As a music teacher, Tomoko taught student how to read musical notation, but how many students realize the history of that notation and how much it has helped musicians to perform the music?
Nearly two thousand years, Greeks wrote down a way to remember
music using letters, with special symbols above the letters.
Not until 800 AD did another notation method was invented.
To help monks sing plainchant, a system called neumes was created. Symbols
above the words how when the pitch is rising or falling, but not the degree of
pitch. This system was not standardized, which limited its usefulness.
About 1000 AD Benedictine monk Guido d’Arezzo drew a red
line and labeled the first note as either F or C (which became the clef) with neumes
above or below the line to indicate fixed pitch. Over time, this monk added
lines and different colors, and the neumes symbols became square-shaped
symbols.
The next couple of centuries featured 5-line staves and the
beginning of key signatures, starting with one flat (but not sharp key signatures
yet).
By the 14th century, notes represented both pitch
and rhythm, and clef symbols indicated 4/4 and 2/2 time. Europeans also created
names for note duration: from minima to maxima.
The concept of measures and bar lines didn’t arrive until
the 17th century, which greatly facilitated composition writing.
Note were oval-shaped by then, and both quarter and eighth notes were symbolized.
Fraction style time signatures and sharp key signatures were also introduced. However,
as was the case 800 years earlier, practices were not standardized.
As music became more expressive and dynamic by the 18th
century, notations started include symbols such as staccatos, slurs and letters
– the letters p and f now indicating the relative loudness of the music. Additionally,
as music began to be printed more frequently, standardization also emerged.
Composers continue to explore different ways to notate
music, and their practices can be shared and adapted more easily than ever
before.
