the terms perfect and imperfect refer to the measure or time, sriple time being regarded (out of reverence for the ‘' Ble ed Trinity”) as perfect, while duple time was held to be imperfect, Mobus (mode) governed the subdivision of the Large into Longs, and of the Zong into Breves: in the Tempus (time) governed the subdivision of the Breve into Semibreves; in ‘Tempus perfectum (sign the circle naturale ut re mi fa + 1, Hex. durum ut re mi fa sol Ta [ Modern letter-name G A B c d e f Medieval “ Tialpic DIE/F ‘When a melody overstepped the compa of one hexachord, a. transition, termed a mutation, was made from one I IS AT I ON. en are performed simultaneously; opp. to broken. (‘' Flat chord” is preferable.). lito (It.) Accustomed, habitual... Al solito, a8 usual, in the customary manner. oImisation. A method of teaching the scales and intervals by syllables, the invention of which is ascribed to Guido d’Arezzo (b. 9907). It is based, in opposition to the Greek theory of tefrachords, on the hexachord ‘or 6-tone scale; the first six tones of the natural major scale, ¢ d ¢ f g a, were named ut, re, mi, fa, sob, la, (the initial syllables of the succe ive phrases of a hymn to St. John beginning Ut queant Jaxis, these syllables happening to, fall ‘on these 6 tones), forming the natural hexachord (Aexachor’dum natura’le) with the semitonic step at mi-fa; the syllables were further applied to 2 other hexachords, the Aard hexachord (hex. dulrum) g a 6c de (so called because constructed with the hard B Bij or B durum), and the soft hex a chord (hex. moPle) f g a » ed (with the soft 3 Bp or B mole); in each, the step mi-fa was in the same relative position. The entire mus. scale, extended beyond that of Greek theory by adding 1 tone below (Gamma Tl 'G), and 4 above, embraced 7 hexachords, the higher ones being mere reduplications of the original 3. In the following View, the solmisation-names of the notes will be found by reading up from (and including) the letter-name; thus low G was called Gamma-ut, its octave G sol re ut, and its double-octave likewise G sol re ut; B, however, was called only B fa or B mi, according as it occurred in the soft or hard hexachord. "IAN HEXACHORDS,. Hex. durum (with B mi) ut re ml fa sol Ia, Hex. molle (with B fa) ut re mi fa sol 1a x. naturale ut [re m fa sol la ut re mi fa sol Fe ar [fa [sot Ta peliay: able eee brlet atlet Gla Blefale]e e jaaititl cclad ee T""lbp set of syllables to another; the change of syllables was preferably effected bee tween the natural and soft, or natural SOLO. and hard, hexachords (a direct transition from hard to soft, or vice vers a, being le smooth because of the clashing significance of Bp and Bf), and usually after fa (sol re) in ascending and a tier af (re da) in descending. These mutations exhibit a dawning of the modern idea of modulation, the final victory of which, in establishing the major and minor Modes and freely trans le scales, dis, of the syne of hexachords.--During the supremacy of the medieval modes, this system sufficed for the composer's needs; but after the recognition of the leading-note, and the general adoption of a corresponding 7th syllable si early in a Er contasy, Se eee 7-tone scale, or Aeptachord, gradually super. Siaed the hesachora “ia theory and practice. Many proposed changes in the syllable-names met with merely local and transient favor; among them, those of Waelrant of Antwerp in 155¢ (bo, ce, di, ga, lo, ma, ni), called Bo-. eedisation or Bob is at i on), Pedro d'Urenna in 1620 (ni for si), Hitzler of Stuttgart in 1628 (la, be, ce, de, me, fe, ge, called Bed is at i on), Graun in 1750 (da, me, ni, po, tu, la, be, called Dame nis at i on), In Italy, and afterwards in all Europe excepting France, the syllable do (presumably first used in 1673, by Bononcini) has ousted the original ué (comp. Do), In both France and Italy the syllables have, in everyday usage, quite supplanted the Zéter-names of the notes, which are employed in Germany, Holland, England, and the United States. 1 30 ‘Tempus imperfec. (sign the semic, Ct BY 20 PRoLatio (prolation) governed the subdivision of the Semibreve; in Prolatio major 9 3 4 “ sminoe tO 89, the former marked by a dot in the time signature ( or ), the latter simply + by the absence of a dot.* ‘The usual mode-signatures were vertical strokes (long-rests) at the head of the staff; e.g., with the signs for ¢empus and prolatio: Modus maj. perf, Modus mis Beet Tempus perfectum Prolatio major © The system previously i ferred the relative timecvalue of the note a in general thus, according to de Vitry (13th century): TION.. mt Modus maj. is a GSS ee Gee See Ect Tem om Ta et Modus min. impert. ‘Tempus imperfectum Prolatio minor N.B.—The time-signatures were often written smaller, between the second and third, or third and fourth, lines, etc.—The mode-signatures were also drawn from the fourth line down to the lowest; asa rule, they’ ‘were omitted altogether, leaving the reader to ascertain the mode from conventional peculiarities in the notation called sig’na impli'cit a or intrin' sec a (implied signs), in contradistinction to the sien inaicat in actor Signs) as in the eater m 8 gr jeg sags 1s te Lt ak poe Sect, a group of a black longs, or a breve-rests ‘at the: Erginning. ‘of a modal unit. Post TIon (i. e. the order in which the notes stood) was very important. A long followed by along, or a breve by a breve, was always perfect (tripartite) by position; whereas a long preceded oF followed by a breve, or a breve preceded or followed by a semibreve, was always imperfect (bipartite) by position. After the minim was invented, the semibreve also became similarly influenced by its position; the minim and le er notes were always perfect. CoLoR was the general designation for notes differing in color from those ordinarily used; the red note (no’tula rubra) of the ‘r4th century generally marked a change from perlect to imperfect time, or vice vers a; the white note (notula alba) was at first used like the red, but soon obtained the fixed and definite signification of imperfection in opposition to the ordinary black note (of the 14th century); finally, the black note (notwla nigra) of the 16th and 17th centuries, when the white notes Were universally adopted, in its turn indicated imperfection; thus, from the 15th century onward, groups of 2 or more black notes had’ the proportio Aemioliatothe surrounding white notes, i, e, their time-value stood to that of the latter in the ratio of 2 to 3,—hence their name Hemiola or Hemiolia(q. v.) AUGMENTATION AND DIMINUTION. Terms used loosely to expre any increase or decrease in the time-value of the notes; but signifying, specifically, (augmentatio) a sctarding of the tempo, generally doubling the tnteger valor; NOT and (diminutio) an acceleration of the tempo, generally reducing the integer valor by one-half.—The diminutio was first expre ed by a vertical line through the temp us-signature ( ¢ 4), or by inverting the semicircle (_) )s also by adding to the /empus-signature, in the midst of a composition, numerals or fractions (3, 2, 1, f, f,); 2 or? then signified that 2 fact us (semibreves ©) were equal tor dof the preceding tempo; etc., etc.—Augmeniatio was generally employed to reverse a preceding diminutio, the sign for which was simply annulled by the usual sign for the integer valor (Q, C) or by the inversion of the fraction (,, etc.) These fractions, however, were properly termed signs of Ue gree