1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Musical Notation
MUSICAL NOTATION, a pictorial method of representing
sounds to the ear through the medium of the eye. It is probable
that the earliest attempts at notation were made by the Hindus
and Chinese, from whom the legacy was transferred to Greece.
The exact nature of the Greek notation is a subject of dispute,
different explanations assigning 1680, 1620, 990, or 138 signals
to their alphabetical method of delineation. To Boethius we
owe the certainty that the Greek notation was not adopted by
the Latins, although it is not certain whether he was the first
to apply the fifteen letters of the Roman alphabet to the scale
of sounds included within the two octaves, or whether he was
only the first to make record of that application. The reduction
of the scale to the octave is ascribed to St Gregory, as also the
naming of the seven notes, but it is not safe to assume that such
an ascription is accurate or final. Indications of a scheme of
notation based, not on the alphabet, but on the use of dashes,
hooks, curves, dots and strokes are found to exist as early as
the 6th century, while specimens in illustration of this different
method do not appear until the 8th. The origin of these signs,
known as neumes (νεύματα, or nods), is the full stop (punctus),
the comma (virga), and the mound or undulating line (clivus),
the first indicating a short sound, the second a long sound, and
the third a group of two notes. The musical intervals were
suggested by the distance of these signals from the words of the
text. The variety of neumes employed at different times, and
the fluctuations due to handwriting, have made them extremely
difficult to decipher. In the 10th century a marked advance
is shown by the use of a red line traced horizontally above the
text to give the singer a fixed note (F=fa), thus helping him to
approximate the intervals. To this was added a second line in
yellow (for C=ut), and finally a staff arose from the further
addition of two black lines over these. The difficulty of the
subject is complicated for the student by the fact that an
incredible variety of notations coexisted at one period, all more
or less representing attempts in the direction of the modern
system. A variety of experiments resulted in the assignment
of the four-lined staff to sacred music and of the five-lined staff
to secular music. The yellow and red colours were replaced
by the use of the letters F and C (fa and ut) on the lines. This
use of letters to indicate clef is forestalled in a manuscript of
Guido of Arezzo’s Micrologus, dating from the 12th century, in
which is the famous hymn to St John, printed with neumes on
a staff of three lines (see Guido of Arezzo). The use of letters
for indicating clefs has survived to the present day, our clef
signatures being modified forms of the letters C, F and G, which
have passed through a multitude of shapes. Before the 12th
century there is no trace of a measured notation (i.e. of a
numerical time division separating the component parts of a
piece of music). It is at the time of Franco of Cologne[1] that
measured music takes its rise, together with the black notation
in place of neumes, which disappeared altogether by the end of
the 14th century. Writing four hundred years after St Gregory,
Cottonius complains bitterly of the defects in the system of
neumes: “The same marks which Master Trudo sang as
thirds, were sung as fourths by Master Albinus; while Master
Salomo asserts that fifths are the notes meant, so at last there
were as many methods of singing as teachers of the art.” Possibly
the reckless multiplication of lines in the staff may have
contributed to the obscurity of which Cottonius complains.
In the black notation, which led to the modern system, the
square note with a tail () is the long sound; the square note
without a tail (
) is the breve; and the lozenge shape (
) is the
semibreve. In a later development there were added the double
long
and the minum
. The breve, according to Franco of
Cologne, was the unit of measure. The development of a fixed
time division was further continued by Philippe de Vitry. It
has been noted with well-founded astonishment that at this time
the double time (i.e. two to the bar) was unknown, in spite of
this being the time used in marching and also illustrated in the
process of breathing. Triple time (i.e. three to the bar) was
regarded as the most perfect because it was indivisible. It was
as if there lay some mysterious enchantment in a number that
could not be divided into equal portions without the fraction.
“Triple time,” says Jean de Muris, “is called perfect, according
to Franco, a man of much skill in his art, because it hath its name
from the Blessed Trinity which is pure and true perfection.”
Vitry championed the rights of imperfect time and invented
signs to distinguish the two. The perfect circle
represented
the perfect or triple time; the half circle
the imperfect or
double-time. This
has survived in modern notation to
indicate four-time, which is twice double-time; when crossed
it means double-time. The method of dividing into perfect
and imperfect was described as prolation. The addition of a
point to the circle or semi-circle (⊙
. ) indicated major prolation;
its absence, minor prolation. The substitution of
white for black notation began with the first year of the 14th
century and was fully established in the 15th century.
It has already been shown how the earlier form of alphabetical
notation was gradually superseded by one based on the attempt
to represent the relative height and depth of sounds pictorially.
The alphabetical nomenclature, however, became inextricably
associated with the pictorial system. The two conceptions
reinforced each other; and from the hexachordal scale, endowed
with the solmization of ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la—which was a
device for identifying notes by their names when talked of,
rather than by their positions when seen on a page of music—arose
the use of what are now known as accidentals. Of these
it may here be said that the flat originated from the necessity
of sinking the B of the scale in order to form a hexachord on
the note F in such a way as to cause the semitone to fall in the
right place—which in the case of all hexachords was between
the third and fourth notes. This softened B was written in a
rounded form thus: ♭ (rotundum), while the original B remained
square thus: (quadrum). The original conception of the sharp
was to cross or lattice the square B, by which it was shown that
it was neither to be softened nor to remain unchanged. The
flat, which originated in the 10th century, appears to have been
of far earlier date than the sharp, the invention of which has
been ascribed to Josquin Des Près (1450–1521). The B-sharp
was called B cancellatum, the cross being formed thus
. The
use of key signatures constructed out of these signs of sharp and
flat was of comparatively late introduction. The key signature
states at the beginning of a piece of music the sharps and flats
which it contains within the scale in which it is written. It is a
device to avoid repeating the sign of sharp and flat with every
fresh occasion of their occurring. The exact distinction between
what were accidental sharps or flats, and what were sharps or
flats in the key, was still undetermined in the time of Handel,
who wrote the Suite in E containing the “Harmonious Blacksmith”
with three sharps instead of four. The double ♭♭ (sometimes
written
or β) and the double sharp χ (sometimes
written
,
or
) are conventions of a much later date,
called into existence by the demands of modern music, “while
the sign of natural (♮) is the outcome of the original B quadration
or square B
.
The systems known as Tonic Sol Fa and the Galin-Paris-Chevé methods do not belong to the subject of notation, as they are ingenious mechanical substitutes for the experimentally developed systems analysed above. The basis of these substitutes is the reference of all notes to key relationship and not to pitch.
Authorities.—E. David and M. Lussy, Histoire de la notation musicale (Paris, 1882); H. Riemann, Notenschrift und Notendruck (1896); C. F. Abdy Williams, The Story of Notation (1903); Robert Eitner, Bibliographie der musik. Sammelwerke des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1877); Friedrich Chrysander, “Abriss einer Geschichte des Musikdrucks vom 15.–19. Jahrh.,” Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig, 1879, Nos; 11–16); W. H. James Weale, A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare Manuscripts and Printed Works, chiefly Liturgical (Historical Music Loan Exhibition, Albert Hall, London, January–October, 1885); (London, 1886); W. Barclay Squire, “Notes on Early Music Printing,” in the Zeitschrift bibliographica, p. IX. S. 99–122 (London, 1896); Grove's Dict. of Music.
- ↑ The principles of Franco are found in the treatises of Walter Odington, a monk of Evesham who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1228.