Notation, MUSICAL

Wherever music has become an art it has acquired a system of written symbols. The most ancient notation of which knowledge has been preserved is that of the Greeks, who used the letters of their alphabet to represent tones. In this they were followed by the Romans, and in the early centuries of the Christian era letters were still used to note the church chants. Though the staff and notes have replaced them as tonal symbols, the first seven letters of the Latin alphabet still give their names to the tones. Before 700 a system of arbitrary signs called Neumæ came into use. Dots, dashes, hooks, curves, and the like were written over the words. They were at first little more than memory-helps, since they did not indicate the fixed pitch of the tones like the letters, but merely suggested the general movement of the melody, the intervals of which were preserved by tradition. Ab. 900 a red line drawn over the text fixed the pitch of all the neumæ written upon it at F; the other symbols stood for acuter or graver tones, as they were written above or below the line. Here was the germ of the modern staff. After a while a second line, yellow, was added above the red, with the result that greater definitene of pitch was given to the neumæ. The placing of the letters F and C upon these lines gave rise to the modern clefs. The modern staff was practically introduced when two more lines were consorted with the red and yellow ones, in the 10th century. The modern notes were developed out of the more common forms of neumæ, and modifications of the symbols, so as to make them expre time values, came into use in the 12th century.