A Brief History of Music Notation
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Before sound recording, the only way to hear music was live in performance. Think about this. It's a real measure of the difference between our era and all of
human history.
Around the world today thousands of musical styles from all eras are put into rotation instantly because of recordings. Yet before sound recording, you could not
hear any music without a live performer.
Before sound recording, there were only two ways to pass music from generation to generation: by ear through oral history, or by some form of music notation.
Relatively few cultures in history have developed music notation. The more common musical practice is learning and teaching music by ear, and passing it along
as oral history. Without recordings, however, oral history is lost when cultures pass away. Notated music has survived past civilizations. Recent scholars of
music history have decoded many ancient music forms of music. Surviving bits and pieces of ancient notation are portals to the past; to lost performance
practices; to songs we might never know otherwise.
Why notate?
The function of notated music remained the same for thousands of years: to remember music. Notation reminds musicians what to play. With computers and
music technology, however, traditional notation can do many more things beyond the printed note.
In addition to notation's traditional function as sheet music, digitally notated music enables musical patterns and sound-worlds only possible with computers and
loudspeakers.
Digitally notated music is a vital part of film, dance, installation art, and live multimedia performances. The quality of digital sounds and samples have greatly
improved in recent years, giving composers amazing new tools for sound design. Notation made in Sibelius software, for example, can transfer as MIDI into a
digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Pro Tools, Reason, or Ableton Live. Notation now integrates with worlds of studio production possibilities, writing music
impossible for humans to create otherwise.
In the beginning...
The earliest known notation of music was encoded in cuneiform script in the region of Mesopotamia, a region in Iraq, with surviving examples dating back to
around 2500 BC.
an example of cuneiform script
Later civilizations, most notably Ancient Greece, developed music notation often written on sheets or scrolls of papyrus. Their notation consisted of placing
music symbols above each syllable of a word. It was used from the 6th century BC until around the 4th century AD. Knowledge and use of ancient Greek
notation faded during the fall of the Roman Empire.
In recent centuries musicologists have decoded the extant musical texts of the ancient Greeks. Several fragments of compositions using this notation survive,
but the oldest known example of a complete composition in the western world is the Seikilos epitaph. This epitaph has been variously dated between the 2nd
century BC to the 1st century AD. It was found encoded on a tomb, near Aidin, Turkey (not far from the fabled city of Ephesus). Also etched on the stone is an
indication that it is by Seikilos, for his wife, who presumably is buried there.
The Seikilos epitaph
Above the lyrics (transcribed in modern Greek) is a notation line, with letters and signs for the melody.
The Seikilos "score"
Translated into modern musical notation, the tune looks like this:
The Seikilos epitaph melody
This is a translation of the words sung to the melody:
While you live, dance and sing, be joyful:
For life is short,
and time carries all away.
manuscript reprinted from the Norton Anthology of Music
Surviving forms of ancient music notation can also be found outside of the western world. For example, in China the Book of Songs contains poems and folk
songs composed between 1000 BC and 600 BC. This collection was written in cipher notation, a form of notation commonly found in Asia, Indonesia, and India.
It consists primarily of numbers, letters, or characters that represent notes of a scale. This is very similar to melodies we may see written in western solfege (i.e.
do, re, mi).
Indonesian cipher notation for gamelan
Our symbolic notation, where symbols represent pitch and rhythm, seems to be a uniquely western phenomenon. Beginning around 6th century A.D., this new
form of notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe for Gregorian chants, named after Pope Gregory I who collected them.
Gregorian chant uses symbols known as neumes and begins to look like contemporary western notation.
nuemes in a Gregorian chant
Notice the staff above has only four lines (in contrast to our contemporary five-line staff), and the note heads vary in shapes and sizes. Some nuemes are
actually an instruction for a few notes, or a melodic fragment.
In this frieze, Pope Gregory I is in the top part, but notice underneath the three helping scribes?
(The lesson is to always always always make back-up copies of your work!)
14th century European composers sought greater means for expression and variety in notated music. This desire led to several advances in notation. This
stylistic period of development was known as ars nova, meaning "new art" or "new technique." The ars nova techniques were mainly concerned with polyphony,
where several players, each with an individual melody, perform simultaneously. This notational system is still largely the basis of our contemporary system. Each
note was defined by its own pitch and duration, forming melodies and rhythms, written on a five-line staff.
In the centuries leading up to the Renaissance, notation evolved for greater musical expressiveness and complexity. This system allowed for more and more
elaborate uses of counterpoint. By the 16th century ThomasTallis wrote the spectacular 40-voice motet, Spem in alium -- that's 40 individual parts sounding
simultaneously!
texture interlude
Notation in the western world evolved from using a single line of melody monophony - to multiple lines sounding simultaneously - polyphony.
Monophony and polyphony are types of music textures.
The history of notation represents an increasing desire for new musical
techniques, such as variety in textures, as well as an increasing musical
expressivity and an increasing rhythmic complexity.
Here below is an example of four-part polyphony during the Renaissance.
Notice there are actually four different parts. It's a split-screen presentation of four; each starts an illuminated letter "I" in each corner. In those days performers
read and learned individual parts this way. They didn't use a full score as we know it, where all of the individual parts are stacked vertically on one page. They
didn't need a score showing all the parts becuase they did not use have a conductor. Each part was sung simultaneously and everyone kept together by
following the same tempo. Imagine composing this way, without seeing melodies stacked together in time?
In this four-part polyphony, each part starts with an illuminated "I" beginning the first word, "Incipit" (Latin for "begin.")
Notice the image before the illuminated"I" in the upper left corner. Is it suggested performance attire?
In today's notational practice, we use a full score, where you can clearly see individual parts lined up together. Four-part polyphonic music, similar to the work
above, looks like this when printed in full score:
Notice also the lines of music without text, at the bottom. This is a piano reduction. The piano reduction is another type of score, where all of the individual parts
of a full score are compressed into two staffs for the piano, performed by two hands. This piano reduction includes every note of every vocal part, and is used for
rehearsing singers. Piano reductions are, however, sometimes performed as works in themselves.
Before the 15th century, all music was written by hand. The first machine-printed music began around 1473, about 20 years after Johannes Gutenberg
introduced the printing press.
The tradition of music notation has served us well for documenting, collecting, and archiving musical ideas. The history of notation thus far represents a portal to
past worlds of sounds and performance practices.
From yesteryear's multimedia with notation...
Rick Benjamin Orchestra
to our current Post-Note era.
Radiohead in concert (Thom Yorke with sheet music on an upright piano)
With the advent of recording devices, and especially the development of computers and music technology, our current era may be described as post-notation, or
post-note. Post-Note does not leave traditional notation to the past, but carries it forward into new technologies. Post-Note music integrates notated music with
the sound-worlds of non-notated music, especially the possibilities of music technology.
Music by groups such as Radiohead and Efterklang use notated music synchronized with other media and sounds, usually made with a range of electronic
instruments, digital audio workstations (DAWs), and MIDI.
With computers, notated music can do many more things beyond printing parts for live performers.
Notation made in Sibelius software, for example, can transfer as MIDI into a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Pro Tools, Reason, or Ableton Live. The
traditional techniques of orchestration and instrumentation have expanded infinitely, and composers can literally make their own ensembles of instruments. A
MIDI file imported into Reason, for example, allows for orchestration with thousands of sounds. Notation now integrates with worlds of multimedia studio
production possibilities, realizing styles of music impossible for humans to create otherwise
Digitally notated music (as MIDI) can drive synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and many other devices. Our Post-Note era is rich with possibilities in
synchronizing media with live performers just like traditional film scores, but with many more sound-source and editing possibilities.
a four-screen frame from Quartet, four simultaneous music films, by Christian Marclay
Notation is now one creative tool among many others employed in a multimedia environment.
© Anthony Gatto 2005