Tracking Sheet Music

Most piano sheet music has a consistent structure in terms of notes, staffs, and key signatures. These symbols are developed over several centuries by both composers and publishers.

The earliest written music dated about 2000 BC in Syria. Musical notation similar to today's symbols was evident in the early 11^th century, which constituted of marking relative pitch direction connected with lyrics. Next a staff of four lines with a key indicator and quadrilateral or circular notes, helped singers determine the level of pitch.

Scores for instruments, rather than for vocalists, became the norm by the 17^th century. Besides including a fifth line for staff, clefts, tempo, dynamic markers, and ties and slugs were added. The eariest piano sheet music was published in the 18^th century, just a few decades after the piano was invented.

Composers traditionally wrote their pieces by hand, and the music was often copied by hand as well because it was challenging for printers to align the notes with the staff and other marks. As a beginning form of sheet music in the 15^th century, blank staff pages were printed to support notations. Metal plates were used to print multiple copies of scores.

Now computer notable software facilitates digital sheet music., which is available in print and online. Furthermore, score written computer programs facilitate composing, and can be played back as feedback to facilitate refinements for both creators and performers.

A History of Sheet Music

               When Tomoko was a little girl taking piano lessons, she had to buy her piano books and sheet music. That is still the case for most pianists, although now those scores are sometimes downloadable from the Internet.

               Basically, sheet music is just a way to codify music to allow others to reproduce it without having to listen to it directly and try to imitate it by memory. The first evidence of musical notation was found on a cuneiform tablet in Iraq. Later, papyrus and paper were used to transcribe music by hand.       

               Even with the advent of printing, usually just the staffs with its lines were printed; the notes had to be hand-drawn afterwards because the placement of the notes, along with lyrics, was so critical. Fifty years later, the other score elements could be printed too, but it took three “passes” of the printing press to get all the elements in place accurately. By the mid sixteenth century, the staff lines and notes could finally be printed in one pass.

               As an alternative, the score could be engraved on metal plates, and then re-used for future printing, which was efficient for popular pieces; nowadays, photographic engraving is used. The music could be reproduced as a picture (like a photo), but that process assumed that a score was already produced. That was still a problem with the advent of the computer.

               Since the 1980s software has been developed to enable composers to “type” musical scores with increasing sophistication, which could then be printed on a graphics printer. Now a person can play the notes on a MIDI device, and the computer will generate a MIDI file of sheet music.  Some software programs include a play back feature so the composer can listen to the piece in development, which facilitates its refinement.

               Nevertheless, even with the perfect piano sheet music, the actual performance is only as good as the pianist. There, Tomoko exemplifies refined technique and interpretation. The sheet music comes alive!