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notation was gradually superseded by one based on the attempt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.
MUSIC HALLS. The “variety theatre” or “music-hall”
of to-day developed out of the “saloon theatres” which existed
in London about 1830–1840; they owed their form and existence
to the restrictive action of the “patent” theatres at that time;
These theatres had the exclusive right of representing what was
broadly called the “legitimate drama,” which ranged from
Shakespeare to Monk Lewis, and from Sheridan and Goldsmith
to Kotzebue and Alderman Birch of Cornhill, citizen and poet;
and the founder of the turtle-soup trade. The patent houses
defended their rights when they were attacked by the “minor”
and “saloon” theatres, but they often acted in the spirit of
the dog in the manger. While they pursued up to fine and
even imprisonment the poachers on their dramatic preserves,
they too often neglected the “legitimate drama” for the
supposed meretricious attractions offered by their illegitimate
competitors. The British theatre gravitated naturally to the
inn or tavern. The tavern was the source of life and heat, and
warmed all social gatherings. The inn galleries offered rather
rough stages, before the Shakespeare and Alleyn playhouses
were built. The inn yards were often made as comfortable as
possible for the “groundlings” by layers of straw, but the tavern
character of the auditorium was never concealed. Excisable
liquor was always obtainable, and the superior members of the
audience, who chose to pay for seats at the side of the stage or
platform (like the “avant-scène” boxes at a Parisian theatre);
were allowed to smoke Raleigh’s Virginian weed, then a novel
luxury. This was, of course, the first germ of a “smoking-theatre.”
While the drama progressed as a recognized public entertainment in England, and was provided with its own buildings, in the town, or certain booths at the fairs, the Crown exercised its patronage in favour of certain individuals, giving them power to set up playhouses at any time in any parts of London and Westminster. The first and most important grant was made by Charles II. to his “trusty and well-beloved” Thomas Killigrew “and Sir William Davenant.” This was a personal grant, not connected with any particular sites or buildings, and is known in theatrical history as the “Killigrew and Davenant patent.” Killigrew was the author of several unsuccessful plays, and Sir William Davenant, said to be an illegitimate child of William Shakespeare, was a stage manager of great daring and genius. Charles II. had strong theatrical leanings, and had helped to arrange the court ballets at Versailles for Louis XIV. The Killigrew and Davenant patent in course of time descended, after a fashion, to the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and was and still is the chief legal authority governing these theatres. The “minor” and outlying playhouses were carried on under the Music and Dancing Act of George II., and the annual licences were granted by the local magistrates.
The theatre proper having emancipated itself from the inn or tavern, it was now the turn of the inn or tavern to develop into an independent place of amusement, and to lay the foundation of that enormous middle-class and lower middle-class institution of interest which we agree to term the music hall. It rose from the most modest, humble and obscure beginning—from the public-house bar-parlour, and its weekly “sing-songs,” chiefly supported by voluntary talent from the “harmonic meetings” of the “long-room” upstairs, generally used as a Foresters’ or Masonic club-room, where one or two professional singers, were engaged and a regular chairman was appointed, to the “assembly-room” entertainments at certain hotels, where private balls and school festivals formed part of an irregular series. The district “tea-garden,” which was then an agreeable feature of suburban life—the suburbs being next door to the city and the country next door to the suburbs—was the first to show dramatic
