![Bachlut1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Bachlut1.png)
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent
aurally perceived
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
played with
instruments
Instrument may refer to:
Science and technology
* Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft
* Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific lab ...
or
sung by the
human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation for durations of absence of sound such as
rests.
The types and methods of notation have varied between cultures and throughout history, and much information about
ancient music
Ancient music refers to the musical cultures and practices that developed in the literate civilizations of the ancient world. Succeeding the music of prehistoric societies and lasting until the Post-classical era, major centers of Ancient musi ...
notation is fragmentary. Even in the same time period, such as in the 2010s, different styles of music and different cultures use different music notation methods; for example, for professional
classical music performers,
sheet music using
staves and
notehead
In music, a notehead is the part of a note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely bl ...
s is the most common way of notating music, but for professional
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
session musicians, the
Nashville Number System
The Nashville Number System is a method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built. It was developed by Neal Matthews in the late 1950s as a simplified system for the Jordanaires to use in the studio and furthe ...
is the main method.
The symbols used include ancient symbols and
modern symbols made upon any media such as symbols cut into stone, made in
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a sty ...
s, made using a pen on
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
or
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
or
manuscript paper
Manuscript paper (sometimes staff paper in U.S. English, or just music paper) is paper preprinted with staves ready for musical notation. Manuscript paper is also available for drum notation and guitar tabulature.Sainsbury, Christopher. “Bi- ...
; printed using a
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
(c. 1400s), a
computer printer (c. 1980s) or other
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
or
modern copying technology.
Although many ancient cultures used symbols to represent
melodies
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinati ...
and
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
s, none of them was particularly comprehensive, which has limited today's understanding of their music. The seeds of what would eventually become modern
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
notation were sown in
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Europe, starting with the
Christian Church's goal for ecclesiastical uniformity. The church began notating
plainchant
Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text ...
melodies so that the same chants could be used throughout the church. Music notation
developed further during the Renaissance and
Baroque music eras. In the
classical period (1750–1820) and the
Romantic music era
Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of the 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism—the ...
(1820–1900), notation continued to develop as new
musical instrument technologies were developed. In the
contemporary classical music of the 20th and 21st century, music notation has continued to develop, with the introduction of
graphical notation by some modern composers and the use, since the 1980s, of computer-based
score writer programs for notating music. Music notation has been adapted to many kinds of music, including
classical music,
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, and
traditional music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
.
History
Ancient Near East
![Hurritische hymne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Hurritische_hymne.gif)
The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
tablet that was created at
Nippur, in
Babylonia (today's
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
), in about 1400 BCE. The
tablet represents fragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in harmonies of
thirds, and that it was written using a
diatonic scale. A tablet from about 1250 BCE shows a more developed form of notation. Although the interpretation of the notation system is still controversial, it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a
lyre, the
tuning
Tuning can refer to:
Common uses
* Tuning, the process of tuning a tuned amplifier or other electronic component
* Musical tuning, musical systems of tuning, and the act of tuning an instrument or voice
** Guitar tunings
** Piano tuning, adjusti ...
of which is described in other tablets. Although they are fragmentary, these tablets represent the earliest notated
melodies
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinati ...
found anywhere in the world.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
musical notation was in use from at least the 6th century BCE until approximately the 4th century CE; only one complete composition (
Seikilos epitaph
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century CE. The song, the melo ...
) and a number of fragments using this notation survive. The notation for sung music consists of letter symbols for the pitches, placed above text syllables. Rhythm is indicated in a rudimentary way only, with long and short symbols. The
Seikilos epitaph
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century CE. The song, the melo ...
has been variously dated between the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.
Three hymns by
Mesomedes
Mesomedes of Crete ( grc, Μεσομήδης ὁ Κρής) was a Greek citharode and lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century AD in Roman Greece. Prior to the discovery of the Seikilos epitaph in the late 19th century, the hymns of Mesom ...
of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
exist in manuscript. The
Delphic Hymns
The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated circa 138 BC and 128 BC, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they wer ...
, dated to the 2nd century BCE also use this notation, but they are not completely preserved. Ancient Greek notation appears to have fallen out of use around the time of the
Decline of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vas ...
.
Byzantine Empire
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
music once included music for court ceremonies, but has only survived as vocal church music within various Orthodox traditions of monodic (
monophonic
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
) chant written down in Byzantine round notation (see Macarie's ''
anastasimatarion'' with the Greek text translated into Romanian and transliterated into Cyrillic script).
Since the 6th century, Greek theoretical categories (''melos'', ''genos'', ''
harmonia
In Greek mythology, Harmonia (; grc, Ἁρμονία /Ancient Greek phonology, harmoˈnia/, "harmony", "agreement") is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Rome, Roman counterpart is Concordia (mythology), Concordia. Her Greek op ...
'', ''systema'') played a key role to understand and transmit Byzantine music, especially the tradition of
Damascus had a strong impact on the pre-Islamic
Near East comparable to the impact coming from
Persian music Persian music may refer to various types of the music of Persia/Iran or other Persian-speaking countries:
* Persian traditional music
* Persian ritual music
*Persian pop music
* Persian symphonic music
* Persian piano music
See also
*Music of Ira ...
. The earliest evidence are
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
fragments of Greek tropologia. These fragments just present the hymn text following a modal signature or key (like "" for ''echos plagios protos'' or "" for ''echos devteros'').
Unlike Western notation, Byzantine
neume
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not nec ...
s used since the 10th century were always related to modal steps (same modal degree, one degree lower, two degrees higher, etc.) in relation to such a clef or modal key (
modal signatures). Originally this key or the incipit of a common melody was enough to indicate a certain
melodic model
In music and jazz improvisation, a melodic pattern (or motive) is a cell or germ serving as the basis for repetition (music), repetitive pattern. It is a figure that can be used with any scale (music), scale. It is used primarily for solo (music ...
given within the
echos
Echos (Greek: "sound", pl. echoi ; Old Church Slavonic: "voice, sound") is the name in Byzantine music theory for a mode within the eight-mode system ( oktoechos), each of them ruling several melody types, and it is used in the melodic and r ...
. Next to
ekphonetic notation, only used in
lectionaries to indicate formulas used during scriptural lessons, melodic notation developed not earlier than between the 9th and the 10th century, when a ''theta'' (), ''oxeia'' () or ''diple'' () were written under a certain syllable of the text, whenever a longer melisma was expected. This primitive form was called "theta" or "diple notation".
Today, one can study the evolution of this notation in Greek monastic chant books like those of the
sticherarion
A sticheron (Greek: "set in verses"; plural: stichera; Greek: ) is a hymn of a particular genre sung during the daily evening (Hesperinos/Vespers) and morning (Orthros) offices, and some other services, of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Cath ...
and the
heirmologion
Irmologion ( grc-gre, τὸ εἱρμολόγιον ) is a liturgical book of the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite. It contains ''irmoi'' () organised in sequences of odes (, sg. ) and su ...
(Chartres notation was rather used on
Mount Athos and Constantinople, Coislin notation within the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria), while there was another gestic notation originally used for the ''asmatikon'' (choir book) and kontakarion (book of the soloist or monophonaris) of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite. The earliest books which have survived, are "kondakars" in Slavonic translation which already show a notation system known as
Kondakarian notation. Like the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
notational signs are ordered left to right (though the direction could be adapted like in certain
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
manuscripts). The question of rhythm was entirely based on ''cheironomia'' (the interpretation of so-called great signs which derived from different chant books). These great signs () indicated well-known melodic phrases given by gestures of the
choirleaders of the cathedral rite. They existed once as part of an oral tradition, developed Kondakarian notation and became, during the 13th century, integrated into Byzantine round notation as a kind of universal notation system.
Today the main difference between Western and Eastern neumes is that Eastern notation symbols are "differential" rather than absolute, i.e., they indicate pitch steps (rising, falling or at the same step), and the musicians know to deduce correctly, from the score and the note they are singing presently, which correct interval is meant. These step symbols themselves, or better "phonic neumes", resemble brush strokes and are colloquially called ''gántzoi'' ('hooks') in
modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
.
Notes as pitch classes or modal keys (usually memorised by modal signatures) are represented in written form only between these neumes (in manuscripts usually written in red ink). In modern notation they simply serve as an optional reminder and modal and tempo directions have been added, if necessary. In Papadic notation medial signatures usually meant a temporary change into another echos.
The so-called "great signs" were once related to cheironomic signs; according to modern interpretations they are understood as embellishments and microtonal attractions (pitch changes smaller than a
semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
), both essential in Byzantine chant.
![ChrysanthosTable](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/ChrysanthosTable.png)
Since
Chrysanthos of Madytos Chrysanthos of Madytos ( el, Χρύσανθος ὁ ἐκ Μαδύτων; c. 1770 – 1846) was a Greek poet, chanter, Archimandrite, and Archbishop, born in Madytos. In preparation of the first printed books of Orthodox chant, he was responsible fo ...
there are seven standard note names used for "solfège" (''parallagē'') ''pá, vú, g
há, d
hi, ké, zō, nē'', while the older practice still used the four enechemata or intonation formulas of the four echoi given by the modal signatures, the authentic or ''kyrioi'' in ascending direction, and the plagal or ''plagioi'' in descending direction (
Papadic Octoechos
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: , pronounced in Constantinopolitan: ; from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, ''Osmoglasie'' from о́смь "eight" and гласъ " ...
). With exception of ''vú and zō'' they do roughly correspond to Western solmization syllables as ''re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do''. Byzantine music uses the eight natural, non-tempered scales whose elements were identified by ''Ēkhoi'', "sounds", exclusively, and therefore the absolute pitch of each note may slightly vary each time, depending on the particular ''Ēkhos'' used. Byzantine notation is still used in many Orthodox Churches. Sometimes cantors also use transcriptions into Western or Kievan staff notation while adding non-notatable embellishment material from memory and "sliding" into the natural scales from experience, but even concerning modern neume editions since the reform of Chrysanthos a lot of details are only known from an oral tradition related to traditional masters and their experience.
13th-century Near East
In 1252,
Safi al-Din al-Urmawi
Safi al-Din al-Urmawi al-Baghdadi ( fa, صفی الدین اورموی) or Safi al-Din Abd al-Mu'min ibn Yusuf ibn al-Fakhir al-Urmawi al-Baghdadi (born c. 1216 AD in Urmia, died in 1294 AD in Baghdad) was a renowned musician and writer on the ...
developed a form of musical notation, where
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
s were represented by
geometric representation. Many subsequent scholars of rhythm have sought to develop graphical geometrical notations. For example, a similar geometric system was published in 1987 by Kjell Gustafson, whose method represents a rhythm as a two-dimensional graph.
Early Europe
![Head of Christ1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Head_of_Christ1.jpg)
The scholar and music theorist
Isidore of Seville, while writing in the early 7th century, considered that "unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down." By the middle of the 9th century, however, a form of neumatic notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe as a
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
device for
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek (language), Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed ma ...
, using symbols known as
neume
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not nec ...
s; the earliest surviving musical notation of this type is in the ''Musica disciplina'' of
Aurelian of Réôme
Aurelian of Réôme (Aurelianus Reomensis) (fl. c. 840 – 850) was a Frankish writer and music theorist. He is the author of the ''Musica disciplina'', the earliest extant treatise on music from medieval Europe.
Life
Next to nothing is k ...
, from about 850. There are scattered survivals from the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
before this time, of a type of notation known as
Visigothic neumes, but its few surviving fragments have not yet been deciphered. The problem with this notation was that it only showed melodic contours and consequently the music could not be read by someone who did not know the music already.
![EarlyMusicNotation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/EarlyMusicNotation.JPG)
Notation had developed far enough to notate melody, but there was still no system for notating rhythm. A mid-13th-century treatise, ''
De Mensurabili Musica
''De Mensurabili Musica'' (concerning measured music) is a musical treatise from the early 13th century (medieval period, c. 1240) and is the first of two treatises traditionally attributed to French music theorist Johannes de Garlandia; the othe ...
'', explains a set of six
rhythmic modes
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations (or rhythms). The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note (as is the case with more recent European musical notation), but rather by ...
that were in use at the time, although it is not clear how they were formed. These rhythmic modes were all in triple time and rather limited rhythm in chant to six different repeating patterns. This was a flaw seen by German music theorist
Franco of Cologne
Franco of Cologne (; also Franco of Paris) was a German music theorist and possibly a composer. He was one of the most influential theorists of the Late Middle Ages, and was the first to propose an idea which was to transform musical notation pe ...
and summarised as part of his treatise ''Ars cantus mensurabilis'' (the art of measured chant, or
mensural notation
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythmi ...
). He suggested that individual notes could have their own rhythms represented by the shape of the note. Not until the 14th century did something like the present system of fixed note lengths arise. The use of regular measures (bars) became commonplace by the end of the 17th century.
The founder of what is now considered the standard music staff was
Guido d'Arezzo
Guido of Arezzo ( it, Guido d'Arezzo; – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a ma ...
, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after 1033. He taught the use of
solmization
Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note of a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world, but solfège is the most common convention in countries of Western cultur ...
syllables based on a hymn to
Saint John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
, which begins
Ut Queant Laxis
"" or "" is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist, written in Horatian Sapphics with text traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in part ...
and was written by the
Lombard historian
Paul the Deacon. The first stanza is:
# Ut queant laxis
# resonare fibris,
# Mira gestorum
# famuli tuorum,
# Solve polluti
# labii reatum,
# Sancte Iohannes.
Guido used the first syllable of each line, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si, to read notated music in terms of
hexachords; they were not note names, and each could, depending on context, be applied to any note. In the 17th century, Ut was changed in most countries except France to the easily singable, open syllable Do, believed to have been taken either from the name of the Italian theorist
Giovanni Battista Doni, or from the Latin word ''Dominus'', meaning ''Lord''.
Christian monks developed the first forms of modern European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church, and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music, and its many derivatives. The
Baroque style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.
Modern staff notation
![Chopin Prelude 7](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Chopin_Prelude_7.png)
Modern music notation is used by musicians of many different genres throughout the world. The staff (or stave, in British English) consists of 5 parallel horizontal lines which acts as a framework upon which pitches are indicated by placing oval note-heads on (ie crossing) the staff lines, between the lines (ie in the spaces) or above and below the staff using small additional lines called
ledger line
A ledger line or leger line is used in Western musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff. A line slightly longer than the note head is drawn parallel to the staff, above or below, spaced ...
s. Notation is read from left to right, which makes setting music for right-to-left scripts difficult. The pitch of a note is indicated by the vertical position of the note-head within the staff, and can be modified by
accidentals
In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, ma ...
. The duration (note length or
note value
In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the '' notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags/ beams/hooks/tails''. Unmodified note valu ...
) is indicated by the form of the note-head or with the addition of a note-stem plus beams or flags. A stemless hollow oval is a
whole note
A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. Description
The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow o ...
or semibreve, a hollow rectangle or stemless hollow oval with one or two vertical lines on both sides is a
double whole note
In music, a double whole note (American), breve, or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note (or ''semibreve''). It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation. The longest notated note is the ''longa'', w ...
or breve. A stemmed hollow oval is a
half note
''Half Note'' is a live album by saxophonist Clifford Jordan which was recorded in 1974 and first released on the SteepleChase label in 1985. or minim. Solid ovals always use stems, and can indicate
quarter note
A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem ...
s (crotchets) or, with added beams or flags, smaller subdivisions. Additional symbols such as
dots
Directly observed treatment, short-course (DOTS, also known as TB-DOTS) is the name given to the tuberculosis (TB) control strategy recommended by the World Health Organization. According to WHO, "The most cost-effective way to stop the spread of T ...
and
ties TIES may refer to:
* TIES, Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science
* TIES, The Interactive Encyclopedia System
* TIES, Time Independent Escape Sequence
* Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science
The ''Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science' ...
can lengthen the duration of a note.
A staff of written music generally begins with a
clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pitc ...
, which indicates the pitch-range of the staff. The
treble clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pit ...
or G clef was originally a letter G and it identifies the second line up on the five line staff as the note G above middle C. The
bass clef or F clef identifies the second line down as the note F below middle C. While the treble and bass clef are the most widely used, other clefs, which identify middle C, are used for some instruments, such as the
alto clef (for
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
and
alto trombone
The alto trombone (german: Altposaune, Italian, French: ''trombone alto'') is the alto member of the trombone family of brass instruments, smaller than the tenor trombone. It is almost always pitched in E♭ a fourth higher than the tenor, althou ...
) and the
tenor clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pit ...
(used for some
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
,
bassoon,
tenor trombone
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
, and
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
music). Some instruments use mainly one clef, such as violin and flute which use
treble clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pit ...
, and
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
and
tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
which use
bass clef. Some instruments, such as
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
and
pipe organ, regularly use both treble and bass clefs.
Following the clef, the
key signature
In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef a ...
is a group of from 0 to 7
sharp
Sharp or SHARP may refer to:
Acronyms
* SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme
* Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...
(
♯) or
flat
Flat or flats may refer to:
Architecture
* Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries
Arts and entertainment
* Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch
* Flat (soldier), ...
(
♭) signs placed on the staff to indicate the
key of the piece or song by specifying that certain notes are sharp or flat throughout the piece, unless otherwise indicated with
accidentals
In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, ma ...
added before certain notes. When a flat (
♭) sign is placed before a note, the pitch of the note is lowered by one semitone. Similarly, a sharp sign (
♯) raises the pitch by one semitone. For example, a sharp on the note D would raise it to
D♯ while a flat would lower it to
D♭.
Double sharp
In music, sharp, dièse (from French), or diesis (from Greek) means, "higher in pitch". More specifically, in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by one semitone (half step)". Sharp is the opposite of flat, which is a lowering of pi ...
s and
double flat
In music, flat (Italian bemolle for "soft B") means "lower in pitch". Flat is the opposite of sharp, which is a raising of pitch. In musical notation, flat means "lower in pitch by one semitone (half step)", notated using the symbol which is deri ...
s are less common, but they are used. A double sharp is placed before a note to make it two semitones higher, a double flat - two semitones lower. A
natural sign
In music theory, a natural (♮) is an accidental which cancels previous accidentals and represents the unaltered pitch of a note. A note is natural when it is neither flat () nor sharp () (nor double-flat nor double-sharp ) (nor triple-flat ...
placed before a note renders that note in its "natural" form, which means that any sharp or flat applied to that note from the key signature or an accidental, is cancelled. Sometimes a
courtesy accidental
In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, ma ...
is used in music where it is not technically required, to remind the musician of what pitch is required.
Following the key signature is the
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...
. The time signature typically consists of two numbers, with one of the most common being . The top "4" indicates that there are four beats per measure (also called
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
). The bottom "4" indicates that each of those beats are quarter notes. Measures divide the piece into groups of
beats, and the time signatures specify those groupings. is used so often that it is also called "
common time
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note val ...
", and it may be indicated with rather than numbers. Other frequently used time signatures are (three beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); (two beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); (six beats per bar, with each beat being an eighth note) and (twelve beats per bar, with each beat being an eighth note; in practice, the eighth notes are typically put into four groups of three eighth notes. is a
compound time type of time signature). Many other time signatures exist, such as , , , , , and so on.
Many short
classical music pieces from the
classical era
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
and songs from
traditional music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
and
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
are in one time signature for much or all of the piece. Music from the
Romantic music era and later, particularly
contemporary classical music and
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
genres such as
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...
and the
hardcore punk
Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier p ...
subgenre
mathcore, may use
mixed meter
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...
; songs or pieces change from one meter to another, for example alternating between bars of and .
Directions to the player regarding matters such as
tempo
In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
(e.g.,
Allegro
Allegro may refer to:
Common meanings
* Allegro (music), a tempo marking indicate to play fast, quickly and bright
* Allegro (ballet), brisk and lively movement
Artistic works
* L'Allegro (1645), a poem by John Milton
* ''Allegro'' (Satie), an ...
,
Andante
Andante may refer to:
Arts
* Andante (tempo), a moderately slow musical tempo
* Andante (manga), ''Andante'' (manga), a shōjo manga by Miho Obana
* Andante (song), "Andante" (song), a song by Hitomi Yaida
* "Andante, Andante", a 1980 song by A ...
,
Largo,
Vif, Lent, Modérément,
Presto, etc.),
dynamics (pianississimo, pianissimo, piano, mezzopiano, mezzoforte, forte, fortissimo, fortississimo, etc.) appear above or below the staff. Terms indicating the
musical expression Musical expression is the art of playing or singing with a personal response to the music.
At a practical level, this means making appropriate use of dynamics, phrasing, timbre and articulation to bring the music to life. Composers may specify ...
or "feel" to a song or piece are indicated at the beginning of the piece and at any points where the mood changes (e.g., "Slow March", "Fast Swing", "Medium Blues", "Fougueux", "Feierlich", "Gelassen", "Piacevole", "Con slancio", "Majestic", "Hostile" etc.) For vocal music, lyrics are written near the pitches of the melody. For short pauses (breaths),
retake
A breath mark or luftpause is a symbol used in musical notation. It directs the performer of the music passage to take a breath (for wind instruments and vocalists) or to make a slight pause (for non-wind instruments). This pause is normally ...
s (retakes are indicated with a ' mark) are added.
In music for
ensembles, a "
score" shows music for all players together, with the staves for the different instruments and/or voices stacked vertically. The
conductor uses the score while leading an
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
,
concert band,
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
or other large ensemble. Individual performers in an ensemble play from "parts" which contain only the music played by an individual musician. A score can be constructed from a complete set of parts and vice versa. The process was laborious and time consuming when parts were hand-copied from the score, but since the development of
scorewriter
A scorewriter, or music notation program is software for creating, editing and printing sheet music. A scorewriter is to music notation what a word processor is to text, in that they typically provide flexible editing and automatic layout, and p ...
computer software in the 1980s, a score stored electronically can have parts automatically prepared by the program and quickly and inexpensively printed out using a computer printer.
Variations on staff notation
![Chord chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Chord_chart.svg)
*
Percussion notation
Percussion notation is a type of musical notation indicating notes to be played by percussion instruments. As with other forms of musical notation, sounds are represented by symbols which are usually written onto a musical staff (or stave).
Perc ...
conventions are varied because of the wide range of percussion instruments. Percussion instruments are generally grouped into two categories: pitched (e.g.
glockenspiel or
tubular bells
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
) and non-pitched (e.g.
bass drum and
snare drum). The notation of non-pitched percussion instruments is less standardized. Pitched instruments use standard Western classical notation for the pitches and rhythms. In general, notation for unpitched percussion uses the five line staff, with different lines and spaces representing different
drum kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...
instruments. Standard Western rhythmic notation is used to indicate the rhythm.
*
Figured bass
Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsi ...
notation originated in
Baroque basso continuo parts. It is also used extensively in
accordion notation. The bass notes of the music are conventionally notated, along with numbers and other signs that determine which chords the harpsichordist, organist or lutenist should improvise. It does not, however, specify the exact pitches of the harmony, leaving that for the performer to improvise.
* A
lead sheet
A lead sheet or fake sheet is a form of musical notation that specifies the essential elements of a popular song: the melody, lyrics and harmony. The melody is written in modern Western music notation, the lyric is written as text below the st ...
specifies only the melody, lyrics and harmony, using one staff with
chord symbols placed above and lyrics below. It is used to capture the essential elements of a
popular song without specifying how the song should be arranged or performed.
* A
chord chart
A chord chart (or chart) is a form of musical notation that describes the basic harmonic and rhythmic information for a song or tune. It is the most common form of notation used by professional session musicians playing jazz or popular music. ...
or "chart" contains little or no melodic or voice-leading information at all, but provides basic harmonic information about the
chord progression
In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...
. Some chord charts also contain rhythmic information, indicated using
slash notation
A chord chart (or chart) is a form of musical notation that describes the basic harmonic and rhythmic information for a song or tune. It is the most common form of notation used by professional session musicians playing jazz or popular music. It i ...
for full beats and rhythmic notation for rhythms. This is the most common kind of written music used by professional
session musicians playing
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
or other forms of
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
and is intended primarily for the
rhythm section (usually containing
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
,
bass and
drums).
* Simpler chord charts for songs may contain only the chord changes, placed above the lyrics where they occur. Such charts depend on prior knowledge of the melody, and are used as reminders in performance or informal
group singing. Some chord charts intended for
rhythm section accompanists contain only the chord progression.
* The
shape note system is found in some church hymnals,
sheet music, and song books, especially in the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. Instead of the customary elliptical note head, note heads of various shapes are used to show the position of the note on the major scale.
''The Sacred Harp'' is one of the most popular tune books using shape notes.
In various countries
Korea
''Jeongganbo'' is a unique traditional musical notation system created during the time of
Sejong the Great that was the first East Asian system to represent rhythm, pitch, and time. Among various kinds of Korean traditional music, Jeong-gan-bo targets a particular genre, Jeong-ak ().
Jeong-gan-bo tells the pitch by writing the pitch's name down in a box called 'jeong-gan' (this is where the name comes from). One jeong-gan is one beat each, and it can be split into two, three or more to hold half beats and quarter beats, and more. This makes it easy for the reader to figure out the beat.
Also, there are many markings indicating things such as ornaments. Most of these were later created by Ki-su Kim.
India
![Bhat notation1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Bhat_notation1.jpg)
The
Samaveda text (1200 BCE – 1000 BCE) contains notated melodies, and these are probably the world's oldest surviving ones.
[Bruno Nettl, Ruth M. Stone, James Porter and Timothy Rice (1999), The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Routledge, , pages 242–245] The musical notation is written usually immediately above, sometimes within, the line of Samaveda text, either in syllabic or a numerical form depending on the Samavedic ''Sakha'' (school). The Indian scholar and musical theorist
Pingala
Acharya Pingala ('; c. 3rd2nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian poet and mathematician, and the author of the ' (also called the ''Pingala-sutras''), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody.
The ' is a work of eight chapters in the la ...
(c. 200 BCE), in his ''Chanda Sutra'', used marks indicating long and short syllables to indicate meters in Sanskrit poetry.
A rock inscription from circa 7th–8th century CE at
Kudumiyanmalai
Kudumiyanmalai is a village in the Annavasal revenue block of Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu, India.
Demographics
As per the 2001 census, Kudumiyanmalai had a total population of 531 with 265 males and 266 females. Out of the total p ...
, Tamil Nadu contains an early example of a musical notation. It was first identified and published by archaeologist/epigraphist
D. R. Bhandarkar
Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar ( mr, देवदत्त रामकृष्ण भांडारकर; 19 November 1875 – 13 May 1950) was an Indian archaeologist and epigraphist who worked with the Archaeological Survey of India (AS ...
. Written in the Pallava-grantha script of the 7th century, it contains 38 horizontal lines of notations inscribed on a rectangular rock face (dimension of around 13 by 14 feet). Each line of the notation contains 64 characters (characters representing musical notes), written in groups of four notes. The basic characters for the seven notes, 'sa ri ga ma pa dha ni', are seen to be suffixed with the vowels a, i, u, e. For example, in the place of 'sa', any one of 'sa', 'si', 'su' or 'se' is used. Similarly, in place of ri, any one of 'ra', 'ri', 'ru' or 're' is used. Horizontal lines divide the notation into 7 sections. Each section contains 4 to 7 lines of notation, with a title indicating its musical 'mode'. These modes may have been popular at least from the 6th century CE and were incorporated into the Indian 'raga' system that developed later. But some of the unusual features seen in this notation have been given several non-conclusive interpretations by scholars.
In the notation of Indian
rāga, a solfege-like system called
sargam is used. As in Western solfege, there are names for the seven basic pitches of a major scale (Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata and Nishada, usually shortened to Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni). The tonic of any scale is named Sa, and the dominant Pa. Sa is fixed in any scale, and Pa is fixed at a fifth above it (a
Pythagorean
Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to:
Philosophy
* Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras
* Ne ...
fifth rather than an
equal-tempered fifth). These two notes are known as achala swar ('fixed notes').
Each of the other five notes, Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni, can take a 'regular' (shuddha) pitch, which is equivalent to its pitch in a standard major scale (thus, shuddha Re, the second degree of the scale, is a whole-step higher than Sa), or an altered pitch, either a half-step above or half-step below the shuddha pitch. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni all have altered partners that are a half-step lower (Komal-"flat") (thus, komal Re is a half-step higher than Sa).
Ma has an altered partner that is a half-step higher (-"sharp") (thus, Ma is an augmented fourth above Sa). Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni are called ('movable notes'). In the written system of Indian notation devised by Ravi Shankar, the pitches are represented by Western letters. Capital letters are used for the achala swar, and for the higher variety of all the vikrut swar. Lowercase letters are used for the lower variety of the vikrut swar.
Other systems exist for non-twelve-tone
equal temperament and non-Western music, such as the Indian ''
Swaralipi''.
Russia
![Kryuki](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Kryuki.jpg)
Znamenny Chant is a singing tradition used in the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
which uses a "hook and banner" notation. Znamenny Chant is
unison
In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm.
Definition
Unison or per ...
,
melisma
Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is refer ...
tic
liturgical
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
singing that has its own specific notation, called the ''stolp'' notation. The symbols used in the stolp notation are called ' (russian: крюки, links=no, 'hooks') or ' (russian: знамёна, links=no, 'signs'). Often the names of the signs are used to refer to the stolp notation. Znamenny melodies are part of a system, consisting of Eight Modes (intonation structures; called glasy); the melodies are characterized by fluency and well-balancedness . There exist several types of Znamenny Chant: the so-called ''Stolpovoy'', ''Malyj'' (Little) and ''Bolshoy'' (Great) Znamenny Chant. Ruthenian Chant (
Prostopinije Prostopinije (meaning Plain Chant in Rusyn) is a type of monodic church chant, closely related to Znamenny chant. Prostopinije is used in the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, Slovak Greek Catholic Church, and by the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox.
The ...
) is sometimes considered a sub-division of the Znamenny Chant tradition, with the
Muscovite
Muscovite (also known as common mica, isinglass, or potash mica) is a hydrated phyllosilicate mineral of aluminium and potassium with formula K Al2(Al Si3 O10)( F,O H)2, or ( KF)2( Al2O3)3( SiO2)6( H2O). It has a highly perfect basal cleavag ...
Chant (Znamenny Chant proper) being the second branch of the same musical continuum.
Znamenny Chants are not written with notes (the so-called linear notation), but with special signs, called ''Znamëna'' (Russian for "marks", "banners") or ''Kryuki'' ("hooks"), as some shapes of these signs resemble hooks. Each sign may include the following components: a large black hook or a black stroke, several smaller black 'points' and 'commas' and lines near the hook or crossing the hook. Some signs may mean only one note, some 2 to 4 notes, and some a whole melody of more than 10 notes with a complicated rhythmic structure. The stolp notation was developed in
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...
as an
East Slavic refinement of the
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
neumatic
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not n ...
musical notation.
The most notable feature of this notation system is that it records transitions of the melody, rather than
note
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
s. The signs also represent a mood and a gradation of how this part of melody is to be sung (tempo, strength, devotion, meekness, etc.) Every sign has its own name and also features as a spiritual symbol. For example, there is a specific sign, called "little dove" (Russian: голубчик ''(golubchik)''), which represents two rising sounds, but which is also a symbol of the
Holy Ghost
For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, is believed to be the third person of the Trinity, a Triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each entity itself being God.Gru ...
. Gradually the system became more and more complicated. This system was also ambiguous, so that almost no one, except the most trained and educated singers, could sing an unknown melody at sight. The signs only helped to reproduce the melody, not coding it in an unambiguous way.
(See
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
)
China
![Qinnotation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Qinnotation.png)
The earliest known examples of text referring to music in China are inscriptions on musical instruments found in the Tomb of
Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 B.C.). Sets of 41 chimestones and 65 bells bore lengthy inscriptions concerning pitches, scales, and transposition. The bells still sound the pitches that their inscriptions refer to. Although no notated musical compositions were found, the inscriptions indicate that the system was sufficiently advanced to allow for musical notation. Two systems of pitch nomenclature existed, one for relative pitch and one for absolute pitch. For relative pitch, a
solmization
Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note of a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world, but solfège is the most common convention in countries of Western cultur ...
system was used.
Gongche notation used Chinese characters for the names of the scale.
Japan
![Tempyo Biwa Fu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Tempyo_Biwa_Fu.jpg)
Japanese music is highly diversified, and therefore requires various systems of notation. In Japanese
shakuhachi music, for example, glissandos and timbres are often more significant than distinct pitches, whereas
taiko
are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming ...
notation focuses on discrete strokes.
Ryukyuan sanshin
The is an Okinawan and Amami Islands musical instrument and precursor of the mainland Japanese (). Often likened to a banjo, it consists of a snakeskin-covered body, neck and three strings.
Origins
Its close resemblance in both appearance a ...
music uses
kunkunshi
Kunkunshi ( ) is the traditional notation system by which music is recorded in the Ryukyu Islands. The term ''kunkunshi'' originally referred to the first three notes of a widely known Chinese melody, although today it is used almost exclusively i ...
, a notation system of
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
with each character corresponding to a finger position on a particular string.
Indonesia
Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. However, in
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
and
Bali, several systems were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes. Today the most widespread are cipher notations ("not angka" in the broadest sense) in which the pitches are represented with some subset of the numbers 1 to 7, with 1 corresponding to either highest note of a particular octave, as in
Sundanese
Sundanese may refer to:
* Sundanese people
* Sundanese language
* Sundanese script
Standard Sundanese script (''Aksara Sunda Baku'', ) is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script (' ...
gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...
, or lowest, as in the
kepatihan notation
Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesian gamelan but, in Java and Bali, several systems of gamelan notation were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes.
Kepatihan
Kep ...
of
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
nese
gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...
.
Notes in the ranges outside the central octave are represented with one or more dots above or below the each number. For the most part, these cipher notations are mainly used to notate the skeletal melody (the
balungan
The ''balungan'' ( jv, skeleton, frame) is sometimes called the "core melody" or, "skeletal melodic outline," of a Javanese gamelan composition. This corresponds to the view that gamelan music is heterophonic: the ''balungan'' is then the melody ...
) and vocal parts (
gerongan), although transcriptions of the elaborating instrument variations are sometimes used for analysis and teaching. Drum parts are notated with a system of symbols largely based on letters representing the vocables used to learn and remember drumming patterns; these symbols are typically laid out in a grid underneath the skeletal melody for a specific or generic piece.
The symbols used for drum notation (as well as the vocables represented) are highly variable from place to place and performer to performer. In addition to these current systems, two older notations used a kind of staff: the
Solo
Solo or SOLO may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Comics
* ''Solo'' (DC Comics), a DC comics series
* Solo, a 1996 mini-series from Dark Horse Comics
Characters
* Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character
* Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''S ...
nese script could capture the flexible rhythms of the
pesinden with a squiggle on a horizontal staff, while in
Yogyakarta
Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...
a ladder-like vertical staff allowed notation of the balungan by dots and also included important drum strokes. In Bali, there are a few books published of
Gamelan gender wayang
''Gamelan gender wayang'' is a style of gamelan music played in Bali, Indonesia. It is required for ''wayang'' (shadow puppet theatre) and most sacred Balinese Hindu rituals. The smallest of gamelan ensembles, it requires only two players and is ...
pieces, employing alphabetical notation in the old Balinese script.
Composers and scholars both Indonesian and foreign have also mapped the
slendro
Slendro ( jv, ꦱ꧀ꦭꦺꦤ꧀ꦢꦿꦺꦴ, ban, slendro, translit=Sléndro) ( su, salendro, translit=Saléndro) is one of the essential tuning systems used in gamelan instruments that have pentatonic scale. Based on Javanese mythology, ...
and
pelog
Pelog ( su, ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, translit=Pélog /pelog/, jv, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀, ban, ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄, translit=Pélog /pelok/) is one of the essential tuning systems used in gamelan instruments that has heptatonic scale. The other ...
tuning
Tuning can refer to:
Common uses
* Tuning, the process of tuning a tuned amplifier or other electronic component
* Musical tuning, musical systems of tuning, and the act of tuning an instrument or voice
** Guitar tunings
** Piano tuning, adjusti ...
systems of gamelan onto the western staff, with and without various symbols for
microtones
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of t ...
. The Dutch composer
Ton de Leeuw also invented a three line staff for his composition ''Gending''. However, these systems do not enjoy widespread use.
In the second half of the twentieth century, Indonesian musicians and scholars extended cipher notation to other oral traditions, and a
diatonic scale cipher notation has become common for notating western-related genres (church hymns, popular songs, and so forth). Unlike the cipher notation for gamelan music, which uses a "fixed Do" (that is, 1 always corresponds to the same pitch, within the natural variability of gamelan tuning), Indonesian diatonic cipher notation is "moveable-Do" notation, so scores must indicate which pitch corresponds to the number 1 (for example, "1=C").
Image:Surakarta gamelan notation slendro.png, A short melody in slendro notated using the Surakarta method.
Image:Yogyakarta gamelan notation slendro.png, The same notated using the Yogyakarta method or 'chequered notation'.
Image:Kepatihan gamelan notation slendro.png, The same notated using Kepatihan notation.
Image:Western gamelan notation slendro.png, The same approximated using Western notation.
Other systems and practices
Cipher notation
![AmazingGraceNumberedMusicalNotation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/AmazingGraceNumberedMusicalNotation.png)
Cipher notation systems assigning Arabic numerals to the
major scale
The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double ...
degrees have been used at least since the Iberian organ tablatures of the 16th-century and include such exotic adaptations as ''
Siffernotskrift
Siffernotskrift ( sv, "numerical note writing") or sifferskrift is a form of numbered musical notation in which numerals are given which correspond to musical notes on given instruments. The system was devised and used by Swedish clergyman, psa ...
''. The one most widely in use today is the Chinese ''Jianpu'', discussed in the
main article. Numerals can also be assigned to different scale systems, as in the Javanese ''
kepatihan'' notation
described above.
Solfège
Solfège is a way of assigning syllables to names of the musical scale. In order, they are today: ''Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do'' (for the octave). The classic variation is: ''Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do''. The first Western system of functional names for the musical notes was introduced by
Guido of Arezzo (c. 991 – after 1033), using the beginning syllables of the first six musical lines of the Latin hymn
Ut queant laxis
"" or "" is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist, written in Horatian Sapphics with text traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in part ...
. The original sequence was ''Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La'', where each verse started a scale note higher. "Ut" later became "Do". The equivalent syllables used in Indian music are: ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni''. See also:
solfège
In music, solfège (, ) or solfeggio (; ), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the tw ...
,
sargam,
Kodály hand signs.
Tonic sol-fa is a type of notation using the initial letters of solfège.
Letter notation
The notes of the 12-tone scale can be written by their letter names A–G, possibly with a trailing sharp or flat symbol, such as A or B.
Tablature
Tablature was first used in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
for organ music and later in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
for
lute music. In most lute tablatures, a staff is used, but instead of pitch values, the lines of the staff represent the strings of the instrument. The
frets to finger are written on each line, indicated by letters or numbers. Rhythm is written separately with one or another variation of standard note values indicating the duration of the fastest moving part. Few seem to have remarked on the fact that tablature combines in one notation system both the physical and technical requirements of play (the lines and symbols on them and in relation to each other representing the actual performance actions) with the unfolding of the music itself (the lines of tablature taken horizontally represent the actual temporal unfolding of the music). In later periods, lute and guitar music was written with standard notation. Tablature caught interest again in the late 20th century for popular
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
music and other fretted instruments, being easy to transcribe and share over the internet in
ASCII format.
Klavar notation
Klavarskribo (sometimes shortened to klavar) is a music notation system that was introduced in 1931 by the
Dutchman Cornelis Pot. The name means "keyboard writing" in
Esperanto. It differs from conventional music notation in a number of ways and is intended to be easily readable. Many klavar readers are from the Netherlands.
Piano-roll-based notations
Some chromatic systems have been created taking advantage of the layout of black and white keys of the standard piano keyboard. The "staff" is most widely referred to as "piano roll", created by extending the black and white piano keys.
Chromatic staff notations
Over the past three centuries, hundreds of music notation systems have been proposed as alternatives to traditional western music notation. Many of these systems seek to improve upon traditional notation by using a "chromatic staff" in which each of the 12 pitch classes has its own unique place on the staff. An example is Jacques-Daniel Rochat's
Dodeka music notation
The Dodeka Music Notation is an alternative music notation or musical notation system invented and designed in 1980s by inventor and musician Jacques-Daniel Rochat in an attempt to improve upon traditional music notation.
Staff and pitch
Unl ...
. These notation systems do not require the use of standard key signatures, accidentals, or clef signs. They also represent interval relationships more consistently and accurately than traditional notation, e.g. major 3rds appear wider than minor 3rds. Many of these systems are described and illustrated in Gardner Read's "Source Book of Proposed Music Notation Reforms".
Graphic notation
The term 'graphic notation' refers to the contemporary use of non-traditional symbols and text to convey information about the performance of a piece of music. Composers such as
Johanna Beyer
Johanna Magdalena Beyer (July 11, 1888 – January 9, 1944) was a German-American composer and pianist.
Biography
Johanna Beyer was born in Leipzig, Germany, but very little is known about her life prior to her move to the United States in 1923 ...
.
Christian Wolff,
Carmen Barradas,
Earle Brown
Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since ...
,
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up i ...
,
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Ch ...
,
John Cage,
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...
,
Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henr ...
,
Graciela Castillo,
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', '' Polish Requiem'', ' ...
,
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...
,
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...
and
Roger Reynolds
Roger Lee Reynolds (born July 18, 1934) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer. He is known for his capacity to integrate diverse ideas and resources, and for the seamless blending of traditional musical sounds with those newly enabled by ...
are among the early generation of practitioners. The book
Notations
''Notations'' is a book that was edited and compiled by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992) with Alison Knowles and first published in 1969 by Something Else Press. The book is made up of a large collection of graphical scores, ...
, by John Cage and
Alison Knowles
Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diff ...
, is another example of this kind of notation.
Simplified music notation
Simplified Music Notation is an alternative form of musical notation designed to make
sight-reading
In music, sight-reading, also called ''a prima vista'' (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to descr ...
easier. It is based on
classical staff notation, but incorporates
sharps and
flats
Flat or flats may refer to:
Architecture
* Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries
Arts and entertainment
* Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch
* Flat (soldier), ...
into the shape of the
note heads.
Note
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
s such as
double sharps and
double flats are written at the
pitch they are actually played at, but preceded by
symbols called ''history signs'' that show they have been
transposed
In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal;
that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations).
The tr ...
.
Modified Stave Notation
Modified Stave Notation
Modified Stave Notation (MSN) is an alternative way of notating music that was developed in the UK where it is widely used. MSN is intended to be used by people who cannot easily read ordinary musical stave notation (or staff notation), even if i ...
(MSN) is an alternative way of notating music for people who cannot easily read ordinary musical notation even if it is enlarged.
Parsons code
Parsons code is used to encode music so that it can be easily searched.
Braille music
Braille music is a complete, well developed, and internationally accepted musical notation system that has symbols and notational conventions quite independent of print music notation. It is linear in nature, similar to a printed language and different from the two-dimensional nature of standard printed music notation. To a degree Braille music resembles musical markup languages such as
MusicXML
MusicXML is an XML-based file format for representing Western musical notation. The format iopen fully documented, and can be freely used under the W3C Community Final Specification Agreement.
History
MusicXML was invented by Michael Good and in ...
or
NIFF.
Integer notation
In
integer notation
In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave posit ...
, or the
integer
An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the languag ...
model of pitch, all
pitch class
In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...
es and
intervals between pitch classes are designated using the numbers 0 through 11.
Rap notation
The standard form of rap notation is the "flow diagram", where rappers line up their lyrics underneath "beat numbers". Hip-hop scholars also make use of the same flow diagrams that rappers use: the books ''How to Rap'' and ''How to Rap 2'' extensively use the diagrams to explain rap's triplets, flams, rests, rhyme schemes, runs of rhyme, and breaking rhyme patterns, among other techniques. Similar systems are used by musicologists Adam Krims in his book ''Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity'' and Kyle Adams in his work on rap's flow. As rap usually revolves around a strong 4/4 beat, with certain syllables aligned to the beat, all the notational systems have a similar structure: they all have four beat numbers at the top of the diagram, so that syllables can be written in-line with the beat.
ABC
ABC notation is a compact format using plain text characters, readable by computers and by humans. More than 100,000 tunes are now transcribed in this format.
Music notation on computers
Unicode
The
Musical Symbols Unicode block encodes an extensive system of formal musical notation.
The
Miscellaneous Symbols
Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trigr ...
block has a few of the more common symbols:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing meteorological and astronomical symbols, emoji characters largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS, and characters originally fro ...
block has three emoji that may include depictions of musical notes:
*
*
*
Software
Many computer programs have been developed for creating music notation (called ''scorewriters'' or ''music notation software''). Music may also be stored in various digital file formats for purposes other than graphic notation output.
Perspectives of musical notation in composition and musical performance
According to Philip Tagg and
Richard Middleton, musicology and to a degree European-influenced musical practice suffer from a 'notational centricity', a methodology slanted by the characteristics of notation. A variety of 20th- and 21st-century composers have dealt with this problem, either by adapting standard Western musical notation or by using graphic notation. These include
George Crumb, Luciano Berio, Krzystof Penderecki, Earle Brown, Earl Brown,
John Cage, Witold Lutoslawski, and others.
See also
* List of musical symbols of modern notation.
* Hebrew cantillation
* Colored music notation
* Eye movement in music reading
*
Guido of Arezzo, inventor of modern musical notation
* History of music publishing
* List of scorewriters
* Mensural notation
* Rhythmic mode, Modal notation
* Music engraving, drawing music notation for the purpose of mechanical reproduction
* Music OCR, the application of optical character recognition to interpret sheet music
* Neume (
plainchant
Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text ...
notation)
* Pitch class
* Rastrum, a five-pointed writing implement used to draw parallel staff lines across a blank piece of sheet music
* Scorewriter
* Semasiography
* Sheet music
* Time unit box system, a notation system useful for polyrhythms
* Tongan music notation, a subset of standard music notation
* Tonnetz
* Znamenny chant
Notes
Sources
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* English translation of "Kojak—50 sekunders tv-musik".
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
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*
*
*
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*
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External links
Byzantine Music Notation Contains a Guide to Byzantine Music Notation (neumes).
CCARH—Center for Computer Assisted Research in the HumanitiesInformation on Stanford University Course on music representation. Links page shows examples of different notations.
Music Markup Language XML-based language for music notation.
* Gehrkens, Karl Wilson [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19499 ''Music Notation and Terminology'']. Project Gutenberg.
* Gilbert, Nina.
Glossary of U.S. and British English musical terms" Posted 17 June 1998; updated 7 September 2000.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musical Notation
Musical notation,
Mathematical notation