Notation

Notation
Ian D. Bent, David W. Hughes, Robert C. Provine, Richard Rastall, Anne Kilmer, David Hiley, Janka Szendrei, Thomas B.
Payne, Margaret Bent and Geoffrey Chew

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20114
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

Updated in this version

updated and revised, 1 July 2014

A visual analogue of musical sound, either as a record of sound heard or imagined, or as a set of visual
instructions for performers.

This article includes a discussion of notation in society (§II), subdivided into its primary types, which are
considered with reference to various notational systems. Other specialized aspects of notation are
considered in separate entries: Braille notation; Cheironomy; Ekphonetic notation; Pitch nomenclature;
Shape-note hymnody; Solmization; Tablature; and Tonic Sol-fa. For non-Western notational systems see,
in particular, China, People’s Republic of, §II, China, People’s Republic of, §IV; Indonesia; and Japan, §III,
4. Other related entries on technical subjects include Conducting; Improvisation; Mode; Psychology of
music; Scale; and Tuning.

Whereas Western notation is considered as such in §III, a discussion of musical documents as sources –
their physical make-up and production, their format, the layout and presentation of the music, the
ordering of their contents – will be found in Sources, MS; Sources of instrumental ensemble music to 1630;
Sources of keyboard music to 1660; and Sources of lute music; in these entries reference is made to
notations, and the descriptions of individual sources contain statements on notational types. See also
Accidental; Clef; Continuo; Note values; Ornaments; Proportional notation; Rest; Score; Staff; and
definitions of individual notational terms.

I. General

1. Introduction.
The concept of notation may be regarded as including formalized systems of signalling between
musicians, and systems of memorizing and teaching music with hand signs, spoken syllables, words or
phrases. The latter are sometimes called ‘oral notations,’ and the origins of written notations can often be
seen to lie in them. In 11th-century Europe, for example, instrumentalists had no notation, and church
musicians communicated mainly through syllables and hand signs rather than through the reading of a
score in rehearsal or performance. Similarly, many indigenous peoples of Africa south of the Sahara
communicate about music through speech in the form of syllables, word patterns, the numbers of
xylophone keys, the names of strings and other technical vocabulary.

Page 1 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Written notation as a phenomenon of literate societies has developed only after the formation of a script
for language, and it has generally used elements of that script. Some cultures including China, Korea,
Japan and Europe have each accumulated a large number of notational systems to serve different purposes.

The use of notation and the form it takes are the result of the social and cultural context in which it has
been developed. It is socially significant that, while in Western Europe it was vocal music that first
acquired a written notation, in Greece, Mesopotamia and Pharaonic Egypt it seems to have been
instrumental music. In the latter two cultures, and in later East Asian instrumental notations, the script of
language was used as part of the notation; in the former, as in the chant notations of Byzantium and
Eastern Europe, of Tibet, Mongolia and Japan, non-linguistic symbols were used and script was required
only for sung texts. Furthermore some notations are designed to give all necessary information, others
give only a small part of what would be needed by the non-adept. In the latter, the remaining information
is withheld either because it is already learnt and therefore unnecessary, or because there is a desire to
keep it secret.

Broadly speaking, there are two motivations behind the use of notation: the need for a memory aid and the
need to communicate. As a memory aid, it enables the performer to encompass a far greater repertory than
he or she could otherwise retain and realize. It may assist the performer’s memory in music that is already
basically known but not necessarily remembered perfectly; it may provide a framework for improvisation;
or it may enable the reading of music at sight (this last concept is a predominantly Western one). A written
notation provides the means to sketch and draft musical ideas during the composing process. As a means
of communication, it preserves music over a long period; it facilitates performance by those not in contact
with the composer; it equips the conductor with a set of spatial symbols by which to obtain certain
responses during performance; it presents music as a ‘text’ for study and analysis, and offers the student
the means of bringing it to life in his or her mind when no performance is possible; and it serves the
theorist as a medium by which to demonstrate musical or acoustical laws.

2. Chronology.
In trying to see all notations in a single chronological sweep it must be borne in mind that these
developments can be seen only in their surviving remnants. A notation preserved as a musical source of a
given date may be unrepresentative; a theoretical description of a notation may be ambiguous or
inaccurate; a literary allusion to notational practice may take poetic licence or even be fictional.
Interpretation of what survives is the first of the difficulties. Filling in the gaps between the survivals is the
second, particularly when this involves not merely decades or centuries but millennia.

The earliest recognized form of writing by any civilization was the system used by the Mesopotamian
civilizations of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians and others in the Middle East. Its pictographic
origins date from at least the middle of the 4th millennium BCE and its developed syllabic-logographic
cuneiform system survived into the Hellenistic period and down to the 1st century CE. The hieroglyphic
writing of the ancient Egyptians, a mixture of ideographs (pictures representing not merely the objects
depicted but also ideas associated with those objects) and phonetic symbols, survived to about 400 CE. It is
in connection with these hieroglyphs, carved on the walls of temples and tombs, that the first visual

Page 2 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

representations of musical sounds may have survived (see Cheironomy): certain of the carvings from the
Pharaonic period contain scenes of music-making that show what appears to be a system of arm, hand and
finger signs by which instructors signalled details of melody and rhythm to performers (Hickmann, RBM,
x, 1956, p.1 and MGG1). Moreover, some of the hieroglyphic signs themselves, from the Middle Kingdom
(c2686–2181 BCE) and New Kingdom (1567–1085 BCE), have been interpreted as specific written musical
instructions. Cheironomy may also have existed among the Jews by the 2nd millennium BCE, and it is
probable that some of the signs in the system of biblical accents developed by the Masoretic scholars of
Tiberias during the 9th century CE and the early 10th were originally based on the cheironomic hand signs
used to assist the singer in his chanting (see Cheironomy, §4; Ekphonetic notation, §2; Jewish music, §III,
2, (ii)).

From ancient Mesopotamia, there is clear evidence of a system of phonetic notation, that is, descriptive
musical instructions that may be viewed as skeletal notations for string instruments. This system is
preserved in about 80 Akkadian cuneiform tablets and fragments dating from between 1800 and 500 BCE,
during which period the system was used consistently. This ‘notation’ is based on a technical Akkadian
(and to a lesser extent Sumerian) music terminology that gives individual names to nine musical strings or
‘notes’ and to 14 basic terms describing intervals of the 4th and 5th that were used in tuning string
instruments (according to seven heptatonic diatonic scales) and terms for 3rds and 6ths that appear to
have been used to fine tune (or temper in some way) the seven notes generated for each scale. The
combination of string names and interval terms is used to describe the tuning procedure and the
generation of the seven scales, and forms a skeletal phonetic notation or a kind of phonetic instrumental
tablature. This system was used in both northern and southern Mesopotamia and has also been found at
the ancient site of Ugarit (Ras Shamra, Syria). Tablets from the latter site dating from about 1400 BCE
include hymn texts written in the Hurrian language followed by the standard Akkadian musical
instructions for intervals and scale. Unusually, these tablets have number signs after the interval names;
this ‘notational’ system is open to various interpretations, but it seems likely to have been intended for the
instrumentalist accompanying the singing.

The earliest known alphabetical system of notation (i.e. a system in which each sign represents a single
sound, each sound being designated by one sign) is that of Ugarit, which is preserved on clay tablets using
unique cuneiform signs to represent 30 letters; it appears to have evolved from cuneiform syllabaries of
the mid-2nd millennium BCE in Syria-Palestine. The later North-Semitic alphabet of 22 letters, which
developed towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, was the origin of, among others, the Hebrew and
Greek alphabets, both of which emerged in the early centuries of the 1st millennium BCE. The first musical
notation known to harness the alphabet, with its built-in ordering, to the representation of pitch was the
older of the two Greek systems, the so-called ‘instrumental’ notation, which used a mixture of Greek
letters and other symbols to represent a continuous diatonic series of notes over three octaves. Each letter
or sign appears also rotated on to its side and also in mirror image to represent the diatonic note raised by
a quarter-tone and semitone respectively. This notation must have come into existence some time before
500 BCE, whereas the ‘vocal’ notation, using the Ionic alphabet, cannot be much earlier than the 5th
century BCE (see Greece, §I, 7 and Alypius).

Page 3 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

An essentially ideographic system of writing existed in China probably by early in the 2nd millennium BCE,
with each ‘character’ of the script representing a single monosyllabic word. The earliest reference to the
use of monosyllables to represent musical pitches dates from the 4th century BCE; and the first detailed
discussion, dating from the 2nd century BCE, shows the five monosyllables (and hence written characters)
gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu denoting the notes of the Chinese pentatonic scale. These monosyllables are in
effect solmization syllables in that they designate the five points on the pentatonic scale, movable to any
fixed pitch. On the other hand, in the 3rd century BCE the earliest surviving account was given of the fixed-
pitch system of the 12 lü, each pitch of which had its own name: the starting-pitch was called huangzhong
(‘yellow bell’), the 5th above it linzhong (‘forest bell’), the 5th above that (i.e. the 2nd) taicou (‘great
frame’) etc. Each pitch was thus represented in script by a pair of characters (see China, §II).

Reference has already been made to the addition of accents to Hebrew biblical texts. The use of such
accents for the cantillation of texts is called Ekphonetic notation. A developed system of nine accents,
indicated by the placing and grouping of dots, existed for Hebrew texts in the 6th century CE. This system
was developed to a high degree of sophistication in the ensuing centuries. Other traditions that use
ekphonetic notations include the liturgical monophonic repertories of the Syrian, Armenian and Byzantine
Churches.

The earliest clear examples of instrumental tablature date from the 6th and 8th centuries CE. The first is an
elaborate set of technical instructions for the Chinese zither, the qin, directing how to play the piece
entitled Youlan. The system, known as wenzi pu, remained in existence until the 10th century. A tablature
notation for the Japanese lute, the biwa, dates from 768 and derives from the Chinese court tradition.

The earliest surviving neumatic notations for Western plainchant date from the 9th century: notably the
stroke (accent) neumes of St Gallen in Switzerland, in which finely drawn lines, curves and hooks
represent the rise and fall of the melodic line graphically; and the point neumes of Palaeo-Frankish,
Messine (or Lorraine) and Aquitanian sources. From this century also dates the earliest survival of
Byzantine ekphonetic notation. It may have been not long after this that neumatic notation first came into
use in Tibet for the singing of Buddhist chant, possibly by influence from the ekphonetic system of the
Syrian Church transmitted by the Nestorians (see Syrian church music, §6; Tibetan music, §II, 4; Buddhist
music, §2).

In the 9th century dasian notation, which in its rotation of notational signs has a peculiar similarity to
Greek ‘instrumental’ notation, was used to notate the earliest surviving Western polyphony: the so-called
‘parallel’ and ‘free’ organum of Musica enchiriadis. There were also the first traces of an alphabetical
notation for Arabic theory – not used in musical practice – though its earliest survivals date only from the
13th century.

The Chinese gongche notation seems to have originated in the Central Asian kingdom of Kuqa before the
6th century CE, but only reappears in extant sources from the Song dynasty (960–1279). While at first it
was, perhaps, a form of tablature for the double reed pipe bili, in later centuries it was used as a more
general solfeggio type of notation for both vocal and instrumental music. The 10th century saw the change

Page 4 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

to the new jianzipu tablature for the Chinese qin: a highly compact notation in which information about
right-hand plucking and left-hand positioning, duration and embellishment is packed into a single
complex symbol (see §II, 6, 8 below; see also China, People’s Republic of and Qin).

From the 10th century to the 12th survive the earliest partbooks for Japanese court wind and string
instruments. These are primarily tablatures, but koto zither notation is also one of the earliest number
notations (see below, §5; see also Japan, §III, 3).

Fig.11

The 11th century saw in western Europe the innovations associated with Guido of Arezzo: the staff, the
Guidonian hand (a type of cheironomy) and solmization syllables; in eastern Europe the earliest neumes in
Byzantine and Slavonic manuscripts; and in the Middle East the use of ekphonetic notations in Georgian
and Armenian manuscripts. The 12th century saw the beginnings of sumifu neumatic notation in the
Japanese secular epic, in which teardrop-shaped lines placed to the left of written text signify stereotyped
melodic patterns; and the 13th century the beginning of goin-hakase for Buddhist chant, in which the angle
at which a short line is placed indicates the pitch of the note to be sung, and gomafu notation (related to
sumifu) for Japanese noh drama (see §II, 7 and fig.13 below; see also Japan, §III, 2).

South Asian solmization syllables date back to at least the 4th and 5th centuries CE. In the Nāṭyaśāstra
seven pitches are represented by the syllables sa ri ga ma pa dha ni, which are said to be shorthand for the
Sanskrit ṣaḍjaṛṣabha gāndhāra madhyama pañcama dhaivata and niṣāda. Widdess (1996, p.393), however,
asserts that the short forms are oral in origin and not abbreviations. Although these pitches are named in
the Nāṭyaśāstra the earliest known South Asian notation dates from the 7th–8th century CE and is found on
a rock inscription at Kudumiyamalai in Tamil Nadu (fig.1). Syllables used as mnemonics for drum-patterns
are also described in the Nāṭyaśāstra, and particularly in the 13th-century Saṅgīta-ratnākara.

Page 5 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.1. A small portion of the Kudumiyamalai Inscription (7th–8th century)

Meanwhile, Western notation was undergoing fundamental changes, with the formation of square
notation in the 12th century, the development of the rhythmic modes and the evolution of the mensural
system with its highly complex rhythmic possibilities. Contemporary with the peak of this development, in
the mid-15th century, was the formation, in Korea, of the only alphabet among all the East Asian
civilizations. Following soon on that was the importation and adaptation of Chinese notations for Korean
use: the yulchapo, which took over the abbreviated names of the Chinese lü but pronounced them in
Korean; the kŏmun’go tablature for the six-string zither, which adopted the compact Chinese jianzi pu but
incorporated Korean letters into it (see §II, 8 and fig.16 below); the kongch’ŏk po, which adapted the
Chinese gongche notation for ritual melodies; and the ‘five-note abbreviated notation’ oŭmyakpo which
corresponds to the ancient Chinese solmization system but uses a central degree of the scale kung (the
lowest of the five Chinese degrees) and ranges outward from that using numbers and prefixes: sangil
(‘above one’) for the note immediately above it, hasam (‘below three’) for the third note below it, and so
on. With these went the invention of a Korean mensural notation, chŏngganbo: a grid system, in which
each space corresponds to one time unit and into which a pitch symbol from one of the pitch notations
could be placed as required (see also Korea, §II).

During the 15th and 16th centuries the first Western instrumental tablatures developed (though they may
possibly have begun in the 13th century), the earliest being for keyboard instruments and the lute family.
The 16th century saw the gradual breakdown of the proportional mensural system of values into a fixed-
value system in which each note value contained two of the next value down. At the same time,
unmeasured square notation was still used for plainchant, and for monophonic secular music in Germany,
as was neumatic notation – the ‘Reformed’ notation – in Byzantine and Russian sources.

It was probably in the 16th century (though possibly earlier) that Balinese solmization syllables for
gamelan compositions in the pelog system came to be written down in Balinese script as a notation. At the
end of the 19th century the nut andha (‘ladder notation’) of Central Java used in the Yogyakarta kraton
manuscripts came into use: a grid system, with dots not unlike the Western staff (though vertical rather
than horizontal. Another system, nut ranté (‘chain notation’) using six horizontal lines, with dots above or
below the lines representing pitches and connected with ‘chains’, came into use only a few years before
that; at the same time a number notation for pitches, nut angka, also known as kepatihan, was introduced.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw in Western notation a formalization of the orchestral score, an increasing
use of non-Italian verbal indications as auxiliary signs to staff notation, and a more detailed specification
of all parameters of sound in an attempt to prescribe every detail of performance. This has brought with it
proposals for the reform of notation, in particular two: Klavarskribo and Equitone. Compositional
indeterminacy imposed new demands upon staff notation that at first were answered by ‘space–time
notation’ and later by specially designed systems. Both representational and technical notations have also
been devised for electronic music.

Page 6 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Many East Asian notations came under the influence of staff notation during the 19th century, and new
ones arose using Arabic numbers (mostly based on the Galin-Paris-Chevé method see below, §II, 5) and
recently developed solmization-syllable systems. Just as the writing of microtonal music by Western
composers in the 20th century placed strain upon the rigid pitch representation of staff notation and
caused the introduction of quarter-tone and sixth-tone accidentals and signs for microtonal inflection, so
too the need to transcribe non-Western music has strained the capacity of staff notation. Two new
methods have been developed: that of the Melograph, an invention by Charles Seeger that traces a pitch–
time graph immediately above a volume–time graph; and a device by Karl Dahlback that produces two
similar graphs by means of a cathode-ray tube.

Taking a historical perspective, between about 500 BCE and the 10th century CE most of the world’s
principal alphabetical and ideographic notations (many of the latter probably arising out of solmization-
syllable systems) were established. Some of the ideographic notations were instrumental tablatures (see
§II, 5 below), all of them from East Asia; Western tablatures developed later. Towards the end of this
period was another in which accents were used as notational signs: this is concentrated particularly in the
period from the 5th century to the 11th CE, although the origins of some systems may be earlier. Most of
the world’s neumatic systems seem to have developed in the surprisingly narrow period between the 9th
century and the 12th: neumes in Western Europe, in Byzantium and Eastern Europe, in Japan and probably
also in Tibet. Number notations are far later developments: apart from the use of numbers in Chinese qin
tablature of the 10th century and Japanese koto tablature by the 12th, they arose in Korea in the 15th
century, in Western tablatures in the 16th and thereafter with increasing popularity in the 19th and 20th
centuries.

II. Notational systems

Ian D. Bent, revised by David W. Hughes, Robert C. Provine and Richard Rastall

1. Materials: general.
A musical notation requires, in essence, two things: an assemblage of ‘signs’ and a convention as to how
those signs relate to one another. A written musical notation requires further a spatial arrangement of the
signs on the writing surface that makes a ‘system’ of the assemblage; it is this system that forms an
analogue with the system of musical sound, thus enabling the signs to ‘signify’ individual elements of it.

Only rarely has music fashioned its own sign systems. It has generally been content to take over systems in
use for other purposes (such as the representation of arithmetical values, of speech inflection or of the
sounds of natural language). In so doing it has often discarded part of the system and modified the shapes
of the signs to suit its purpose. Such signs, the ‘materials’ of notation, can be broadly classified into two
categories: the phonic and the graphic. Phonic signs include letters, syllable-signs and word-signs (signs
that convey both the meaning of the word and its sound in speech – known as ‘logo-syllabic signs’).
Certain systems of numerals also come into this category: systems that assign names to at least the lower
range of numbers. Graphic signs include geometric shapes, lines, dots, curves, grids and the like.

Page 7 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Phonic signs are by their nature already representational of sounds outside music. They can be ‘spoken’ as
well as written, which increases their communicative power. But they have an all-important additional
quality: either they have meaning (like word signs and numbers) or they belong to some system of
ordering (like letters and in some cases syllables). These are the properties that were implied above in
speaking of the adoption for other purposes of systems already in use.

2. Letters of the alphabet.

For the requirements of an alphabetical notation, it is not in fact the phonic – or perhaps ‘phonemic’,
since each letter at least in principle signifies a single sound of language – quality of a letter that is
important but rather its position within a conventional order: an alphabet. The ordering of letters in an
alphabet offers a ready-made base for notation, as it can be directly related to the intrinsic acoustical order
of musical sound. It thus becomes an analogue of musical order: an item in the musical order is specified
by reference to its place on the analogous system.

As stated above (§I, 2), the earliest-known alphabetic writing dates to the middle of the 2nd millennium
BCE. The first known to have an established order of letters is the Hebrew alphabet, traceable back at least
to the 6th century BCE. This order corresponds to the acrostics in the Bible (Lamentations, Proverbs,
Psalms). Until the 17th century alphabetic writing existed in only a small area of the world: the Middle East,
the Mediterranean countries, Eastern and Western Europe, South Asia and Korea. The earliest alphabets –
Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic and North Semitic – all developed between 1000 and 500 BCE. From these
developed the Greek, Latin, Cyrillic and early Indian alphabets. As to order of letters, the Greek alphabet is
close to the Hebrew, the Latin close to the Greek.

One of the advantages of an alphabet for music notation is that it consists of single rather than compound
signs – signs that are distinctive and at the same time compact. Another is that it contains a convenient
number of signs (alphabets range from about 20 to 50 letters, most having between 20 and 30) to represent
a chromatic double octave or a diatonic triple octave; fewer can be selected to represent a single octave in a
repeating scheme or the frets on a stopped-string instrument. Moreover, the letters of alphabets are
generally assigned names (the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet being called daleth, the Greek delta, the
Latin and modern Western European de and so forth), so that the notation can be spoken as well as written.

The alphabet was used for pitch notation in ancient Greece, and then around the 10th century in western
Europe before being formalized in shape and absorbed into staff notation as clefs (C, F, G) and accidentals
(‘b’, ‘h’). The alphabetic system is implicit still in staff notation, since in most European countries the
placing of notes on the staff is translated into spoken letter-names (except in France, where they are
translated into fixed solmization syllables; see Pitch nomenclature). The Western system is a repeating
one, since the letters refer only to pitch classes, not to specific pitches; therefore the 19th-century German
philosopher and scientist Hermann von Helmholtz developed a scheme of dashes to indicate pitch register
(the dashes deriving from Greek notation but the letters coming from the Latin alphabet): A〟, B〟, C

Page 8 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

–B

, C–B, c–b, c′ (middle C)–b′, c″–b″, c‴–b‴ etc. The alphabet has also been used to denote keys, finger
positions or frets in many Western tablature systems.
There are many examples of verbal abbreviation in Western notations: the letter p, for example, is used as
an instruction to play softly (piano) and, in a rather elaborate formalized fashion (as an alternative to
‘Ped.’), below the staves, to indicate application of the sustaining pedal of the piano. ‘Significative letters’
were used in conjunction with some early Western neumatic notations to indicate duration (c to stand for
cito or celeriter, ‘quickly’, i.e. ‘short’ value) and direction of movement (l to stand for levare, s for sursum,
both meaning ‘upward’).

In all these non-alphabetic uses of letters, the notation can be described as ‘secondary’: that is, the letters
signify words that in turn signify musical elements, rather than signifying musical elements directly.
However, such is the force of tradition that formalized letters often cease to be recognizable: by this means
a pedal mark has become a graphic sign that refers directly to the pianist’s foot movement. The same is
true even for alphabetic uses of letters: the treble and bass clefs are now scarcely recognizable as
formalized letters ‘G’ and ‘F’, and have become instead graphic signs for the two fixed pitches g′ and f with
a range of special technical connotations associated.

3. Syllables.
As with letters, syllable notations fall into two categories: those that operate by reference to an established
order of syllables, and thus relate directly to a musical order (‘primary’ notations), and those that use
syllabic abbreviations of words, and operate by reference to meaning or name (‘secondary’ notations).
Cutting across this categorization is the orthographic one: that some of these syllable systems are
expressible as single symbols (ideograms or ‘characters’) while others have to be spelt out in letters.

A classic case of the first (‘primary’) category is the set of Japanese syllables i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to. These
are the initial seven syllables of an established order of some 48 Japanese characters closely analogous to
the order of an alphabet – that is, it is a conventional order rather than an intrinsic one. In Western music
terminology in Japan, these first seven function exactly like the Western letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, with
repetition for each octave in the same way. Thus a C major scale is represented as ha–ni–ho–he–to–i–ro–
ha, each having a single character to represent it in written form. (A more extensive set from this series
was used in 17th-century shamisen tablature to represent successive finger positions from the open bass
string to the highest position on the treble string.) A simpler example is the set of syllables for the Balinese
five-note slendro scale, a set that rotates through five vowel sounds: ding–dong–dèng–dung–dang. It is
almost an alphabetical system using only vowels, save for the fact that Balinese literary script uses
characters rather than letters and therefore has no alphabet. The characters for these five notes are shown
in fig.2 (see also Indonesia, §II, 1(ii)(b), Table 1).

Page 9 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.2

Similar to this is the set of Chinese syllables for the pentatonic scale: gong–shang–jue–zhi–yu (see fig.3a,
with the parallel set of Korean syllables using the same Chinese characters, fig.3b).

Fig.3

The Chinese gongche notation is a more complex system of the same type. It consists of ten characters, or
ideograms, each representing a syllable that stands for a note on a largely diatonic scale extending over a
9th. Fig.4 shows these syllables and their characters, with he arbitrarily set to the pitch c. Octave positions
are sometimes shown by the addition of an affix or small mark. A chromatic scale could be produced from
this by the use of the prefixes gao- (‘high’) to raise a note, or xia- (‘low’) to lower it, by a semitone; but
after the 11th century gao- ceased to be used. Korean musicians in the 15th century adopted the ten basic
characters, applying their own pronunciation: hap, sa, il, sang, ku, ch’ŏk, kong, pŏm, yuk and o. The Korean
notation is called kongch’ŏkpo and it does not use affixes or marks, allowing sa to denote d or d♭, and
similarly with il, kong and pŏm. It is noteworthy that four of the characters in gongche notation are
numerals (si is four, yi is one, liu is six and wu is five); thus the notation is partly numerical.

The South Asian system of syllabic solmization is usually written down in Devanagiri script in North India,
or Tamil or Telugu script in the South (fig.5). Although notation is generally considered to be of little
importance in what are predominantly oral traditions, it is widely used as an aid to memory or as a
learning tool. This is particularly true of Karnatak music, which relies to a much greater extent on a body of
compositions than does Hindustani music. The syllables themselves may describe the duration of a pitch
through the use of a short or long vowel: usually a short vowel stands for a pitch of one mātrā (‘beat’) or
less and a long vowel for two beats or more. Symbols modifying the pitches vary from system to system but
common devices include a short vertical line above the syllable denoting a sharpened pitch, or a short
horizontal line below the syllable showing a flattened pitch. The syllables are arranged on a framework
which shows the rhythmic cycle (tāla), one line of notation being equal to one cycle of the tāla (see fig.6 ).

Page 10 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.5

Ex.1

Rather different, but not unlike the Indian solmization syllables, are the Western medieval ut, re, mi, fa,
sol, la. They are indeed syllables in written form, being the initial syllables of the first six lines of a seven-
line hymn to St John, the text of which is attested from about 800 and would have been well known in the
11th century when Guido of Arezzo created a solmization system from them. The syllables were by chance
distinctive, and operated by reference to a textual order. But their referential character was much
strengthened by the fact that the first six lines of the hymn’s melody began successively on the degrees of
the scale c–a, and they thus operated by reference also to an established external musical order – though
whether the melody existed before the solmization system, or whether it was designed as a supporting aid,
is not known. The derivation is shown in ex.1. Out of this succession of notes was created the ‘natural
hexachord’, which was flanked by a ‘soft hexachord’ of the same succession transposed a 5th lower and a

Page 11 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

‘hard hexachord’ transposed a 5th higher, the three forming together the underlying musical system
known as musica recta. This total system was transposable to other relative pitch levels, and isolated
hexachords of ‘alien’ pitch levels could be introduced, each hexachord having the identical set of syllables
(see Solmization, §I, 1; Hexachord; Musica ficta; and Guido of Arezzo).

Javanese titilaras kepatihan (‘cipher notation’) whose seven syllables, ji, ro, lu, pat, ma, nem and pi, are
abbreviations for the numbers 1 to 7: siji, loro, telu, papat, lima, nĕm and pitu.

Ex.2

In addition to their referential power and their capacity (as abbreviations) to refer to the meanings of
words, syllables have a further quality: onomatopoeia. The degree of openness or closedness of the vowel
sound, the presence or absence of initial and terminal consonants, and the character of any such
consonants (dental, labial, nasal etc.) is frequently used to reflect tone-colour, attack or rhythmic value. A
simple case is ‘scat singing’ in jazz, where doo is used for a stressed and sustained note, bee for a short
unstressed note and bop for a staccato note, stressed but often off the beat. Thus the pattern bop bop bee-
doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bee can be sung to the rhythmic pattern shown in ex.2 by a scat singer almost as if it
were a rhythmic solmization; it can also be used as a verbal communication of the rhythmic pattern.

Onomatopoeic syllables are used by Ewe drummers in Ghana. Two strokes of the butts of the hands in
succession at the centre of the drumhead are represented by the syllables ga-da, the softer sounds of the
hands brushing across the centre of the drum by ka-tsa, and the use of splayed fingers to produce a
combination of round drum tone and sharpness of attack by ga-tsya. But the relationship between drum
sounds and syllables goes beyond representation: it is an identity – the drums are themselves thought of
as producing the syllables, and when syllables are spoken to the drums they are spoken at the same pitches
as the drums. Oral drum notations are widespread in South Asia and are described at length elsewhere in
the dictionary (see India, §III, 6(iii)(a)–(b); Mṛdaṅgam; and Tablā).

4. Syllables and vowel acoustics.

Whereas the syllabic systems discussed above (§II, 3) represent specific pitch classes, scale degrees or
performance techniques, other syllable systems, less formalized but highly regular, tend to use vowels and
consonants in accordance with their acoustic phonetic features to reflect iconically relative pitch, duration,
resonance, loudness and so on. The relations between such syllables and musical features are thus far from
arbitrary.

Page 12 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Vowels, in particular, are often used in accordance with what phoneticians call their intrinsic pitch,
intensity and duration (see Hughes, 1989). For example, the vowels i, e, a, o, u in their approximate
Spanish or Japanese pronunciations are often perceived as constituting a descending pitch sequence
(reflecting their ‘second formant’ pitches). Many cultures exploit this intrinsic pitch ordering of vowels in
teaching instrumental music. Thus the fixed melodic repertory of the Japanese nōkan flute is taught by
singing mnemonics such as ohyarai houhouhi, in which successive vowel pairs reveal melodic direction
with over 90% accuracy: the sequences ohya, rai, uho and uhi all represent melodic ascents, with uhi
signifying the largest leap because its two vowels are at opposite ends of the pitch spectrum; iho and hou
represent melodic descents (see Japan, §VI). In several such systems in Japan (where scholars call them
shōga) and Korea (yukpo or kum), exceptions to this relationship between vowels and melodic direction
often result from the competing acoustics of intrinsic duration and intensity, whereby a is favoured for
comparatively long, loud or metrically important notes, while i and u are used for weak or short notes, with
e and o in between.

Consonants also play a role. In the sequence teren for Japanese shamisen lute, t indicates a normal, resonant
down-pluck; r signifies a gentler sound (never the initial note of a phrase), either an up-pluck or a left-
hand pizzicato; and n shows that the second sound is longer than the first. In many drum mnemonics
throughout the world, a final k – a stopped sound – represents a damped stroke, while a final nasal or
vowel shows that the sound is left to resonate and decay naturally.

Such systems could be called ‘acoustic-iconic systems’. Their oral origins are reflected in the lack of any
indigenous explanations for their patterning; their iconic symbolic power (teachers emphasize their
importance) lies precisely in their acoustic naturalness. Today, however, such systems are often written
down. In many Japanese and Korean written notation systems (which tend to be different for each
instrument), each line of tablature or pitch notation is accompanied by a line of acoustic-iconic syllables
(see below fig.16b). The fact that this may happen even when this line adds no information to the tablature,
as in shamisen bunka-fu notation, confirms the traditional importance of such syllables in transmission.

5. Words.
Words have assumed a place in Western staff notation only during the last 350 years or so. They have done
so with the rise of the score and of the desire of composers to specify the instrumental forces for their
music; and this has happened simultaneously with the desire also to specify tempo, mood, character and
detailed matters of tone production and attack (see Tempo and expression marks). Thus, for tempo, words
such as largo and allegro were introduced, and a set of modifiers was applied to them to express shades of
meaning: molto, assai, non troppo, -etto and so on. Such words, together with others expressing mood and
character – such as andante, scherzo and scherzando, dolente – generally appear at the beginnings of
sections or whole movements (even serving as titles). It is no coincidence that their introduction occurred
in that part of the Baroque period during which the doctrine of the Affections (Affektenlehre) was the
predominant aesthetic, and that a great expansion of the range of terms, and of the languages from which
they were drawn, took place during the Romantic era. Other words, such as rallentando, ritenuto and
stringendo for tempo, and pizzicato, leggiero and flautando for attack and tone production, control
temporary changes and localized features, and thus appear in the course of the musical notation.

Page 13 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The most striking aspect of the Western use of words is its consistently auxiliary nature. Words are almost
never on the staff, but above or below it, or in the margin. They were not integral to the system when
Western staff notation was being formulated during the late Middle Ages, when even the part-names tenor
and contratenor were not always supplied and when a name was almost never given to the top voice. They
have since become indispensable to staff notation, but have retained their auxiliary position, so that a
music copyist may enter the note symbols representing pitch and rhythm before finding the most
convenient places in which to add the verbal elements of the notation so that they can easily be read. This
situation is not merely the result of historical circumstance. There is the more pragmatic ground that
Western words are written alphabetically and thus have two disadvantages for notational use: they occupy
a lot of space, and (more important) they take time to read and understand.

These disadvantages are not present in most East Asian writing systems, where characters represent
syllables or words. The classical Chinese language is in essence made up of monosyllabic words that do not
change or acquire prefixes or suffixes under different grammatical conditions as they do in most Western
languages; the most that they do is become incorporated into compounds of monosyllables (e.g. nü-ren
means ‘female’ + ‘person’, thus ‘woman’). So when, in the Chinese fixed-pitch system of the 12 lü, the
names of individual pitches are written down, each pitch is represented by a pair of ideograms. Moreover,
when the note names huangzhong (‘yellow bell’, pitch c), linzhong (‘forest bell’, g), yingzhong (‘answering
bell’, b) and jiazhong (‘pressed bell’, d♯) are written down, the second ideogram is always the same. In fact,
when the names of all the chromatic pitches are written down their first ideograms are distinctive (i.e. they
do not require the second ideogram to distinguish them from others): ‘yellow bell’ (c), ‘greatest tube’ (c♯),
‘great frame’ (d), ‘pressed bell’ (d♯), ‘old purified’ (e), ‘mean tube’ (e♯ or f), ‘luxuriant vegetation’ (f♯), ‘forest
bell’ (g), ‘equalizing rule’ (g♯), ‘southern tube’ (a), ‘not determined’ (a♯) and ‘answering bell’ (b). Thus in
notation the names are abbreviated to their first words, as shown in fig.7; see also China, §II, 4, Table

Fig.7

Page 14 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.3

Words are often used as ‘labels’ or memory aids for standard melodic formulae. The so-called neumatic
notation of Japanese karifu relies on words beneath the graphic symbols to indicate a large amount of the
melodic inflection. The same is true of Tibetan Buddhist notation, whose neumes have written above them
verbal instructions as to vocal production, directional movement and ornamentation. In oral traditions,
groups of words and whole phrases are used as mnemonics for standard patterns. Ex.3 shows an African
instance: the sentence ‘b’o tan ma tun ro’ko Baba ma j’iyan tan’ (‘else I must go back for more, Father,
don’t finish the yam’) is broken up into syllables in the piece of music for a pair of hourglass drums and a
small kettledrum, from the Yoruba in Nigeria.

6. Numbers.
Numbers would perhaps seem to be the most readily adaptable of all materials for notational purposes.
They provide a reference system that can control any or all parameters of musical sound, as the pioneers of
integral serialism demonstrated. In particular, pitch can be controlled by assigning numbers to the notes
of a scale, to the keys of a keyboard, to the finger positions or frets of a string instrument, or to the holes or
valves of a wind instrument (or the fingers of its players), and pitches can be represented in this way
individually or relative to each other by the measurement of interval in a melody or chord. Duration lends
itself most naturally to numerical representation because the hierarchy of beats in musical metre involves
subdivision of a large time unit or multiplication and addition of small units and is thus intrinsically
arithmetical. Any other parameter, such as loudness, attack or tone-colour, can in theory be measured as a
scale of values and then be represented by those values as numbers (e.g. 1 for extremely soft, 5 for
moderate and 10 for extremely loud, with the intervening numbers for gradations between these), but such
systems have tended to be restricted to the coding of music for computers.

In practice, the measurement of pitch by numbers (other than for scientific purposes) has been very rare,
and is a predominantly modern phenomenon. Perhaps the most important was the Galin-Paris-Chevé
method from the mid-19th century. The numbers 1–7 represented pitches, with a dot below for lower
octave and above for upper. The numbers were purely visual: they were spoken as ut, re and so on. This
system was adopted in modified form in China, Japan and other countries. The abbreviated number system

Page 15 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

of the Javanese kepatihan notation has already been discussed as a syllabic notation (§3 above). Notational
systems for the Japanese koto use the numbers 1–13 in Japanese characters (though the characters for 11–
13 are not true numbers). But these are secondary systems in the sense that the numbers refer to the 13
strings on the instrument rather than directly to the pitches that they produce: the pitches will depend
upon the scale to which the instrument has been tuned. Fig.8 shows the 13 characters and their Arabic
numeral equivalents, together with the notes that they represent in the most common tuning (hirajōshi);
because of the pentatonic scale in use the number of any note is five away from that of its octave. A similar
system exists for the 25-string Chinese se, using the Chinese numbers 1–25. An even more extended
number notation for pitch (not fixed-pitch) is the pitch representation of the Ford-Columbia computer
input language for music. There, the numbers 1–49 designate leger lines and staff lines and their
intervening spaces: thus 1 is the tenth leger line below the staff, 2 the space above that, and so on. The
entire set of numbers is dependent on the clef governing the staff. One type of modern Japanese shamisen
notation uses three kinds of numeral: Arabic numerals form a direct pitch notation using 1–7 for an
ascending scale in the central octave and the same numbers with a dot to the left and the right respectively
to represent the notes of the lower and higher octaves: Roman numerals I–III to the right of these
numbers show the three strings of the instrument; and Japanese characters for the numbers 1–3 indicate
which finger is to be used.

Fig.8

Probably the earliest, and at the same time the most complex, number notation is the jianzi pu for the
Chinese Qin. Like the notation for the Japanese Koto, its numbers refer directly to the means of production
and only indirectly to the sound produced. The strings of the qin can be stopped at studs which serve as
frets, or at points between them. Numbers are used to indicate all three of these: 1–7 for strings, 1–13 for
the studs (hui, in ascending order), and 1–10 as a guide to the distance between two studs (fen). The three
(often only two, because there is not always a fen number) are gathered together into a complex note
symbol, with the string number in the lower half and the other two in the upper half, together with other
symbols to indicate the stopping finger, the plucking finger and certain technical details. Fig.9a shows the
Chinese numerals, and Fig.9b shows a single note symbol made up of five elements, of which three are
numbers and the remaining two special symbols.

Page 16 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.9

Western notations use Arabic numerals in keyboard tablatures and Italian lute tablature of the
Renaissance. They are also used in staff notation to indicate metre and to show unusual rhythmic
groupings. Thus time signatures have a denominator that represents a level of note value (on a scale from
semibreve = 1 to minim = 2, crotchet = 4, quaver = 8, semiquaver = 16 etc.: these numbers are used in
American and German parlance to describe the levels of value, with semiquaver being ‘16th-note’ and
‘Sechzehntel’) and a numerator that indicates the number of units of that level in a bar. A triplet in a duple
metrical context is indicated by a number 3 within a slur mark, and in Chopin’s music, for example, this is
extended to groupings of 11, 21 and so on.

7. Graphic signs.
The act of writing a succession of notational syllables is graphic because it traces a path across the writing
surface. That path is the analogue of the passage of music through time. The direction of the path tends to
follow the prevailing direction of writing for the language of the country concerned. The Chinese, Korean
and (to some extent) Japanese languages have been written from top to bottom, in columns beginning at
the right-hand side of the page: consequently most Chinese and Korean notations have been written in
columns in the same way, and so have Japanese instrumental notations. On the other hand, Japanese
neumes (karifu, meyasu) are written horizontally from right to left. Tibetan, Javanese, Balinese, Greek and
Latin are all written horizontally from left to right. Consequently Tibetan neumes and Javanese and
Balinese ideographic notations all read in that direction, as do Western neumes, alphabetical and staff
notations, and tablatures.

This path across the writing surface may be more precisely defined by the spacing out of notational
symbols so that each space represents a beat of the prevailing metre. Thus in Chinese gongche notation the
ideograms representing pitches are equidistant down their columns; and when there is a gap in the column
of ideograms the previous pitch is assumed to continue to sound for a second beat. Alternatively, beats may
be marked by a graphic symbol. One such is a dot – as in Japanese gagaku notation, which uses small dots
for the basic beat and large dots for every fourth or eighth beat – defining two levels of metre (such dots
often indicate the sound of percussion). Another such symbol is a line drawn at right angles to the path –
as in Korean ‘mensural’ chŏnggan notation (which encloses its symbols in a grid with thin and thick

Page 17 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

horizontal lines to show their places within two levels of metre), in modern Japanese Ikuta-school koto
notation (which uses short and long horizontal lines to show the same), or in the bar-lines of Western
staff notation. Such graphic marks have the economic advantage that the spaces allocated for beats need
not be equal in size: metrical units containing several symbols can be given more space than units with few
or none.

So far, the path discussed has been one-dimensional. But it is also possible to define a broad path across
the writing surface and to treat the width of the path as a second dimension. This dimension can be made
the analogue of some other parameter of music: in particular, of a technical aspect of an instrument – the
string or course of a zither or lute, for example, or the keys of a metallophone – or of pitch (as in
diastematic neumatic notations) or volume (as in some electronic scores).

A system of notation recently discovered in Mongolia and used in Nomyu Khan monasteries in the 18th and
19th centuries is thought to describe melodic pitches arranged according to the tuning of the half-tube
zither (yatga). This notation takes the form of lines tracing the broad tonal contours of the melody rather
than a series of discrete notes and should probably be regarded as signifying the ten strings of the yatga
running horizontally across the surface of the page. Much more research is needed into this system,
however, before definite conclusions can be drawn about what precisely it represents.

A simple way of using the second dimension for pitch in vocal music without need for new signs is to
‘height’ the syllables of text themselves, as in dasian notation; however, this does not work for music with
any degree of melisma.

Western staff notation is another form of the same procedure. The dots, however, are made void or full and
supplied with stems and flags or beams to represent grouped durations in such a way that the horizontal
dimension between two bar-lines can be treated flexibly. In other words, the exact proportional use of
space to time is obviated by the application of duration symbols to the dots. Such duration symbols are
themselves graphic signs; moreover, their beaming into groups conveys other information such as
accentuation, phrasing, differences of dynamic level and the application of syllables.

Such graphic signs as these last belong to a reference system – in this case a system representing duration
and comprising only five elements: a stem, a flag, a dot and two kinds of note head; if the void head can be
regarded as an ‘absent’ head then they constitute four signs, each of which operates in a binary way (see
fig.10) as present (+) or absent (−) in appropriate positions. Similar graphic reference systems are the signs
of Japanese goin-hakase notation and its later modifications, karifu and meyasu, and also the ‘teardrop’
notation, gomafu, and its later development bokufu. In the first three of these, a notched-stick shape is
rotated through eight positions that correspond to eight pitches of a pentatonic scale, thus spanning a 10th
(fig.11). They are linked together to form a graphic trace extending leftwards from the text syllable. The
trace is not however an exact representation of pitch since the notation relies on the names of standard
melodic formulae written beneath. In gomafu and bokufu marks are put to the left or right of syllables to
indicate such standard formulae.

Page 18 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.10

Fig.11

A comparable system is that of so-called dasian notation from the 9th century. The materials for this
constitute a spatial matrix with pitch as the vertical axis and time as the horizontal, and the Greek prosōdia
daseia in two transformations: first modified into four distinct forms to designate the four pitches of the
tetrachord; and then with each form reversed, inverted, and reversed and inverted to represent the higher
pair of tetrachords, with the first two also shown facing downwards giving 18 signs in all (fig.12; see also
Organum, §2).

Page 19 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.12

A rather special case of a notation that is graphic and operates on binary principles is Braille notation for
the blind. The basic material is a display of six dots arranged in a matrix two (across) by three (down).
These dots are raised from the surface of the paper by embossing, so that they can be felt. Each dot is either
present (embossed) or absent. The pattern of the upper four dots designates pitch and the pattern of the
lowest two designates duration. There are special patterns for octave register, accidentals and other
notational devices.

Other graphic signs do not belong to such a system. They represent movement and shape in music, and
thus display elements in relation to each other. They cannot specify individual musical elements, as can
referential notations. Notations that rely on graphic relationship have only relative pitch significance, even
when they have taken over an existing sign system, such as the accentual signs of the 5th-century Syriac
writers (nine principal signs denoting main and subsidiary pauses, interrogative accents and so on, and
made up of dots in different placings and groupings), or those of the 9th-century Tibetan scribes, or the
classical Greek prosodic accent signs from which Byzantine ekphonetic notation evolved, or the signs of
the Roman grammarians from which Western neumes are sometimes alleged to have developed (see
Ekphonetic notation). That is because, without the imposition of a grid system, distance is difficult for the
eye to judge, for both reader and writer. The line of text to which a melody was to be sung could be used as
a pitch demarcation, with dots above and beneath syllables signifying higher and lower pitches, as in some
Vedic chant books.

Neumes are stylized contour shapes. Their rises and falls and level lines represent rises and falls and level
passages in a melodic line. Neumes thus differ from ekphonetic notations (though the dividing-line is
sometimes difficult to draw) in that they are not concerned with inflection of voice between high, medium
and low, but with groups of sung pitches rising and falling over a quite narrow range: a neume may
represent a pattern of intervals whether it lies high or low in the voice’s compass. Each neume is thus self-
contained; the pitch relationships between a neume and its neighbours are not necessarily graphically
shown, though in the ‘heighted’ neumes that appear in Western European sources from about the 10th
century some attempt is made to show this.

The neumes of Tibetan Buddhist notation are made up of curves and undulations of varying amplitudes
that represent directional movement of the voice, together with crosses or circles representing the sound
of drums or cymbals (see Tibetan music, §II, 4).

8. Hybrid systems.
Many notations are hybrid in that they use more than one type of material. Japanese karifu, for example,
has already been discussed above (§§5 and 7): the notation is generally called ‘neumatic’, but is equally a
verbal notation in that Japanese characters under the graphic neume shapes give essential information
about melodic turns of phrase (see fig.13). Tibetan Buddhist chant notation has also been discussed in
these two contexts, since verbal instructions as to vocal production and other aspects of performance

Page 20 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

appear above the line of neumes. The jianzipu notation for the Chinese qin has also been shown to contain
special symbols as well as numbers. In the following discussion, three notations will serve to illustrate the
interaction of materials.

Fig.13

Occasionally two materials interact in a tautologous way – that is, they call for the same musical result but
by different visual means. But most interactions are in some way complementary.

A notation that combines tautologous and complementary uses of different materials is the notation for
the kŏmun’go or Korean zither. The notation is known as hapchabo and dates from the 15th century. It is an
adaptation of Chinese jianzipu, but whereas the Chinese notation uses numbers for the designation of both
string and stopping-point, the Korean notation assigns names to its six strings (see fig.14a) and uses the
string name in conjunction with a number for the stopping-point. Added to the left of this name and
number is a graphic symbol indicating the left-hand stopping finger, and where necessary symbols for
direction of stroke, ornaments and so on. The central part of the notation is thus a complementary hybrid
of word, number and graphic signs. This compound symbol is placed in the middle of three columns. In the
right-hand column appears the central scale degree kung from the Korean oŭmyakpo ‘five-note
abbreviated notation’, and in the left-hand column appear a group of Korean letters that signify one of the
Korean solmization syllables from series such as tŏng, tung, tang, tong and ting, or rŏ, ru, ra, ro and ri (see
fig.14b). All these notational elements, with double tautology as to pitch, point to B♭ stopped with the left
thumb and plucked with an outward stroke (fig.14c).

Page 21 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.14

The most fully hybrid of all notations is the staff notation of the West. It uses all the types of material
discussed above. Fig.15, the beginning of the Prelude from Liszt’s first book of Etudes d’exécution
transcendante, contains examples of letter notation in (1) the clefs, which are formalized letters G and F; (2)
the accidentals, which are formalizations of ‘b’ (♭) and ‘h’ (♯, ♮); and (3) the dynamic marking f, which is an
abbreviated verbal notation. It also contains syllabic notations, both of them abbreviations for words: (1)
the pedal application Ped., so formalized as almost to be a pure graphic symbol; and (2) the technical
instruction rinforz., for rinforzando. It also contains two examples of full verbal notation: (1) the general
designation ‘Presto’ for the tempo and character of the Prelude as a whole; and (2) the localized technical
instruction energico. It has several examples of numerical notation: (1) the tempo specification, which
supplements the tempo aspect of the verbal instruction ‘Presto’; (2) the indication of octave transposition;
(3) the fingering in bar 2, which is a technical notation; and (4) the indication ‘19’ for rhythmic grouping.
But its main constituents are graphic notations: (1) the staves, bar-lines and brace; (2) the note symbols
and rests; (3) the time signature ‘𝄴’, which derives from the medieval half-circle designating duple
division of breve and semibreve (and thus is not in origin a verbal abbreviation of ‘common time’, though
it has acquired this status in more recent times); (4) the phrase mark, which is partly a graphic duplication
of pitch and partly an indication of phrase articulation that duplicates the beaming of note symbols; (5) the
pause sign; (6) the pedal release sign; (7) the staccatissimo signs; and finally two suggestively graphic
signs, (8) the spread-chord indication in bar 1, and (9) the decrescendo and crescendo signs.

Page 22 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Western staff notation (Liszt, Prelude from ‘Etudes d’exécution transcendante’, i; Budapest: Editio Musica, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1970)

Copyright by Editio Musica Budapest

From this it can be seen that staff notation is a complex multiple hybrid system with very low redundancy,
partly technical and tablature-like, partly representational.

Bibliography
H. Riemann: Studien zur Geschichte der Notenschrift (Leipzig, 1878/R)

H. Riemann: Geschichte der Musiktheorie im IX.–XIX. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1898, 2/1921/R; Eng. trans., 1967/R)

C.F.A. Williams: The Story of Notation (London and New York, 1903/R)

J. Wolf: Handbuch der Notationskunde (Leipzig, 1913–19/R)

J. Wolf: Musikalische Schrifttafeln (Leipzig, 1922–3, 2/1927)

W. Apel: The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA, 1942, rev. 5/ 1961; Ger. trans., rev., 1970)

C. Sachs: The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (London, 1944)

A. Machabey: La notation musicale (Paris, 1952, 3/1971)

R.C. Pian: Sonq Dynasty Musical Sources and their Interpretation (Cambridge, MA, 1967)

W. Tappolet: Notenschrift und Musizieren: das Problem ihrer Beziehung vom Frühmittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert
(Berlin, 1967)

L.U. Abraham: Einführung in die Notenschrift (Cologne, 1969)

W. Kaufmann: Musical Notations of the Orient (Bloomington, IN, 1972)

M. Hood: The Ethnomusicologist (Kent, OH, 1982)

A. Marett: ‘Tōgaku: Where Have the Tang Melodies Gone?’, EM, 29 (1985), 409–31

D. Hughes: ‘The Historical Uses of Nonsense: Vowel-Pitch Solfège from Scotland to Japan’, Ethnomusicology and the
Historical Dimension, ed. M.L. Philipp (Ludwigsburg, 1989)

T. Ellingson: ‘Notation’, Ethnomusicology: an Introduction, ed. H. Myers (London, 1992), 153–64

R. Widdess: ‘The Oral in Writing: Early Indian Notations’, EMc, 24 (1996), 391–405
Page 23 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

III. History of Western notation.

1. Plainchant.
David Hiley and Janka Szendrei

(i) Introduction.
The earliest forms of plainchant notation, probably dating from the 9th century onwards, relied on signs
generally known as ‘neumes’. Such neumatic notation is clearly of great historical importance, for it
stands at the beginning of the development that led to the notational forms in use today. Yet the time,
place and circumstances in which neumes were first used are all disputed. Ever since medieval plainchant
was revived in the 19th century the rhythmic interpretation of the melodies has been controversial, and the
debate continues still. To a lesser extent the precise significance of certain signs (e.g. the oriscus, quilisma
and liquescent neumes) and the possible use of chromatic notes in a basically diatonic system are also the
subject of argument. All these areas of uncertainty stem from the fact that the notation represents only a
few aspects of what was sung. So not only must modern scholars and performers interpret the signs
committed to parchment by medieval scribes, they also have to elucidate the conditions that determined
what should be represented in musical notation (and also what need not be notated).

The foundations for the systematic investigation of chant notations were laid principally by the monks of
Solesmes, as part of the restoration of medieval chant for modern liturgical use. The facsimiles published
in the Solesmes series Paléographie musicale (particularly 1st ser., ii–iii, 1891–2) and in Bannister’s
Monumenti vaticani (1913/R) are still of immense value. The volumes of Paléographie musicale are usually
accompanied by notational studies, beside which the works of Wagner (1905, 2/1912) and Suñol (1925) are
the most comprehensive. Subsequent detailed studies of many regional types of chant notation are cited
below. Stäblein (1975) and Corbin (1977) are modern surveys of the whole area, and Hourlier (1960) is a
useful set of facsimiles with commentary.

Although the different styles of chant notation show agreement on the basic principles, they vary
considerably from area to area and period to period; this variety reflects the circumstances (ecclesiastical-
political, geographical, liturgical, educational) in which notation was used, and can, therefore, illuminate
the history of ecclesiastical music in striking ways.

Page 24 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Neumes of the 10th and 11th centuries

Page 25 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The following survey describes the principal characteristics of neumatic notation, before addressing the
problem of its origins. The main regional styles of neumes are distinguished, in four historical phases: the
period before the introduction of the staff; the staff notations of the 11th and 12th centuries; the less
numerous forms of the 13th century onwards; and the notation of printed chant books. For each of the first
three epochs a separate table of neume signs has been constructed (Table 1, 2 and 3 ).

Table 1: Neumes of the 10th and 11th centuries

Table 2: Neumes of the 11th and 12th centuries

Table 3: Neumes of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries

(ii) Principal characteristics.

In general Latin usage the word neuma meant ‘gesture, sign, movement of the hand’; in a musical sense it
denoted a melodic element, often an untexted melisma. From the end of the 10th century, however, the
term was also used for the graphic signs used to represent melodies, typically designating a sign or group
of signs attached to one particular syllable of text (see Atkinson, 1995; see also Wagner, 1905, 2/1912, p.15).

From this period onwards also survive tables that name the signs (‘nomina notarum’ or ‘nomina
neumarum’), with some variance of nomenclature depending on local traditions (see Huglo, 1954;
Bautier-Regnier, 1964; Odenkirchen, 1993; Bernhard, 1997). Modern usage generally follows the practice
of the tabula brevis found in a number of German sources. Several of the names appear to be of Greek origin
or at least to affect a Greek derivation. The commonest are as follows (see Table 1, 2, and 3 for their melodic
significance: step upwards, downwards etc.): virga (Lat.: ‘rod’, ‘staff’); punctum (Lat.: ‘point’, ‘dot’);
tractulus (from Lat. trahere: ‘to draw out’); pes (Lat.: ‘foot’) – also known as podatus (probably pseudo-
Gk.); clivis (from Gk. klinō: ‘I bend’, via Lat. clivus: ‘slope’) – also known as the flexa (Lat.: ‘curve’); torculus
(Lat.: ‘screw of a wine-press’); porrectus (Lat.: ‘stretched out’); scandicus (from Lat. scandere: ‘to ascend’);
climacus (from Gk. klimax: ‘ladder’); trigon (from Gk. trigōnos, Lat. trigonus: ‘triangular’); oriscus (possibly
from Gk. horos: ‘limit’, or ōriskos: ‘little hill’); salicus (from Lat. salire: ‘to leap’); quilisma (from Gk. kyliō: ‘I
roll’, kylisma: ‘a rolling’).

The signs are usually classified as simple, compound, special (sometimes called ‘ornamental’) and
liquescent. The simple neumes (most of those in Tables 1–3) consist of up to three notes and can be
extended or combined to make compound neumes of four to six or even more notes. Some signs, which
may be modified forms of the conventional neumes or additional letters, appear to indicate special features
of performing practice (articulation, ornaments, agogic nuances etc.), but the manner of their
performance is often unclear today.

A further distinction touches upon the different styles of writing neumes. In some areas signs representing
two or more notes in a single stroke were preferred, while in others discrete dots or short strokes for each
separate note were favoured. An example of (predominantly) stroke notation is early German notation,
especially the sophisticated version practised at St Gallen. (Because of the hypothesis that sees the origin
of stroke neumes in the accents of classical prosody, German and French notations and all types more or
less closely related to them are often referred to as ‘accent neumes’; this term will be avoided here.)

Page 26 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Aquitaine is the best example of an area where a notation consisting primarily of points was used. Most
areas, however, mixed extended strokes and dots, and the distinction has often been over-emphasized to
buttress arguments concerning the origins of neumes (see below, §1(iii)).

The virga and punctum each represent a single note. In stroke notations the virga was used for notes of
relatively higher pitch, the punctum for relatively lower ones. Many other notational styles make only
restricted use of the virga. Sometimes the punctum was drawn in elongated form, called the ‘punctum
planum’ in older literature and the ‘tractulus’ in recent writings. Some manuscripts use both punctum and
tractulus and appear to distinguish rhythmically between the two, the former being shorter, the latter
longer. In the important early manuscripts from the Laon/Reims area (containing Messine neumes) the
punctum takes the form of a small hook or barb, called the ‘uncinus’ in recent writings. In representing
passages of simple recitation on a single note some sources prefer the virga, others the punctum.

The significance of most of the simple and compound neumes is more or less clear, but many of the special
neumes are difficult to interpret; manuscripts vary to the extent in which they use these signs. The oriscus
seldom appears alone over a syllable, but rather as part of a group of signs, or combined in special signs:
virga strata(virga+oriscus; also known as gutturalis or franculus); pes stratus (pes+oriscus), pes quassus
(oriscus+virga), salicus (punctum+oriscus+virga), pressus maior and minor (virga+oriscus+punctum and
oriscus+punctum respectively, the final punctum being a lower note). Although in many contexts the oriscus
seems to signify the repetition of the previous note, it has also been suggested that the neume may
represent a non-diatonic note, or some agogic or articulatory peculiarity. The quilisma sign usually
appears between two notes a major or minor 3rd apart, but it has also been interpreted as indicating a
peculiarity of delivery, for example, a chromatic glissando, a turn or a rhythmic nuance. While the last note
of the trigon is relatively lower, the relationship of the first two is unclear; they may represent the same
pitch, a semitone ascent or a non-diatonic interval. Some sources use strophici, which may signify a special
type of articulation.

The signs known as ‘liquescent’ neumes are linked to liquid and sonant consonants and diphthongs in the
text at a syllable change; they appear to involve a form of half vocalization of the note in question, passing
from one syllable to the next. Two notes in ascending order, where the second is liquescent, are indicated
by the epiphonus, and two notes in descending order with liquescence by the cephalicus.

Although many chant notations are recognizable at a glance, at least in a general way, their systematic
investigation depends on the isolation of each sign in a particular notation and of all constituent elements
within every neume, and the painstaking comparison of one source with another in the way these elements
are used. Basic structural features include the direction of the script (axis) in ascending and descending
strokes or groups of notes (diagonal, vertical etc.; see Tables 1, 2 and 3 ), and the way in which individual
notes are combined in strokes or groups of signs. These are to be distinguished from calligraphic features
such as the manner in which curved strokes or note-heads are drawn, or the degree of thickness of
elements within a sign. The structural and the calligraphic features of a script vary according to time and
place independently of each other.

Page 27 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Corbin (1977) introduced the concept of ‘contact neumes’, meaning a neume foreign to the area and
predominant type of notation of a particular source: the neume may have been adopted by the notator of a
manuscript as a result of contact with the foreign type. Corbin also used the term for a notation whose
signs were derived from two or more earlier types; such a notation is here called ‘mixed’ or ‘hybrid’.

(iii) Origins and earliest examples.

Precisely when and where neumes were first used in the medieval West is not known. Isidore of Seville,
writing in the middle of the 7th century, stated in his Etymologiae that melodies could not be written down
(GerbertS, i, 20), and no concrete evidence exists from anywhere in the West for the use of notation before
the Carolingian era. Necessity being the mother of invention, the reigns of the Frankish kings Pippin the
Short (751–68) and Charlemagne (768–814) are thought to be the most likely period when a pressing need
for plainchant notation could first have arisen. At this time the Franks made strenuous efforts to remodel
their liturgical practices along Roman lines and, during the reign of Charlemagne, initiated a wide-ranging
programme of educational reform, which might have included music writing. A positive view in this regard
is taken, for example, by Levy (1987 etc.) who interprets passages in several 8th-century documents as
referring to notation. For example, the decrees of the Council of Clovesho in England (747) refer to
‘[cantilenae] iuxta exemplar quod videlicet scriptum de Romana habemus ecclesia’ (‘[chants] according to
the written exemplar, that which we have from the Roman Church’; A.W. Haddan and W. Stubbs: Councils
and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford, 1869–71, iii, 137); however it is not
clear whether the written exemplar contained only chant texts or notation for them as well (see Hiley,
1993, p.297 for a negative view). Furthermore, Charlemagne’s Admonitio generalis (789) decrees ‘Et ut
scolae legentium puerorum fiant psalmos notas cantus compotum grammaticum per singula monasteria
vel episcopia et libros catholicos bene emendate’ (‘… that schools cultivate reading by the boys: psalms,
notes [notas], chant [cantus], the computus, grammar, in each monastery or bishop’s school, and accurate
versions of catholic books …’; MGH, Capitularia regum francorum, i, 1881, p.60); although the two words
‘notas cantus’ might be taken together to mean ‘[notational] signs of the chants’, they more probably
refer to two quite separate activities: ‘writing, singing’ (see Haas, 1996, p.152). None of the extant writings
of the various scholars and advisors associated with Charlemagne’s court mentions music notation and the
earliest definite references to neumes are by Aurelian of Réôme (c850; CSM, xxi, 1975, chap.19). By the end
of the 9th century Hucbald already knew of several different styles of notation (GerbertS, i, 117); his
statement is confirmed by surviving examples.

The dating of the earliest examples is fraught with uncertainty and relies in large measure on
palaeographical estimates of the date when the accompanying literary text was written. Three dozen or
more specimens from the 9th century have been proposed; Table 4 is a list of many of them, a few of which
are no doubt dated optimistically early. Most examples are single items in books that were never intended
to contain more: several are notations of the Exultet chant in a sacramentary, or of the Genealogy of
Matthew or Luke in an evangeliary. Often it is difficult in such cases to decide whether the neumes were
added at a later date.

Page 28 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Page 29 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The earliest surviving complete chant books with notation – the graduals F-CHRm 47, LA 239 and CH-SGs
359 – date from the end of the 9th century or the beginning of the 10th; F-LA 266 is a fragment of a
cantatorium slightly older than LA 239. VAL 407 may have been copied at the same scriptorium as the
gradual CHRm 47. (The sacramentary-gradual AN 91, possibly from Angers and notated with Breton
neumes – see PalMus, 1st ser., i, 1889, pl.XXII and p.148 – has also occasionally been dated to the 9th
century, but is more probably of the 10th.) Ten palimpsest leaves of what appears to have been a notated
9th-century gradual survive in D-Mbs Clm 14735. The existence of several 9th-century books containing
the texts of Mass chants – unnotated graduals in other words – from important centres such as Corbie,
Nivelles and Senlis (ed. R.-J. Hesbert: Antiphonale missarum sextuplex, Brussels, 1935) suggests that before
the late 9th century such books were not normally provided with notation. On the other hand, two notated
fragments dating from the late 9th century have survived from what appear to have been Office
antiphoners, one with Breton neumes and one with German. These predate the earliest surviving complete
notated antiphoners by a century. The possibility that Charlemagne promoted a notated archetype of the
chant repertory, as argued by Levy, thus seems somewhat unlikely on chronological grounds. Although
several centres were clearly versed in the practice of music notation well before the end of the 9th century
(e.g. Regensburg in the first half of the century, Laon in the second, and St Amand), there is little sign of a
concerted effort to establish complete notated repertories for Mass or Office during the ‘first Carolingian
renaissance’.

While Palaeo-Frankish, French and German, Breton, Laon and Spanish neumes are represented on Table
4, there are no surviving examples of 9th-century notation from Aquitaine, Italy or England.

No single explanation of the origins of neumatic notation has gained wholehearted acceptance. The
prosodic accents of Alexandrine grammarians (see Laum, 1920 and 1928) have frequently been cited as the
‘ancestors’ of the neumes (Coussemaker, 1852; Pothier, 1880; Mocquereau in PalMus, 1st ser., i, 1889;
Suñol, 1925; Cardine, 1968). According to this theory the acute accent gave rise to the virga, the grave
accent to the punctum and the circumflex to the clivis or flexa. Yet, with the exception of Palaeo-Frankish
neumes, the grave accent is hardly recognizable in most notations. Only one medieval treatise explains
neumes in terms of accents, the anonymous Quid est cantus? (?11th century; I-Rvat Pal.lat.235; see Wagner,
1905, 2/1912, p.355), which contains such phrases as ‘De accentibus toni oritur nota quae dicitur neuma …
Ex accentibus vero toni demonstratur in acuto et gravi et circumflexo’. Atkinson (1995) has convincingly
argued that the author of the treatise had Palaeo-Frankish notation in mind. Nevertheless, while the
prosodic accents were certainly known in Carolingian times, they can have suggested hardly more than
some rudimentary elements of a system for music notation.

The notation of the earliest graduals mentioned above, from Brittany, Laon and St Gallen, is far from
rudimentary; indeed, it is of a sophistication and complexity matched by few later chant books. According
to one theory these complex signs are a representation of the gestures (Gk. neuma: ‘gesture’) made by the
cantor while directing a performance, in other words, they derive from the practice of Cheironomy (Huglo,
RdM, 1963). The difficulties of this theory have been exposed by Hucke (1979). Cheironomy as practised in
other (mostly non-Western) music cultures involves hand signs that denote exact pitches, something

Page 30 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

plainchant neumes manifestly have no intention of doing. To reconstruct a lost cheironomic practice from
surviving notational signs and then to hypothesize that the signs derive from the cheironomy is inherently
unsatisfactory, though the possibility should not be dismissed out of hand.

Floros (1970) proposed a wholesale adoption of Byzantine notational practice by Rome in the second half
of the 7th century, claiming far-reaching correspondences between Palaeo-Byzantine notation of the
Chartres type and Latin neumatic notation, including liquescent and special neumes and significative
letters. But Floros’s reconstruction of the early stages of Byzantine notation has been challenged (Haas,
1975), and the theory seems implausible on chronological grounds. Not until the 11th century was it
customary to notate every syllable of Byzantine melodies; from the 9th century to the 11th notation was
used only for particular points in the melody. And the Byzantine system developed in a quite different
direction, as an interval notation, specifying intervals by signs as in a code, not representing them
spatially on the page. (For further discussion of Byzantine notation see Byzantine chant, §3; on the
development of the connection between vertical space on the page and a sense of higher and lower pitch in
music see Duchez, 1979, and Sullivan, 1994.) However, the possibility that the concept of chant notation
and some of its basic elements had a place in the interchanges between Carolingian and Byzantine church
musicians of the late 8th century and the early 9th should not be dismissed completely. (The system of
eight modes is ascribable to these contacts.) The names of some neumes – of which, however, no records
exist before the 12th century – appear to be Greek or pseudo-Greek.

As Treitler (1982, 1984, 1992) has repeatedly stressed, neumes must not be viewed as imperfect
forerunners of staff notation. Had it been desired to represent exact pitches, the means to do so would have
been found. (Exactly this was indeed accomplished by Hucbald, with a letter notation adapted from
Boethius, and the authors of the Enchiriadis group of treatises, with dasian signs.) Neumes remind their
reader of the essential features of a melody that has already been learnt. The singer retains in his or her
memory the store of typical melodic gestures implied by the genre and mode of the piece. The neumes
guide the adaptation of those turns of phrase to the liturgical text in question. (See Hucke, 1988, and, for
rare evidence of the system ‘under construction’, Rankin, 1984.)

The point at which this written reinforcement of the singer’s memory became necessary, and where the
first steps were taken in the development of notation is uncertain. Levy (1987) has favoured a relatively
early date and has argued for two distinct stages in the creation of a written ‘Carolingian archetype’, two
archetypes in fact. A first attempt would have been made in Palaeo-Frankish neumes, a system that
appears to have achieved only modest dissemination; the second would have been made with French-
German notation.

Others have argued for a later date, at least for the notation of whole chant books (van der Werf, 1983;
Hiley, 1993, p.371). The wide variety of notational styles and the small but persistent differences between
versions of melodies in different areas suggest the independent writing down of the repertory from
memory at different times and places, after the various notational styles were already established. The fact
that the whole process had to be repeated after the introduction of staff notation, again with different
results in different areas, also suggests that the dissemination of an archetype was neither expected nor
practicable.

Page 31 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Several scholars, including Stäblein (1975, diagram on p.27), have hypothesized genealogical relationships
among the different neume families. The more ancient neumatic notation is believed to be, the greater the
room for speculation about the organic development of the different styles. Jammers, for example,
associated the point notation of Aquitanian sources with Gallican chant, and regarded stroke neumes as
typically Roman. Handschin (1950, pp.81ff) distinguished between pre-Carolingian practice and a
‘“gregorianische” Neumensippe’. The sources known at present do not, however, seem to offer conclusive
evidence to support such hypotheses.

Many questions, therefore, remain concerning the origins and early development of the neumatic
notations. Under what circumstances could several different but equally mature types have developed by
the end of the 9th century and yet more by the 11th? Is what they have in common the result of
development from a common ancestor or did they evolve independently from a rather informally
transmitted ‘idea’ of a written aide-mémoire for the singing-master? Is the appearance of fully notated
graduals (with Mass chants) no sooner than the end of the 9th century deceptive (are earlier ones lost?),
and why are the earliest fully notated antiphoners (with Office chants) no older than the end of the 10th
century?

(iv) Early notations, 9th–11th centuries.

(a) French and German notation including St Gallen and England.

Despite differences in the direction of the script (from vertical in France and England to strongly inclined
in south Germany) many basic similarities link the stroke notations used throughout France north of the
Loire (except for Brittany and the archdiocese of Reims) and Germany.

French neumes were used within the area contained roughly by the four provinces of Lyons: the
archbishoprics of Lyons, Rouen, Tours and Sens (Corbin, 1957). Numerous important manuscripts from
such centres as St Denis, St Vaast, Dijon, Nevers, Cluny and Lyons use this notation. In the late 11th century
the notation was also taken to south Italy and Sicily in the wake of the Norman conquest of those regions.
The neumes typically ascend vertically and descend diagonally (the angle varies from place to place).
However, this vertical direction is by no means a hard-and-fast rule in French notation, and in some
sources (e.g. F-SOM 252 from St Omer: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.184; and Pa 1169 from Autun:
facs. in ibid., pl.183) the difference from German practice seems very slight. Other general differences from
German practice are the angled form of both pes and clivis, and, from the 11th century, a tendency to add a
hook or head to the upper left of the virga and pes and a foot to end of the clivis; occasional exceptions to
these basic characteristics may, however, be found. The quilisma usually has three hooks; a few
manuscripts, notably F-MOf H.159 from Dijon (on this source, see also §1(iv)(a)), use a descending
quilisma as well. The trigon is rarely encountered. (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.181–93;
Bannister, 1913, pls.10–20, 39–40, 43–9; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.230–44; Jammers, Tafeln,
1965, pls.23–6, 28; Stäblein, 1975, pls.3–5; Corbin, 1977, pls.1–5, 21–6, 28–9, 40–41.)

Page 32 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The same general type was used in England (fig. 19; see Rankin, 1987), especially in Winchester, and was
imported thence to Scandinavia. The direction of the English neumes is even more markedly vertical than
most French sources, for example, in the climacus where the initial virga is slightly rounded at the top and
the succeeding puncta descend vertically. The rounded clivis is also more characteristic of English than
French sources. (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.178–80; Bannister, 1913, pls.41b–42; Suñol,
1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.283–97; Stäblein, 1975, pls.6–9; Corbin, 1977, pls.30–31.)

A small number of 11th-century manuscripts, mostly from Normandy, use a special form of punctum like a
small hook (it resembles the uncinus of Messine notation, though it is not related to the latter) for the
lower note of the semitone steps (B, E and the A below B♭). An equivalent form is sometimes found in
Aquitanian neumes (where it is usually regarded as a type of virga). After the adoption of staff notation the
sign still persisted, although strictly speaking superfluous, and was used even into the 13th century.
Examples of it are found in England as well as Normandy (see Corbin, 1977, pl.22; Hiley, 1993, p.424). The
Aquitanian form spread as far as Portugal (Corbin, 1952).

German neumatic notations have often been referred to en bloc as ‘St Gallen’ neumes (since the time when
St Gallen was believed to have received its chant directly from Rome: by implication its notation was also
considered to stand at the root of the German tradition). But St Gallen is only one eminent member within
a more or less clearly differentiated group. The territory of German neumatic notation includes the whole
German-speaking area, and, from the 11th century onwards, some parts of north Italy (Bobbio, Moggio,
the Aosta valley, Aquileia), Besançon and Remiremont, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland and parts of
Scandinavia. The direction of this notation is diagonal both ascending and descending; the style of script is
flexible, perfected down to the tiniest details. Both punctum and virga are used for syllabic notes and the
normal form of the pes is rounded. The notation is rich in special neumes. (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii,
1892, pls.110–12, 114, 116–17; Bannister, 1913, pls.2–9; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.298–304;
Jammers, Tafeln, 1965, pls.6, 9–12; Stäablein, 1975, pl.58; Corbin, 1977, pls.8–9, 11–12; Möller, 1990.)

The best-documented form of this script is the notation of St Gallen itself (fig.16). A number of sources
have been published in facsimile and subjected to intensive study (CH-SGs 339, 359, 390–91, E 121 and
D-BAs 6). The extraordinarily rich repertory of signs includes modified forms of the basic neumes together
with additional episemata and significative letters to represent agogic nuances and other features. (For
facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.108, 113, 115; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.298–304; Jammers,
Tafeln, 1965, pls.7–8; PalMus, 2nd ser., i, 2/1970; Stäblein, 1975, pls.59–60; Corbin, 1977, pls.6–7.)

Page 33 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

German neumes: cantatorium, c900, from St Gallen (CH-SGs 359, f.27r)

Verlag Peter Lang AG, Berne: from PalÄographie Musicale 2nd ser., ii (1924)

Page 34 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Numerous similar notations can be found in sources dating from the 11th century in adjacent areas as well.
Rarely, however, was more than a part of the full arsenal of signs employed, and the meaning of a few
signs sometimes appears to have been modified (Engels, 1994).

Many regional types within the German group have not been analysed in the same depth as St Gallen
notation. One of the most important is the Echternach type, documented from the 10th century onwards
(facs. of D-DS 1946; ed. Staub and others, 1982; Möller, 1988); its characteristic feature is the pressus minor
resembling a question mark.

(b) The Spanish peninsula.

Neumes that in many ways are similar to the main French-German type were used in Spain before the
Christian reconquest. There are, however, a number of distinctive signs: the scandicus proceeds upwards as
a single line with loops; the pes, instead of making a simple angle, may swing upwards with a loop; and the
torculus and porrectus also contain loops. This basic Spanish type was divided between two geographical
areas. In northern Spain a roughly upright orientation (like that of French notation) prevailed, whereas the
neumes in sources from Toledo are inclined drastically to the right, as it were impelling the line of music
forwards. Since practically all the melodies for which these notations were chiefly used, those of the
Mozarabic rite, have not survived in diastematic notation, some details of Spanish notation are not fully
understood. Its age is also to some extent disputed, the possibility having been raised that it may antedate
the 9th-century Frankish examples (Huglo, 1985). Thus estimates of the date of the León antiphoner (facs.
in Antifonario visigótico, ed. L. Brou and J. Vives, 1953–9) vary from the 9th century to the 11th (see Mundó,
1965).

Spanish neumes were also used for some ‘Gregorian’ chant manuscripts, written after the Roman rite was
brought into Spain in the 11th century (e.g. Antiphonale silense, ed. I. Fernández de la Cuesta, 1985). But the
chief vehicle for the import of ‘Gregorian’ chant was Aquitanian notation.

In north-east Spain, in the area roughly corresponding to modern Catalonia, another type of notation
similar to French became established, usually known as ‘Catalan’ notation.

(For discussion see esp. Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.311–82; also Bannister, 1913, pls.25–6; Jammers,
Tafeln, 1965, pls.42–3; Stäblein, 1975, pls.86–8; Corbin, 1977, pls.37–9.)

(c) Italian notations.

Many different stroke notations were used in north Italy (e.g. those of Asti, Vercelli, Novara, Civate,
Mantua, Reggio d’Emilia and Verona), most of which await detailed investigation (on that of Brescia see
Barezzani, 1981). They have in common the use of long chain-neumes and vigorous pen strokes. Some
scripts have signs also found in a few French sources (angled pes, conjunct climacus), and the direction of
the script also occasionally resembles French practice.

Special subtypes include the notation of Novalesa. Its neumes include auxiliary forms with loops and rings,
and a broad curve for the clivis; the script ascends vertically (see Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.186–97;
Corbin, 1977, pp.165–71 and pl.36).

Page 35 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Bologna notation (fig. 23; see also PalMus, 1st ser., xviii, 1969; Kurris, 1971) probably represents the oldest
north Italian notation (Hourlier, 1960, pl.30; Corbin, 1977, p.155). It is marked by vigorous diagonal up-
strokes, particularly for resupini; the script ascends diagonally, descending nearly vertically. Its repertory
of signs is large, with numerous variant forms reflecting agogic or melodic features. The presence of both
punctum and two forms of tractulus, horizontal and slanting (planus/gravis) for single lower notes, signs
with rings, and a peculiar form of quilisma are notable.

The most independent type of north Italian notation was that used in the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola
near Bologna; there are also sources from Torcello and Verona. A peculiarity of this notation is the way in
which the first note of a group or melisma is connected graphically to the corresponding vowel of the text.
Notes are represented mostly by individual virgae or puncta deployed diastematically. In both climacus and
scandicus the puncta are arranged vertically, but the curved virga at the start of the climacus (and related
neumes) makes the direction clear. The quilisma-note is represented by two dots. The script ascends
diagonally and descends vertically (almost going backwards). (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pls.11–
14; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.197–9; Jammers, Tafeln, 1965, pl.32; Stäblein, 1975, pl.15.)

The adiastematic notations used in central Italy have hardly been studied at all (see Baroffio, 1990, note
30). They are not uniform; some are akin to north Italian stroke notations (e.g. I-Rvat lat.4770; CHTd N.2:
facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., xiv, 1931, pls.44–5, see also p.251; Rc 1907: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pl.7; Lc
606: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., xiii, 1925/R, p.94, fig.10), others already show characteristics of 12th-century
staff notations (right-angled pes, prolongation of horizontal elements). Beneventan features also appear
in some scripts, for example, the right-angled clivis and conjunct scandicus; their meaning, however, is not
yet defined (e.g. Rvat lat.10646: facs. in Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, p.209). Boe (1999) has discovered
examples of adiastematic notation from Rome datable as early as around 1000, and also shown that French
neumes as used at Bijon were used at the imperial abbey of Farfa in the mid-11th century.

Beneventan notation (fig.17) was used in the area corresponding roughly to the duchy of Benevento and its
area of influence (including Benevento, Monte Cassino, Bari and the Dalmatian coast); it thus covered
much the same territory as Beneventan literary script. (10th-century sources are listed in Corbin, 1977, p.
143.) The repertory of signs is extremely rich (in PalMus, 1st ser., xv, 1937/R, Huglo listed 353 different
neume forms, among them many varieties of liquescent signs). The virga has a graphic stress on the left.
There are two types of punctum, one horizontal, the other slanting (planum/grave). The clivis also has two
forms, one pointed (when approached from a lower note), the other right-angled (approached from the
unison or a higher note). The scandicus is conjunct. The meaning of tractuli joined by a thin diagonal stroke
is unclear (‘inflatilia’ with two notes, ‘gradata’ with three). Compound neumes, where long chains of notes
are formed without lifting the pen from the parchment, are also prominent. The relative diastematy of this
notation later developed towards an increasingly exact pitch-notation (the custos was used even before the
introduction of the staff). (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., xiv, 1931, xv, 1937/R, xx, 1983, and xxi, 1992,
which are devoted to Beneventan sources.)

Page 36 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Beneventan neumes: missal, 10th–11th century, from Benevento (I-BV 33, f.22v)

(d) Palaeo-Frankish notation.

Palaeo-Frankish neumes were first discussed by Handschin (1950) and Jammers (1952; see also, Tafeln,
1965, pls.34–6); sources are surveyed by Hourlier and Huglo (1957). Their name is due to Handschin, who
regarded them as the forerunner of accent neumes. The connotations of the term are, however,
problematic, and with hindsight the alternative designation ‘St Amand notation’ might be more
appropriate (see Huglo, 1990, p.239). The notation appears to have been used in a restricted area including
several important monasteries of Picardy and Hainault – Corbie, St Bertin, Anchin, Marchiennes – with
the abbey of St Amand as its possible centre and an important outpost at Corvey on the Weser. They are last
found at St Amand in the 12th century. The chief distinguishing feature of the notation is that the pes and
clivis are represented by a single straight or slightly curved stroke; there is thus no virga. The torculus tends
to be a simple semicircle. There is no distinction between oriscus and quilisma. In this notation, if
anywhere, a strong connection seems to exist to the oratorical accents of the grammarians (Atkinson,
1995). Few sources are available in facsimile, so the degree of variance in neume forms and resemblances
to other types of neumes cannot yet be assessed accurately. Since the two- and three-note neumes are
sometimes ‘split’ into puncta, this notation has been reckoned among the ‘rhythmic’ types, perhaps the
earliest such, implying that the distinction between slower and faster delivery was present in the minds of

Page 37 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

chant scribes from the very beginning. (For a hypothetical line of development, tracing a link between
Palaeo-Frankish neumes and the notations of Brittany, Aquitaine and Laon, see Hourlier and Huglo, 1957,
p.218.)

(e) Breton notation.

Breton notation is found chiefly in sources from north-west France, but also in 10th- and 11th-century
sources from Pavia. Huglo’s survey (AcM, 1963) shows a progressive retreat from the south-west (some
features appear in early manuscripts from St Martial at Limoges), the Loire valley, Chartres, Maine, and
Normandy south of the Seine. It was superseded by French notation in Angers by the turn of the
millennium, but survived in the backwater of Brittany until the mid-12th century. Some 10th-century
sources from southern England also use Breton notation (Rankin, 1984). In view of its obvious antiquity
and simplicity, Huglo (op. cit., 82) and Stäblein (1975, p.30) thought it might at one time have been
propagated widely throughout the Carolingian empire. As in Palaeo-Frankish notation (from which it may
derive), the same sign is used where in other notations either an oriscus or a quilisma would be employed.
Since the two- and three-note neumes are sometimes ‘split’ into puncta, this notation has been reckoned
among the ‘rhythmic’ types (see Ménager, 1912). One of the principal sources, F-CHRm 47 (facs. in PalMus,
1st ser., ix, 1906), may be dated as early as the late 9th century and probably comes from Rennes. (For facs.
see Bannister, 1913, pls.60–62; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.256–9; Jammers, Tafeln, 1965, pls.40–
41).

(f) Messine (Lorraine, Laon) notation.

Messine notation (for illustration see fig.18 ) was used in north-east France, in an area including most of
the archbishopric of Reims, bounded in the east by the Vosges, Eifel and Hunsrück. Towards the south and
west it was not sharply detached from the area of French neumes. A special variant appeared as early as the
10th century near Lake Como (Sesini, 1932).

The earliest complete source to survive is F-LA 239 (facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., x, 1909), written in or near
Laon about 930. Its repertory of signs is remarkably rich; each basic sign has variant forms (graphical
variants, variants in the inner articulation of the sign, also significative letters). The basic sign for single
notes is a small hook (uncinus). Characteristic signs include the clivis in the form of an Arabic ‘7’ and the
cephalicus in the form of an Arabic ‘9’. The direction of the script is diagonal ascending, vertical
descending.

Similarly detailed studies of other manuscripts with Messine notation are not yet available. (Jeffery, 1982,
and Hourlier, 1988, both discuss other very early examples; the main survey of sources is Hourlier, 1951.
See also Lipphardt, 1955 and 1957; Arbogast, 1959; Cardine, 1968, Eng. trans., 1982; Corbin, 1977, pp.87–
94. For facs. see PalMus 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.154–65; Bannister, 1913, pls.55b–59b; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans.,
2/1935, p.248–55; Stäblein, 1975, pls.63–4.)

Page 38 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(g) Aquitanian notation.

This notation was used over a wide area of south-west France, roughly corresponding to the Frankish
province of Aquitania, and consists predominantly of discrete points. A virga, in the form of a point with a
tail attached, is not found standing alone but as the final note of the pes or scandicus. The torculus is almost
the only conjunct neume, formed of punctum plus virga joined to the final punctum. The quilisma is
distinctive: after the initial punctum an almost vertical slash with initial hook is joined to the tail of the
final virga. The earliest substantial source is the 10th-century miscellany from Limoges F-Pn lat.1240,
whose principal scribes used Aquitanian notation, although some Breton and northern French neumes are
also present.

Even before the end of the millennium scribes would use a dry-point line as a vertical orientation for music
notation (the usual lines drawn for entering text would therefore be used alternately for text and music),
usually for the 3rd above the final in authentic modes and the final in plagal modes (but F rather than E for
mode 4). In some manuscripts a deliberate distinction seems to be made between dot and dash, possibly
meaning shorter and longer notes respectively. In other sources the scribe seems simply to alternate the
two, especially in descending climacus figures. In some sources, particularly F-Pn lat.903 (from St Yrieix;
partial facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., xiii, 1925/R), alternative forms of the virga are used. A semicircular virga
appears for the note on the lower step of a semitone (E, B etc.), a further type, the so-called virga cornu
(‘horned’ virga), signifies the upper step of the semitone. Not dissimilar in shape to the latter is the virga
strata (virga+oriscus). Even though the vertical placement of the notes is particularly exact in most sources
from the mid–11th century onwards, clefs were not used, and custodes but rarely, so that in the case of
non-standard pieces the aid of the virga at the semitone is often useful for determining pitch. (The
principal analysis of the notation is that of Ferretti in PalMus, xiii, 1925. For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., ii,
1891, pls.83–103; Bannister, 1913, pls.63–4; Suñol, 1925, Fr. trans., 2/1935, pp.260–82; Jammers, Tafeln,
1965, pls.29–30; Stäblein, 1975, pls.31–5; Corbin, 1977, pls.19–20.)

(h) Significative letters.

In some early sources letters are placed adjacent to the neumes, intended to clarify their interpretation
with regard to pitch, rhythm, agogic nuance or dynamic (see Table 5). They are particularly common in a
small group of 10th-century sources from St Gallen, Einsiedeln and Regensburg, and are also found in
manuscripts from Laon and Chartres. Smits van Waesberghe (1938–42) counted 4156 letters in CH-SGs
359, 12,987 in SGs 390–91 (the Hartker Antiphoner) and 32,378 in E 121. Their use diminished in the 11th
century. Significative letters are described by Notker of St Gallen (d 912; ed. Froger, 1962; see also MGH,
Scriptores, ii, 1829, p.103), who attributed their invention to one ‘Romanus’ (a choice of name no doubt
intended to heighten their authority). According to Ekkehard IV of St Gallen (d 1036) the ‘litterae alphabeti
significativae’ were added by Romanus to an authentic antiphoner of St Gregory, brought to the abbey
from Pope Hadrian I. Consequently they are sometimes known as ‘Romanian’ or ‘Romanus letters’. Some
of the letters on Notker’s list are commonly used but others are rare in chant sources. Notker’s
explanations (often rather fanciful) are usually devised as a mnemonic, where the significant letter is
emphasized in the actual choice of words in the explanation; thus ‘g’ indicates ‘ut in gutture gradatim
garruletur genuine gratulatur’. Notker’s explanations are summarized in Table 5, col.2. No corresponding

Page 39 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

explanation survives for the letters used in F-LA 239, but they were elucidated in PalMus, 1st ser., x (1909;
see also Billecocq, 1978; and for sources from Chartres, see PalMus, 1st ser., xi, 1912). Some of the more
common meanings are explained in Table 5, col.3. The two traditions differ as to the meaning of ‘a’ and ‘f’.

Page 40 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Table 5: Significative letters

Page 41 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(v) Pitch-specific notations, 11th–12th centuries.

(a) Alphabetic notations and dasia signs.

The need for pitch-specific signs was greater in theoretical texts, many of which contained music
examples, than in the liturgical chant books. Treatises that dispense with music notation, such as Prologus
in tonarium by Berno of Reichenau (d 1008; GerbertS, ii, 62–91), cite pitches by means of the note names of
classical Greek theory (proslambanomenos, hypatē hypatōn etc.). Other treatises, however, employ simpler
systems based on sets of symbols or letters of the alphabet. The series of signs known as ‘dasia’ (or
‘daseia’: see Phillips, 1984, and Hebborn, 1995) was used in the important Enchiriadis group of treatises in
the 9th century. Hermannus Contractus promoted another set of letters that specified the interval between
one note and the next. Of all these, only alphabetic letters seem to have been used to notate whole chant
books.

The alphabetization of the individual notes of the scale was thus at first a purely theoretical procedure and
was intimately connected with the use of the monochord as a teaching instrument. Boethius (dc524), the
principal conduit for classical Greek music theory to the Middle Ages, demonstrated several features of the
Greek systēma teleion (Greater Perfect System) by means of pitches produced on the monochord, and in
one instance the notes of the diatonic scale through two octaves are marked off with the letters ‘a’ to
‘p’ (De institutione musica, iv.17).

Hucbald of St Amand, writing at the end of the 9th century, had already referred to the desirability of
combining neumes with pitch-letters (GerbertS, i, 117–18; Babb, 1978, p.37; Traub, 1989, pp.62–5),
although the actual pitch-letters he chose were not the a–p series but a selection from the ‘Alypian’ series
transmitted by Boethius (De institutione musica, iv.3–4; see Babb, 1978, p.9). Hucbald’s suggestion was not,
however, taken up in this form in practical sources, although those with dual notation, such as the ‘tonary’
F-MOf H.159 (first half of the 11th century, from St Bénigne, Dijon), which also contains French neumes, do
put his idea into practice. It is not clear whether the probable spiritus movens behind the copying of this
manuscript, Guillaume de Dijon, knew Hucbald’s work, or whether he was influenced by the late 10th-
century treatise Dialogus de musica (see below).

Another series a–p, but this time representing modern c–c″, is also reported by Hucbald, and is known
from several texts on the construction of organs and bells. The only known practical source utilizing this
series is the Winchester manuscript with voces organales GB-Ccc 473 (late 10th- to mid-11th centuries),
which attaches letters to the neumes of many sequences, making them among the earliest of all directly
transcribable pieces (Holschneider, 1968 and 1978).

Page 42 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.4 Dasia signs in the ‘Enchiriadis’ group of treatises

The dasia signs are known from three important texts of the 9th century and the early 10th, Musica
enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis and Commemoratio brevis de tonis et psalmis modulandis, together with a
number of others (ed. Schmid, 1981). The dasian series starts from a nucleus of four signs, representing the
pitches of the four finals of Gregorian chant (D, E, F and G), which are then reversed and inverted to make
further sets of four. Their intervallic disposition is so explained that the following scale results (assigning
the nucleus to modern d–g; see ex.4).

The practical significance of this scale is unclear (see Phillips, 1984), since repetition at the octave is not
consistently possible. (For examples of polyphony with a total range of more than an octave, the full series
of dasia signs is abandoned.) Possibly we are meant to understand that b♭, f♯ and c♯ are available in all
octaves, which would support the suggestion that some chants (principally offertories) ‘modulate’.

In contrast to early Western notation, the system developed to notate Byzantine chant specified intervals
between notes (see Byzantine chant, §3). The same principle was adopted by Hermannus Contractus (d
1054), using the following letters: ‘s’ (semitonus) for the semitone; ‘t’ (tonus) for the tone; ‘ts’ for the
minor 3rd; ‘tt’ for the major 3rd; ‘d’ (diatessaron) for the perfect 4th; ‘D’ (diapente) for the perfect 5th;
‘Ds’ for the minor 6th; ‘Dt’ for the major 6th; and ‘e’ (equaliter) for the unison. A dot under the letter
indicated descending motion.

Ex.6 Pitch-letters in the Dialogus de musica and Guido of Arezzo

The a–p series was adopted for use in F-MOf H.159 and a small group of manuscripts from Normandy and
Norman England (Corbin, 1954; Santasuosso, 1989). All these sources are associated with Guillaume de
Dijon (William of Volpiano), the Italian abbot of St Bénigne, Dijon, who reformed most of the leading

Page 43 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

monasteries of Normandy in the early 11th century. MOf H.159 contains the complete corpus of Mass
Proper chants in musical (not liturgical) order notated with both neumes and alphabetic letters in the
series a–p (Guidonian A = a, Guidonian a = h, Guidonian aa = p; I = b♮, i = b♭; for the Guidonian scale, see
below, ex.6). The scribes of this manuscript (see Hansen, 1974) attached special signs for liquescence,
oriscus and quilisma to the letters.

Ex.5 Special signs in F-MOf H.159

A group of five special signs in F-MOf H.159 have occasioned much speculation (ex.5). They occur among
the letters where a semitone step in the scale would normally be expected. According to one theory (see
Gmelch, 1911) the signs represent quarter-tones or some other non-diatonic tones. Froger (1978),
however, argued that the context does not necessitate the use of intervals smaller than a semitone, and
there is no evidence from contemporary writings that such intervals were ever envisaged. The signs
themselves seem not unlike the dasia. No fully convincing explanation for their use has yet been found.

The anonymous Dialogus de musica, written at the end of the 10th century in north Italy (see Odo, §3),
proposes an alphabetic series not merely for pedagogical purposes but also as a way to notate a complete
antiphoner: Γ indicates the lowest note, followed by the letters A–G then a–g for successive octaves, with
‘aa’ signifying the highest pitch. Only one fragment of such an antiphoner, however, has survived; the
flyleaves of the Hereford noted breviary (GB-H P.9.vii) are from an older antiphoner with alphabetic, not
neumatic notation (facs. in W.H. Frere, Bibliotheca musico-liturgica, i, London, 1901 [dated 1894]/R, pl.2).
On these leaves, longer note groups in melismas are separated by dots. Guido of Arezzo also adopted this
alphabetic system, extending the series to ‘ee’ (ex.5). (Santasuosso, 1989, is a study of alphabetic notation.
For further facs. see Wagner, 1905, 2/1912, pp.222–9, 251–7; Bannister, 1913, pls.27–32; Suñol, 1925, Fr.
trans., 2/1935, pp.392–404; Stäblein, 1975, pls.89–94.)

(b) The introduction of the staff.

As early as the first period of medieval music notation, theoretical and pedagogical writings often specified
the exact intervallic structure of music examples they cite. For this purpose, horizontal lines (varying in
number) and/or letters and symbols (e.g. dasia signs) were employed. These methods, however, remained
confined to theoretical texts, being too complicated for the notation of the entire contents of liturgical
books. A historical turning-point was Guido of Arezzo’s reform of musical notation (proposed in Aliae
regulae [Prologus in antiphonarium], c1030; see Smits van Waesberghe, 1951). Based on the use of a staff, his
system changed the whole relationship between writing and music in the greater part of Europe in a
remarkably short space of time, and created the preconditions for developments of the greatest
importance in Western music.

Page 44 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The rapid success of the reform may be attributed, on one level, to the simplicity and practicality of the
system and to its incorporation of elements from previous systems of notation. The staff lines represent
notes a 3rd apart, the intermediate notes being placed in the space between. The pitch of the lines is
indicated by letter-clefs, letters of the traditional alphabet being set at the start of the respective line. In
the 11th and 12th centuries the lines were normally scored into the parchment (dry-point lines), but those
representing the upper note of a semitone step could be distinguished by coloured ink: red for the F-line,
yellow for the c-line. Another of Guido’s recommendations was the custos at the end of a staff, facilitating
the progression to the next by indicating its first note. The notes themselves took the form of traditional
neume shapes. Although the ‘full’ Guidonian system employed clefs, coloured lines and the custos
together, in some cases not all these elements were adopted.

But it was not only the intrinsic merits of the reform that lay behind its Europe-wide success; the
ecclesiastical-historical context was also favourable. When Guido explained his new ideas to Pope John XIX
(1024–32), showing him how a previously unknown melody could be learnt from notation alone, Guido
was commissioned to notate Roman liturgical books in staff notation – an obvious sign of papal
approbation. The new ‘Guidonian’ system, therefore, also became ‘Roman’ notation, just at the beginning
of an epoch when the role of the papacy and the relationship between Rome and the local Churches was
changing. The dissemination of staff notation took place in the era of the crusades and the investiture
struggle. Guidonian notation belonged to the arsenal of the reforms of Pope Gregory VII (1073–85); it
could facilitate liturgical reform and preserve the unity of centralized uses.

Many scriptoria that adopted staff notation set their own traditional adiastematic neume shapes on the
lines, which is probably what Guido himself had done. At the same time some of the previous allegiances
(determined by geography or institutional connections) in respect of notational practice were relaxed or
replaced. The scriptoria had three alternatives: to put their traditional neumes onto the staff; to import
shapes from elsewhere along with the staff; or to create a new set of signs commensurate with the new
system (naturally drawing upon previous experience).

The dissemination of staff notation across Europe did not proceed at a uniform rate. Examples in
theoretical writings show that knowledge of the new notational ideal spread rapidly. But this does not
necessarily mean that the transition was effected at the same time in notated liturgical books or the
teaching of chant. Staff notation was introduced relatively early in central and northern Italy, including
Rome: the gradual of S Cecilia in Trastevere of 1071 (CH-CObodmer 74: facs. in Lütolf, 1987; see below, fig.
19 ) is the oldest surviving complete codex with Guidonian notation. The transition also began in central
France in the 11th century, soon followed by the Low Countries (St Trond) and Lorraine. During the 12th
century, liturgical books in England, Sicily and Scandinavia (all of which were under Norman influence)
were supplied with staff notation. In the areas of Aquitanian and Beneventan notation, which had already
displayed diastematic characteristics in the previous notational epoch, the system was taken up either
rather late (south Italy) or in strongly modified form (south France). Such features of ‘classical’ Guidonian
notation as clefs and coloured lines were not regarded as essential. Some conservative Beneventan
scriptoria retained their own diastematic but non-Guidonian notation as late as the 13th century (e.g. I-BV
21: facs. in Kelly, 1989, pl.12; the use of the custos is characteristic). Traditional Aquitanian notation had
achieved full diastematy by the end of the 11th century, without recourse to the Guidonian system (see

Page 45 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

F-Pn lat.903: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., xiii, 1925/R). In the area of German neumes staff notation was
ignored for a long time; for example, in the scriptoria of the network of churches following the secular
liturgical cursus (including most of the Augustinian canons) staff notation was adopted only towards the
end of the 13th century. Many conservative centres continued to use adiastematic neumes even beyond the
13th century. In Hungary Guidonian notation gained general acceptance in the last third of the 12th
century, and in Bohemia and Poland during the 13th century.

The new Gregorian monastic orders also played their part in the process of assimilation of the reformed
notation. The Camaldolese, Carthusians, Cistercians and Premonstratensians all chose to adopt the
Guidonian system, which then spread throughout the monastic networks (in variant forms peculiar to the
respective orders) across the whole of Europe. The more centralized the order, however, the less influence
individual houses seem to have exerted on the scribal culture of their wider environment. In Germany, for
example, the splendid Guidonian notation of the Cistercian books remained confined to the order itself.
The Italian Camaldolese, on the other hand, supplied codices with staff notation to other churches.

(c) Central and southern Italy, including Rome and Benevento.

Among the earliest centres to adopt the Guidonian reform were those of central Italy (from Perugia to the
Lombard plain, Tuscany, Umbria, the Papal States, the secular churches, Camaldolese, Vallombrosians –
the actual area requires more exact definition). Sources from this area usually adopt the full Guidonian
system of coloured lines, clefs and custodes (Smits van Waesberghe, 1953, pp.53–6), with local variation in
neume shapes. Although a systematic survey of all the material is still lacking, a number of sub-types in
this notational area may be distinguished. Classic examples are those of the Camaldolese manuscripts in
Lucca (see fig. 32 from I-Lc 601; see also Lc 603, and 609 from S Maria di Pontetto: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser.,
ii, 1891, pls.34–5, and PalMus, 1st ser., ix, 1906; see also E-Tc 48.14: facs. in Smits van Waesberghe, 1953,
tab.3; and I-Fl 247 and 158 – Camaldolese antiphoners of the 11th–12th centuries from Vallombrosa and
Struma respectively) and those of Pistoia (I-PSc 119 and 121: facs. in Stäblein, 1975, pls.24–5). A feature of
these scripts is the elongation of horizontal strokes; the liquescent virga resembles the Beneventan form.
Closely related to these notations is that in the Arezzo orationale (I-ARc: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891,
pl.26), and, among others, a Benedictine gradual (I-Sc F.VI.15: facs. in Stäblein, 1975, pl.27). Compared
with these, the finely differentiated notation of Ravenna is recognisably independent in style (I-Pc 47 and
MOd O.I.7: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pl.37; Hourlier, 1960, pl.35; see also Baroffio, 1990). The small
square note-heads (virga, punctum, pes) are reminiscent of north Italian point notations. The strong right
tilt of the virga in the climacus and of the initial ascending element in the pointed clivis and porrectus are
also characteristic. The half-cursive notation of the Benedictine gradual from Norcia, I-Rv C.52 (facs. in
PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pl.33) represents another variant of central Italian notation; Beneventan influence
is apparent in some neumes (e.g. the different elements in the climacus), as indeed it seems to be for the
whole group of central Italian staff notations.

Beneventan and central Italian notations seem to be most clearly differentiated from each other in the
form of the scandicus. In Beneventan and in reformed Guidonian ‘Italo-Beneventan’ staff notations from
central Italy all three elements are conjunct, ending in a vertical virga. Central Italian notations also use the
disjunct form (inherited from adiastematic Italian systems) for the scandicus: two puncta and a virga. But

Page 46 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

the conjunct scandicus is also present in these sources and further research is needed to establish whether
this is the result of Beneventan influence or whether the quilismatic scandicus is intended. Central Italian
notation is further characterized by the two forms of the clivis (pointed and right-angled), the tendency to
build long chains of notes, the right-inclined virga at the start of the climacus and moderation in the use of
special neumes. The direction of the script is diagonal both ascending and descending, but the angle differs
within the area.

The Roman basilicas, perhaps as a result of Guido’s audience with John XIX, adopted the staff system (red
F- and yellow c-line, letter-clefs and custos) and combined it with neumes perhaps best described as
simplified Beneventan (for the literary text, however, Caroline not Beneventan script was employed).
Compared to the classical forms of Beneventan notation, most of the special neumes and the variant forms
of the basic signs are absent. This is the notation used to record the Old Roman chant repertory (fig. 33from
CH-CObodmer 74: facs. in Lütolf, 1987; see also I-Rvat lat.5319: facs. in MMMA, ii, frontispiece; Rvat S
Pietro B.79: facs. in Baroffio and Kim, 1995). It was not, however, restricted to Rome but also used in many
churches in Lazio and Umbria (e.g. I-CT 12: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pl.33; MGG1, iv, Tafel 34, pp.
835–6) and was subsequently adopted for the earliest Franciscan chant books.

South Italian scriptoria in the area of Beneventan notation (Benevento, Monte Cassino, Bari; some of their
manuscripts are sources of Old Beneventan chant) displayed no great enthusiasm for the Guidonian
reform. Beneventan notation apparently developed towards perfect diastematy without any outside
influence. At Monte Cassino this process accelerated under Abbot Desiderius in the second half of the 11th
century (with the use of a staff without clefs or coloured lines but with custos), while coloured lines
appeared in the 12th century (fig. 34). Benevento itself was more conservative. At the end of the 12th
century codices were still written without clefs, but with clear diastematy. (For facs. see Wagner, 1905, 2/
1912, p.267; Kelly, 1989; PalMus, 1st ser., xv, 1937/R, and xxi, 1992; Cavallo and others, 1994.)

(d) North Italy, including Milan.

The scriptoria of north Italy including the plain of Lombardy, with few exceptions, had adopted the
Guidonian system by the beginning of the 12th century (see fig.20 ). In some cases neumes of the previous
local type were set on the staff without much alteration (e.g. at Nonantola and in the Como area where
Messine-type neumes were used), but in most cases there was a modification under central Italian
influence. The notation called Milanese exists only on staves; it seems to have been newly created at the
time when the staff was introduced, drawing on elements of both Italian and Messine systems. In this
period there was a general tendency in north Italian notations towards the use of discrete puncta, joined
with fine lines.

Nonantolan neumes were combined with the full Guidonian system (Smits van Waesberghe, 1953, p.57),
adopting a vertical ascending direction in the process (for facs. see Stäblein, 1975, pl.16; PalMus, 1st ser., ii,
1891, pls.15–18; G. Iversen, ed.: Corpus troporum, iv: Tropes de l’Agnus Dei, Stockholm, 1980, pls.XXX–
XXXI). In Vercelli, by contrast, the notation had become diastematic by the 12th century, but can hardly be
described as Guidonian, using only a custos (for facs. see Stäblein, 1975, pl.20; Iversen, op. cit., pls.XXVII–
XXVIII; see also I-VCd 70 and 161). Characteristic of a large number of sources whose notation is generally

Page 47 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

closer to central Italian practice are: two types of clivis, pointed and right-angled; both disjunct and
conjunct scandicus; right-facing virga at the start of the climacus. (For facs. see G. Iversen, ed.: Corpus
troporum, vii: Tropes du Sanctus, Stockholm, 1990, pls.XXV–XXVI; MGG1, viii, Tafel 48 after p.1026;
Stäblein, 1956, pl.7; PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pls.36, 37B.)

Milanese staff notation employed Guidonian coloured lines. Its characteristics include: conjunct scandicus,
right-angled clivis, pes pointing right, no independent virga, tractuli for all single notes, climacus appearing
as a clivis combined with a punctum, a tendency to construct long chains of notes, and an individual shape
for torculus and porrectus. Like other notations of the region, neumes tended to be constructed out of points
joined with thin lines. (Examples include GB-Lbl 34209: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., v, 1896; and I-MZ c.14/77:
facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pl.40; see also Stäblein, 1975, pl.21; Huglo and others, 1956, Tav.VII.)

(e) Normandy, Paris and other French centres, England and Sicily.

The beautiful chant manuscripts with square notation produced in Paris workshops in the 13th century
(and taken as models by the designers of the type for the Solesmes-Vatican books at the end of the 19th
century and the beginning of the 20th) are often regarded as the outcome of a development initiated in
Paris itself. But this is not the case. During the 12th century many centres in northern France, especially
Normandy, and England began to make the punctum like a small square and used a small square head or
foot on the virga, clivis and so on. They also adopted the Guidonian staff. Hesbert (1954) has traced this
development within the manuscripts from the Norman abbey of Jumièges, and the same could be done for
other centres. There are naturally some small differences between scriptoria: in Paris, for example,
manuscripts from the late 12th century with staff notation have a pes subbipunctus with head turned right,
instead of left as in ‘classical’ square notation of the 13th century (e.g. F-Psg 93, R 249 from St Victor, also
Pn lat.17328 from St Corneille at Compiègne).

As already remarked, several 12th-century Norman and English manuscripts (e.g. F-Pn lat.10508 from St
Evroult) use the special punctum at the semitone step. In Norman Sicily it seems that when the generation
of scribes using neumatic notation had passed away, a form of proto-quadratic staff notation with mostly
French but also one or two Italian elements (such as an Italian pes) was introduced. (See Suñol, 1925, Fr.
trans., 2/1935, pp.145–7.)

No sources from these areas with staff notation are known to date from the 11th century, and many centres
continued to use adiastematic neumes well into the 12th century. 12th-century manuscripts with staff
notation survive from Angers and Fleury; Chelles, Paris, St Denis and St Maur-des-Fossés; the Norman
monasteries of Fécamp, Jumièges and St Evroult; St Albans, Worcester and Downpatrick; Palermo and
Catania; and Jerusalem. (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., ii, 1891, pls.43, 194; Bannister, 1913, pls.94, 96;
Stäblein, 1975, pls.41, 65; Bernard, 1965, pls.xvii-xxvi; Bernard, 1974, pls.ix–x, xxxvii–xlv.)

Page 48 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(f) Messine (Metz, Lorraine, Laon) notation.

The Guidonian staff spread to the area of Messine notation during the 12th century, co-existing briefly
with notation in campo aperto. Even before the introduction of the staff, attempts at a more precise
diastematy are visible. Scriptoria in this area, principally those in monastic centres, adapted the Guidonian
system along their own lines, and little homogeneity can be observed. As in other parts of France, no need
to apply all aspects of the system was felt, resulting in much variety in respect of coloured lines, custodes
and letter-clefs. From the 13th century, however, Lorraine neumes regularly appear on staves of four red
or black lines; some of the earliest preserved examples are those from the seat of the archbishopric in that
area, Reims (see fig.21 from F-RSc 221; see also RSc 261: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.167; and F-Pn
lat.833 and 18008, both from the end of the 12th century).

The vocabulary of Messine neumes was somewhat simplified for the staff. The disjunct neume forms (used
to signify agogic prolongation) receded, similarly the virga and most of the special neumes: the quilisma
was replaced by a scandicus, the oriscus became a normal note or was simply omitted. Some scriptoria
continued to use strophici, and of the liquescent neumes only the cephalicus and epiphonus. The basic single
note remained the hook-shaped punctum (uncinus), whose form varied from place to place. The
representation of the scandicus and climacus continued to be variable. From the 12th century onwards the
climacus tended to descend not vertically but diagonally to the right, perhaps under French or German
influence. During this century the area of Messine notation gradually narrowed under French influence –
F-CA 193 (olim 188) f.151r, from Cambrai (facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.168B), for example, includes
a French pes among Messine neumes). However, the Messine system exercised considerable influence on
almost all notations in the German area that adopted staff notation. (I-VEcap CLXX, a noted breviary from
Namur, early 13th century, is a classic example of Messine notation; for facs. see also Suñol, 1925, Fr.
trans., 2/1935, p.254–5; Bannister, 1913, pls.55b–59b; PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.166–73; Hourlier,
1960, pl.19; Wagner, 1905, 2/1912, p.322). A complete codex with Messine staff notation (with some
German features), the noted missal F-VN 759 of the 13th century, has appeared in facsimile (ed. Saulnier,
1995).

(g) French-Messine mixed notation.

With the introduction of staff notation, scriptoria in central France developed their own variety of the
system (in respect of coloured lines, clef letters and custodes; among manuscripts following Guidonian
practice strictly are those of Nevers (e.g. F-Pn n.a.lat.1235–6; for facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.
195B; Stäblein, 1956, pl.3; M. Huglo: ‘Un nouveau prosaire nivernais (Paris, B.N. nouv.acq.lat.3126)’,
Ephemerides liturgicae, lxxi, 1957, pp.3–30; G. Iversen, ed.: Corpus troporum, iv: Tropes de l’Agnus Dei,
Stockholm, 1980, pls.X–XI). The French-Messine system is an example of a ‘hybrid’ notation (Corbin,
1977, p.127). Most neumes are French, but beside the French clivis there is a right-angled clivis, which
Corbin thought had been borrowed from Messine notation (although Italian influence, or perhaps even a
music-theoretical source, cannot be ruled out entirely), and which is used where the first note of the clivis
is at the same pitch as, or lower than, the preceding note. From the area east of Sens many such examples
of French-Messine mixed notations may be found in this period (Corbin, 1977, map 2; manuscripts from
Troyes, St Florentin, Auxerre, Vézelay, Dijon, Langres; for facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.198A;
Bernard, 1965, pl.VI).

Page 49 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(h) Cistercian notation.

The first great houses of the Cistercians (Clairvaux, Morimond and Pontigny) were founded in the area in
which the French-Messine hybrid notations were used. Cistercian notation used the staff from the very
beginning (Marosszéki, 1952, p.31) and employed a mixture of French and Messine neumes. Beside the
French virga, pes, scandicus, climacus, clivis and cephalicus, occur the Messine clivis and porrectus. No special
neumes are used. While there is some regional variety among French Cistercian scriptoria in respect of the
appearance of the staff, those in Italy, Germany and central Europe followed rather strict Guidonian
practice. (For facs. of F-Dm 114, the 12th-century standard Cistercian compendium see MGG1, xiv, Tafel 73
after col.1344.)

(i) The Rhineland, Liège and the Low Countries.

The Rhineland down to the Low Countries was one of the first areas to use staff notation, which was
employed from the late 11th century onwards (staff notation was known in St Trond in 1099; see Smits van
Waesberghe, 1969, p.27). Aachen (see fig.22 from D-AAm 13), Liège and Cologne seem to be among the
earliest centres that adopted the system, with Utrecht, the Münster area, Mainz and even further south
along the Rhine within the area of influence. Later, staff notation spread north-east, following, for
example, the path of the Teutonic Knights. Many neume shapes were derived from earlier German forms,
but the virga was provided with a small diamond-shaped head (later to grow into the ‘Hufnagel’). The first
element of the pes sometimes became an upward-arching semicircle (pes à ergot), a form found in French
or Messine scripts but previously rare in German sources. Special neumes and liquescents were also used.
The direction of the script no longer slanted as much as it had done previously, but the script retained
much of its rounded contours. Red and yellow lines for F and c respectively are common, the F-clef is often
a simple point and the custos is absent from early manuscripts. Some sources appear to have borrowed
signs from French or Messine notation, for example, the right-angled clivis or the epiphonus with a closed
ring. Typical examples available in facsimile are from Ratingen or Gaesdonck (D-Mbs Clm 10075; facs. in
Hourlier, 1960, pl.5), the abbey of St Jacques, Liège (F-Pe B-A: facs. in Bernard, 1974, pl.XVII), Maastricht (
NL-DHk 76.F.3: facs. in MGG1, viii, Tafel 72 after col.1410), Stavelot (GB-Lbl 18031–2: facs. in PalMus, 1st
ser., iii, 1892, pl.131), Trier (D-Ds 664: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.132; D-TRs 2254: facs. in ibid.,
pl.133), Aachen (D-AAm 13: facs. in MGG1, v, Tafel 14 before col.321 and Haug, 1995, pl.93–9) and Utrecht (
NL-Uu 417: facs. in Haug, 1995, pp.131–3; Uu 406: facs. in Loos, Downey and Steiner, 1997). Variant forms
in the Mainz area use a vertical virga and a pes with a left-facing head. Such forms are also to be found in
the Hildegard-Codex (Dendermonde, Benedictine Abbey, MS 9: facs. van Poucke, 1991) and a Koblenz
missal (Wirzenborn [nr Montabaur], f.260rKirchenarchiv: facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.137). Its
influence may have reached further south, being felt in such books as the Zwiefalten antiphoner (D-KA 60,
o
second scribe, f.260r), the gradual D-Au Öttingen-Wallersteinische Bibliothek, Maihingen I.2.4 .13, and an
antiphoner fragment A-Ws C 1.

Page 50 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Rhenish staff notation: gradual, 13th century, from Aachen (D-AAm 13, f.120v)

(j) South Germany, Klosterneuburg, Bamberg.

Adiastematic notation was still dominant in south Germany during the 12th century. However, two types of
staff notation developed under special circumstances, employed in comparatively few books. These types
are referred to as ‘south German’ staff notation and ‘Klosterneuburg’ notation, respectively.

In a number of Benedictine scriptoria traditional south German neumes were placed on the staff, with
differences in the use of clefs and coloured lines. Perhaps the oldest preserved source is the fragment of a
monastic antiphoner from the end of the 11th century, A-LIs 623, with coloured lines and clef-pairs D-a,
F-c or a-e. Important 12th-century sources include the Einsiedeln hymnal (CH-E 366 with red F-line,
clef-pair F-c: facs. in Stäblein, 1975, pl.62), fragments from Hirsau (e.g. D-Sl Cod.fragm.53 with coloured
lines, clefs on all lines, pes like an Arabic ‘3’) and from Prüfening near Regensburg, affiliated to Hirsau,
including the most extensive fragment, Mbs lat.10086 (see fig.23) with red F- and green c-line, clefs a 5th
apart (also from Prüfening come D-Mbs lat.23037, f.240 with clefs on all lines and a pes sometimes like an
Arabic ‘3’; and Mbs Clm 13021 and 12027). Some sources with mostly south German neumes and script-
direction appear to borrow from Messine practice (cephalicus like an Arabic ‘9’, right-pointing virga), for
example, D-Mbs lat.9921 (f.40v, from Ottobeuren) and D-KA 60 (f.267r, from Zwiefalten).

Page 51 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

South German staff notation: gradual, 12th–13th century, from Prüfening (D-Mbs lat.10086)

Closely related to these is the distinctive notation in 12th-century Bamberg sources. Its typical features are
a right-leaning virga like an Arabic ‘1’, an elongated tractulus (punctum planum), both pointed and right-
angled clivis forms, the latter with a long first element. (This type of clivis can already be seen in the late
adiastematic notation of Bamberg sources, e.g. D-BAs 24 and 26, both of the 13th century.) Early examples
include the 12th-century music theory manuscript D-Mbs Clm 14965b (f.30r; see Smits van Waesberghe,
1969, p.97) and two fragments of monastic antiphoners from the turn of the 12th century (A-KN F8 and
F19). This script evolved further in 13th-century sources such as D-BAs 25 (an antiphoner, first notation, f.
2r) and 12 (gradual frag., f.8r).

Messine (Lorraine) features are predominant in Klosterneuburg notation, which also seems to be of south
German Benedictine origin. Only the clivis and the special neumes (strophici, oriscus, virga strata,
liquescents) are German. The direction of the script (ascending diagonally, descending vertically) is also
Messine. The old, wavy quilisma is replaced by a form similar to the conjunct scandicus, while the normal
form of the scandicus contains three Messine tractuli (uncini). Red F- and yellow c-lines are used
consistently, all lines have clefs, but the custos is avoided. Sources include D-Mbs lat.9921 (ff.1, 54–7; see
Smits van Waesberghe, 1969, p.111), from Ottobeuren, and three from Augsburg: A-Wn 573 (ff.19–25; see
Berschin, 1975); D-Mbs lat.22025 (flyleaf); and D-W Gud.lat.334 (olim 4641). The most important group of
completely preserved codices are those from the house of Augustinian canons at Klosterneuburg, including
a gradual from the first third of the 12th century, A-Gu 807 (facs. in PalMus, 1st ser., xix, 1974) and the
antiphoners from later in the century, for example, A-KN 1010, 1012 and 1013.

(k) Hungary.

In the 12th century, when the Guidonian reform was carried out, Hungary was politically and
ecclesiastically an independent kingdom. The notational reform may have been part of more general
changes to the liturgy. Older Hungarian codices used south German neumes. At this time a deliberate
campaign seems to have been carried out to create a new, reformed notation. Neumes of Messine and
Italian origin were combined in a unique synthesis and set on the staff to create an independent notational
type, known as ‘Esztergom’ or ‘Graner’ notation (see fig.24 from H-Bn MNy 1, 13th-century additions; see
also Szendrei, 1988). Some remnants of the German neumes found in 12th-century sources gradually
disappeared: only the supple appearance and careful calligraphy are reminiscent of the superseded German
models. The characteristic features of the Esztergom notation are: tractulus rather than punctum; right-
facing pes; right-angled clivis; vertically descending climacus – often starting with a stereotyped wave like
a double-note; and a conjunct scandicus (the last two after Italian models). Liquescent and other special
signs are rare. 12th-century sources include H-Bn MNy 1 (first notation), HR-ŠIBf 10 (binding) and H-Bu
U.Fr.1.m.214; from the 13th century date A-GÜ 1/43 and CZ-Ps DE.I.7; and SK-BRm EC Lad.3 and EL18 were
copied in the early 14th century. TR-Itks 42 dates from around 1360 (facs., Szendrei, 1999).

Page 52 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(l) German-Messine mixed notations in Germany and central Europe.

The change to staff notation was somewhat delayed in non-monastic scriptoria using German neumes.
Only after the mid-13th century did sources with staff notation appear regularly east of Mainz or in the
south German dioceses. Palaeographically these notations belong together, for they are all characterized
by a fusion of German and Messine forms (in differing combinations, some an equal mix, others
predominantly one or the other). The direction of the script is German (ascending and descending
diagonally). The rhomboid single note typical of the whole region is a stylized evolution of the Messine
punctum (uncinus). Since these developments were relatively late, the appearance of the notations was
influenced by gothic scribal characteristics. Until the sources have been more comprehensively
investigated it is not possible to say if these notations were disseminated initially from one centre or
represent simultaneous and independent developments.

The earliest among the preserved sources is the Quedlinburg gradual D-Bsb 40078 (fig.25), from the start
of the 13th century (sometimes dated to the end of the 12th; facs. in Haug, 1995, pp.109–12). The usual
form for a single note is a virga with short stem and left-facing head (showing Messine influence on
German form). The other neumes are of German or Messine type. There are coloured lines, but clefs are
found only in the middle of lines for a change of register, not at the beginning. 13th-century manuscripts
where there is also a balance between German and Messine forms include those of Brunswick (see Härting,
1963) and Leipzig (e.g. D-LEu 391: facs. in Wagner, 1930; see also the 13th-century gradual CZ-Ps DF.I.8).

Mixed German-Messine staff notation: gradual, 12th–13th century, from Quedlinburg (D-Bsb 40078, f.245v)

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Musikabteilung

A number of notations more decidedly Messine in character are found from the mid-13th century onwards.
The shape of the neumes is always articulated, consisting of rhomb for the noteheads connected by thick
Gothic strokes. Examples are common in Austrian and Moravian sources (A-Wn 1925; Olomouc, Kapitulni
Knihovna CO 3; CZ-Bam 6/11 and 19/27). Staff notation is known to have been introduced in the Moravian
diocese (suffragan of Mainz until 1344) by Baldwin, Dean of Olomouc (d 1203; see Pokorný, 1980, p.42).
Page 53 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

A mixed Messine-German staff notation was adopted in the south Polish diocese of Kraków, with sources
dating as early as the 13th century (additions in PL-Kk 51), although the first complete sources are later.
Messine elements predominate in a gradual of about 1300 from Wislica in the Kraków diocese (Kielce,
Biblioteka Seminarium Duchownego RL 1), rather as in Moravian and Austrian sources just mentioned.

Besides the forms incorporating the stylized Messine rhomb, square note-heads were also used in some
scriptoria of the region (see A-KN 629 and 1021, Olomouc, Kapitulni Kninovna CO 7). For example, the
Benedictine scriptorium of Tyniec in southern Poland, developed an individual notation combining square
and rhomboid forms (e.g. PL-Wn Akc.10810; see Szendrei, ‘Notacja liniowa’, 1999).

Silesian notation, one of the most individual as well as best-documented notations of this area, is also
dominated by Messine forms. The earliest sources already rely on the Messine punctum (uncinus) for the
single note, and for the pes and scandicus when the interval of only a 2nd is involved (larger intervals end
with a virga). There are no special neumes. This notation developed independently until the 16th century.
Sources include the missal CZ-Pnm XIII.B.17 from the end of the 13th century (facs. in Hutter, 1926,
Abb.VI-VII) and the following 14th-century manuscripts: PL-WRu Br.Mus.K.21; Ms.Muz.51322 (olim K.24);
I.F.386; and R 503.

(m) The Messine notation of Prague.

Apart from some monastic houses with affiliations outside Bohemia, scriptoria of the Prague diocese used
German neumes until staff notation was introduced by Vitus (d 1271), dean of Prague Cathedral. (German
adiastematic neumes are still found in some Prague cathedral manuscripts as late as the early 14th
century.) The manuscripts commissioned by Vitus, dating from between 1235 and 1253, use classical
Messine forms, though the direction of the script is diagonal descending as well as ascending; the custos is
absent (see fig.26 from CZ-Pak A 26-2, dated 1253; facs. in Spunar, 1957, pl.14c). The Premonstratensians
probably played a part in this importation of Messine notation. Codices written under Bishop Tobias
(1279–96) witness its further assimilation. The following examples may be cited: CZ-Pak Cim.4 (dated
1235, ninth gathering: facs. in Spunar, 1957, pl.14b); Pak LXI.2 (Evangeliary of Bishop Tobias, dated 1293);
Pak P.3 (Agenda of Bishop Tobias, 1294: facs. in Hutter, 1926, pls.IV–V); and CZ-Pu XIV.A.19. Both staffless
German neumes and Messine staff notation are found in CZ-Pu IV.D.9 (Liber ordinarius S Viti, 13th–14th
century).

(n) Cistercian and Premonstratensian notations in central Europe.

Cistercian monasteries in central Europe used staff notation much earlier than other churches of the
region, in fact from the time of their foundation in the 12th century. They used the French-Messine mixed
notation as it had been developed in the Burgundian homeland of the order. This Cistercian system was
more or less isolated from the traditions of its new environment, but gradually assimilated a few gothic
features.

Premonstratensian notation in this area was less autonomous. The early houses of the order used Messine
neumes, and the Premonstratensians were probably influential in introducing Messine staff notation to
central Europe. Later sources with staff notation tended to assume characteristics of the local region. The

Page 54 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

first two notational layers of the troper CZ-Pak Cim.4 are probably Premonstratensian (see Vlhova, 1993).
(See also the Polish Premonstratensian antiphoner of c1200, MS Arch.Norbertanek 1 in the convent library
of Klasztor Norbertanek, Imbramowice, Poland: facs. in Miazga, 1984, p.235; and the German gradual from
Arnstein, Trier diocese, D-DS 868, dated 1208–15: facs. in Miazga, 1979, p.120, facs.19).

(vi) Pitch-specific notations, 13th–16th centuries.

(a) Square notation.

The development of square notation may be seen as the result of changes in both the conception and the
function of chant notation. The resolution of stroke notation into a series of discrete squares linked by thin
lines suggests that chant was thought of more in terms of individual pitches than of lines and phrases,
perhaps because of its role as static tenor beneath more mobile upper parts in polyphony. Because of the
easier visibility of individual notes, it facilitated singing from a codex by a group of singers (the increasing
size of manuscripts also reflects the trend towards singing from a book instead of from memory, at least in
some centres). To notate in this way, with thick horizontal and hair-thin vertical strokes, required a
different pen-hold from that used for writing literary texts. These new requirements and techniques led to
the separation of cursive notation (for private musical jottings) from formal book notation (for official
use).

The ‘classical’ square notation best known from Parisian books of the mid-13th century onwards was a
development of the French notations used in northern France (especially the Ile de France) in the 12th
century. Thus the virga, pes and porrectus have a left-facing head and the clivis has a thin initial upstroke;
the direction of the script is vertical ascending and diagonal descending. The scandicus consists of a
punctum combined with a pes, or a pes with a virga; and the two puncta of the climacus take the form of small
rhombs. A four-line staff (sometimes red) is normal; the custos is usually absent, as it had been in the Paris
area in the 12th century. (For facs. see PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.204A)

Square notation was adopted with greater or lesser promptness in wide areas of western and southern
Europe, Britain and Scandinavia in the 13th century, occasionally (though not always) replacing a different
notational type (e.g. in some centres where Messine notation had been used). Sometimes Parisian books
were imitated fairly exactly, no doubt as a result of the general political, intellectual and cultural
importance of Paris in the 13th century. But many regional centres assimilated square forms into their
traditional notation (e.g. retaining the original direction of their script) without adopting all features of
Parisian practice. Many of these local varieties await thorough investigation. Aquitanian scriptoria
furnished many examples of this (Stäblein, 1975, p.161, pls.43a–c), so also the Carthusians (PalMus, 1st
ser., ii, 1891, pl.105; iii, 1892, pl.206A) or northern French centres such as Beauvais (Bernard, 1965, pl.xix–
xx; Stäblein, 1975, p.159, pls.41a–b). Thus old notational boundaries retained some of their effectiveness
even in the 13th century. Milanese notation, presumably because of the different chant repertory it
represented, remained individual throughout the Middle Ages.

Page 55 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Homogenizing and standardizing forces were nevertheless at work. Chant books could be commissioned
from professional scriptoria and executed by scribes unfamiliar with local (provincial) idiosyncrasies. The
new religious orders of the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinian hermits made square notation
obligatory for their chant books (see Huglo, 1967; Van Dijk, 1963, ii, p.359); the correctoria of the
Dominicans were written in Paris in the mid-13th century (PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pls.200A–B). When
the Franciscan Pope Nicholas III (1277–80) ordered the destruction of older chant books in Rome and their
replacement with new ones after the Franciscan model, square notation acquired the semi-official status
of a ‘Roman’ notation. Thereafter it made rapid headway, especially in Italy, where Beneventan notation,
for example, was shortly superseded. It also penetrated Germany and central Europe, mainly as the
preserve of the religious orders.

(b) ‘Gothic’ notations.

Gothic notations were not a new notational type but a change to the surface appearance of traditional
neume shapes. Something similar had happened with the establishment of square notation, but whereas
there the pen was held parallel to the line, in gothic style it remained diagonal. The horizontal and in
particular the vertical down-strokes are strongly marked, the diagonal up-strokes fine. Whereas elegant,
curved shapes were still common in the 13th century, by the 15th century thick, often uninterrupted chains
of geometrically regular strokes were used. The basic shapes, however, are those of the German and central
European notations already established in the 12th and 13th centuries, with the variety already described
above, at least at first. The number of types diminished with time. Cistercian notation and that of Bamberg
(except for its distinctive clivis) were eventually assimilated into the regional types with which they
coexisted. Klosterneuburg notation disappeared after the 14th century. But the Esztergom notation in
Hungary, and the notations of Prague and Silesia retained their independence. The rest of Germany and
central Europe used either the (west) German or the mixed Messine-(east) German type. The former
predominated as before in the area from the Rhineland up to the Low Countries, the latter in eastern and
southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland (the geographical boundaries have not been precisely
determined).

The chief difference between the (west) German and the Messine lies their preference as regards in the
sign for single notes. In the former both the punctum (as always, for lower notes) and the virga (for higher
notes and recitation) are used. Here the head of the virga is shaped like a horseshoe nail (Ger. ‘Hufnagel’,
hence the common designation of this notation as Hufnagelschrift; see fig.27). On the other hand, the mixed
Messine-German notation preferred the rhomb (lozenge, diamond, derived from the uncinus; see fig.28)
for single notes. In German notation the rounded clivis with initial vertical shaft was preferred, in Messine-
German the right-angled clivis. The westerly scriptoria cultivated more rounded shapes and placed less
emphasis on the individual note-head, and liquescents – the strophici, even the quilisma – are still to be
found. (PalMus, 1st ser., iii, 1892, pl.141; Hourlier, 1960, pl.7.) Messine-German notation appears to place
more emphasis on the individual note. Liquescents remained but other special neumes disappeared.

Page 56 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

West German Gothic notation: gradual, 15th century, from the collegiate chapter of St Martin, Bonn (H-Bn Clmae 259, f.1v)

Page 57 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Messine-German Gothic notation: gradual, dated 1360, from Moosburg (D-Mu 2° 156, f.114r)

In neither family is uniformity to be expected; for example, D-W 528, from Minden, is basically Messine-
German but has a virga with its head on the right-hand side – a kind of compromise between Hufnagel and
Messine rhomb (Haug, 1995, pp.156–60). Some Messine-German sources occasionally (but
inconsistently) use a virga for a single higher note (e.g. San Cándido Stiftsbibliothek, VII a 7: facs. in Haug,
1995, pp.129–30; D-Mu 2° 156: facs. in Hiley, 1996).

Within the general areas of dissemination of the types mentioned above, notational ‘islands’ are
discernible, where a tradition other than the prevailing regional system was employed. The Benedictines of
the Abbey of St George in Prague, no doubt because of their connection with Hirsau in the Black Forest,
used German staff notation in the very heartland of Prague-Messine notation. The Order of Teutonic
Knights brought (west) German notation (together with the Dominican liturgy) into the north-eastern
areas of Europe they colonized (e.g. the 14th-century antiphoner PL-PE L 19; see also Szendrei, 1994, and
‘Notacja liniowa’, 1999).

Professional workshops producing manuscripts to order were responsible for a gradual simplification and
standardization of the notational picture, although some local scriptoria continued to produce codices of
more individual appearance. In the late Middle Ages the number of sources made for private purposes (as
informal music notebooks and school music books) increased. The appearance of the cursive notations in
this class of music manuscripts naturally differs radically from the highly artistic books for official use.

(c) Esztergom, Prague and Wrocław.

Three larger enclaves of independent notations persisted to the end of the Middle Ages in Hungary,
Bohemia and Silesia, respectively.

Page 58 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Esztergom notation was uniquely long lived. Although losing ground fractionally to Messine-German
notation, it retained all its essential characteristics, its arsenal of signs and typical direction, even beyond
the Middle Ages (see fig.29; survey with facs. in Szendrei, 1988). In surface appearance it acquired some
gothic features. In a few scriptoria a new mixed notation incorporating some Messine-German elements
was practised for luxury manuscripts (for facs. see Szendrei, 1990–93).

Later Esztergom notation: gradual fragment, 15th century, of the Paulite Order (H-Ba K 484, f.1r)

Prague notation continued to develop during the 14th and 15th centuries. After Prague became canonically
independent of Mainz in 1344, its status as seat of the archbishopric, the imperial power and the university
demanded the production of numerous splendid presentation codices; in such books the way in which
every note is represented by a rhomb, joined by hair-thin lines (in traditional Messine combinations) is
particularly noticeable (fig.30). When Olomouc became suffragan of Prague the local notation disappeared
in favour of the latter’s notation, which also spread beyond the borders of Bohemia and Moravia,
influencing practice in Kraków in the 14th century and other areas in the 15th, during the time of the
Hussite ascendency. (For facs. see Hutter, 1930, and Plocek, 1973.)

Page 59 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Later Prague notation: gradual, c1470, from Hradec Králové (CZ-HK 40 (II A 2), f.8v)

In Silesia the notation of Wrocław (Breslau) attained its fullest individuality in the second half of the 15th
century. Here, too, rhombs were used for pes and scandicus with intervals of a 2nd, and they predominate as
component elements in other neumes as well, joined by lines of varying slenderness. (For facs. see Miazga,
1984, pls.71, 81, 91; Musica Medii Aevi, iv, 1973, pls.16–17; ibid., viii, 1991, pls.11–12.)

(vii) Printed notations.

Early printed chant sources have been surveyed by Riemann (1896) and Molitor (1904). They precede the
earliest printed polyphonic music by over two decades. Some 270 books with printed music were published
by 1500 (King, 1964, p.8), almost all liturgical. Some of the earliest examples are in missals where only
some of the priest’s chants are provided with music. The first known book of this kind is the missal printed
in Rome in 1476 by Ulrich Han from Ingolstadt. The earliest choirbook is even older, a gradual probably
printed in Konstanz in 1473. The gradual uses ‘gothic’ notation with a pleasing repertory of shapes, even
including the distropha and custos. The Roman print uses square notation. Printers displayed considerable
ingenuity in devising appropriate note-forms, with German printers generally approaching the flexibility
of handwritten neumes more successfully than their Latin counterparts, who often relied on the square
and lozenge, or even the square alone.

Page 60 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Even before the advent of music printing, plainchant notations occasionally adopted features of mensural
notation. Manuscripts with signs such as the semibrevis and minima are not uncommon in the 16th century
in the south of the German-speaking regions. These were not used for traditional melodies but for new
compositions, particularly melodies for the Mass Ordinary (e.g. the pieces in CH-SGs 546: ed. Marxer,
1908; also Sigl, 1911). Mensural notational signs were then taken up in some printed chant books; for
example, books printed in Venice by Francis de Bruges regularly include the mensural Credo known as the
‘Credo cardinale’ (Tack, 1960, p.50).

Ex.7 Note shapes in Guidetti

Mensural signs were also adopted in Giovanni Guidetti’s influential Directorium chori (1582), which
includes the simple tones of the Mass and Office. There is a fourfold distinction between lozenge
(semibrevis, short), square (brevis), square surmounted by an arc, and square with fermata (longest value),
in the ratio 1:2:3:4 (see ex.7). A ‘dotted rhythm’ is always indicated by using 3 with 1. Such shapes were
then widely adopted in later books, particularly for the notation of the new chants produced in profusion in
France as part of the ‘neo-Gallican’ ecclesiastical movement.

In printed chant books of the 19th century various styles were used, which were derived and developed
from earlier printing practice, often incorporating mensural features. The melodies thus notated, when
not actually new compositions, were the result of much revision and recasting, whose principal monument
was the gradual in the ‘Medicean edition’ (1614–15) composed by Felice Anerio and Francesco Soriano.
When the Benedictines of Solesmes made new editions of the chant melodies in their medieval form they
decided to develop a new font incorporating as many features as possible of the ‘classical’ quadratic
notation of the 13th century, but also including a sign for the quilisma, which by the 13th century was no
longer in use. In the Solesmes Antiphonale monasticum (Tournai, 1935) a sign for the oriscus was introduced.
More recent books (Liber hymnarius cum invitatoriis & aliquibus responsoriis, Solesmes, 1983) have
developed further signs to represent other features of the early chant manuscripts (a greater variety of
liquescent signs, apostropha, pes with light first note etc.: see Liber hymnarius, p.xii).

Research at Solesmes had made it clear that the notation of early St Gallen and Laon manuscripts was
particularly rich in rhythmic detail. The question as to whether such indications should be represented in
the Vatican editions caused a rift in the commission appointed to prepare the new books. Pothier, the
chairman of the commission, saw them as a local and temporary phenomenon that need not become part
of an official edition with claims to universal validity (see Pothier, 1880; David, 1927; Bescond, 1972).
Eventually two parallel editions appeared, that of the Vatican was ‘plain’, that of Solesmes contained
supplementary horizontal bars (known as ‘episemata’) over certain notes and dots after others, to indicate
lengthening. The Solesmes version became particularly well known after the publication of the

Page 61 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

compendium Liber usualis (Solesmes, 1921), and was propagated in numerous explanations of the
‘Solesmes method’ (Suñol, 1905 etc.; Gajard, 1951) as well as in Mocquereau’s weighty treatise, Le nombre
musical (1908–27).

An interesting development has been the re-publication by the Benedictines of Solesmes of older chant
editions with the addition of hand-drawn reproductions of the neumes of F-LA 239, CH-SGs 359, E 121 and
so on in the Graduale triplex and Offertoriale triplex. The purpose of such editions is to enable performers to
take the notation of the early sources into account. Starting with the writings of Cardine (esp. 1968), a
large body of literature has been created to support theories of chant performance based on details of these
neumatic notations (see Performing practice, §I, 2(i)).

Bibliography

A: General

A General: (i) General studies and facsimile collections (ii) Principal characteristics (iii) Origins. B Regional notations: (i)
French (ii) English (iii) German and St Gallen (iv) Central European (v) Spanish (vi) Italian (vii) Palaeo-Frankish (viii)
Breton (ix) Messine/Laon/Lorraine (x) Aquitanian. C Significative letters, D Pitch-specific systems. E Staff notations: (i)
Introduction (ii) France, England and Spain (iii) Low Countries and Germany (iv) Italy (v) Hungary, Bohemia and Poland.
F Printed notations.

(i) General studies and facsimile collections

MGG2 (‘Notation IV: Neumen’; M. Haas)

Paléographie musicale: les principaux manuscrits de chant grégorien, ambrosien, mozarabe, gallican (Solesmes, 1889–)
[for details of individual vols. see Solesmes, §4]

P. Wagner: Neumenkunde: Paläographie des liturgischen Gesanges (Leipzig, 1905, 2/1912/R)

J.B. Thibaut: Monuments de la notation ekphonétique et neumatique de l’église latine (St Petersburg, 1912/R)

H.M. Bannister: Monumenti vaticani di paleografia musicale latina (Leipzig, 1913/R)

G.M. Suñol: Introducció a la paleografia musical gregoriana (Montserrat, 1925; Fr. trans., enlarged, 1935)

J. Hourlier, ed.: La notation musicale des chants liturgiques latins présentée par les moines de Solesmes (Solesmes,
1960)

F. Tack: Der gregorianische Choral, Mw, 18 (1960; Eng. trans., 1960)

M. Bernard: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, Répertoire de manuscrits médiévaux contenant des notations
musicales, 1 (Paris, 1965)

E. Jammers: Tafeln zur Neumenschrift (Tutzing, 1965)

Page 62 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

M. Bernard: Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, Répertoire de manuscrits médiévaux contenant des notations musicales, 2
(Paris, 1966)

M. Bernard: Bibliothèques Parisiennes: Arsenal, Nationale (musique), Universitaire, Ecole des beaux-arts et fonds
privés, Répertoire de manuscrits médiévaux contenant des notations musicales, 3 (Paris, 1974)

B. Stäblein: Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, 3/4 (Leipzig,1975)

S. Corbin: Die Neumen (Cologne, 1977)

M. Huglo: ‘Bilan de 50 années de recherches (1939–1989) sur les notations musicales de 850 à 1300’, AcM, 62 (1990),
224–59

D. Hiley: Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford, 1993)

(ii) Principal characteristics

E. de Coussemaker: Histoire de l’harmonie au Moyen Age (Paris, 1852)

F. Raillard: Explication des neumes ou anciens signes de notation musicale pour servir à la restauration complète du
chant grégorien (Paris, 1852)

J. Pothier: Les mélodies grégoriennes d’après la tradition (Tournai, 1880)

A. Mocquereau: ‘Origine et classement de differentes écritures neumatiques: 1. Notation oratoire ou chironomique,

2. Notation musicale ou diastématique’, Le codex 339 de la Bibliothèque de Saint-Gall, PalMus, 1st ser., 1 (1889), 96–160

A. Mocquereau: ‘Neumes-accents liquescents ou sémi-vocaux’, Le répons-graduel Justus ut palma, PalMus, 1st ser.,
2 (1891), 37–86

H. Freistedt: Die liqueszierenden Noten des gregorianischen Chorals (Fribourg, 1929)

M. Huglo: ‘Les noms des neumes et leur origine’, EG, 1 (1954), 53–67

W. Wiesli: Das Quilisma im Codex 359 der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen: eine paläographisch-semiologische Studie
(Immensee, 1966)

E. Cardine: Semiologia gregoriana (Rome, 1968; Eng. trans., 1982); Fr. trans. in EG, 11 (1970), 1–158, and also pubd
separately (Solesmes, 1970)

C. Thompson: ‘La traduction mélodique du trigon dans les pièces authentiques du Graduale romanum’, EG, 10
(1969), 29–85

J.B. Göschl: Semiologische Untersuchungen zum Phänomen der gregorianischen Liqueszenz: der isolierte dreistufige
Epiphonus praepunctis, ein Sonderproblem der Liqueszenzforschung (Vienna, 1980)

W. Arlt: ‘Anschaulichkeit und analytischer Charakter: Kriterien der Beschreibung und Analyse früher
Neumenschriften’, Musicologie médiévale: Paris 1982, 29–55

D. Hiley: ‘The Plica and Liquescence’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–1981, in memoriam, ed. L.A. Dittmer (Henryville,
PA, 1984), 379–91

J.B. Göschl: ‘Der gegenwärtige Stand der semiologischen Forschung’, Beiträge zur Gregorianik, 1 (1985), 43–102
Page 63 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

A. Haug: ‘Zur Interpretation der Liqueszenzneumen’, AMw, (1993), 85–100

A. Odenkirchen: ‘13 Neumentafeln in tabellarischer Übersicht’, De musica et cantu: Helmut Hucke zum 60.
Geburtstag, ed. P. Cahn and A.-K. Heimer (Hildesheim, 1993), 257–62

(iii) Origins
F. Steffens: Lateinische Paläographie (Freiburg, Switzerland, 1903)

J.B. Thibaut: Origine byzantine de la notation neumatique de l’église latine (Paris, 1907)

R. Beer, ed.: Monumenta palaeographica vindobonensia: Denkmäler der Schreibkunst aus der Handschriftensammlung
des Habsburg-Lothringischen Erzhauses, 2 (Leipzig,1913)

B. Laum: ‘Alexandrinisches und byzantinisches Akzentuationssystem’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, new ser.,
73 (1920–24), 1–34

B. Laum: Das alexandrinische Akzentuationssystem unter Zugrundelegung der theoretischen Lehren der Grammatiker
und mit Heranziehung der praktischen Verwendung in den Papyri (Paderborn, 1928)

E. Jammers: ‘Zur Entwicklung der Neumenschrift im Karolingerreich’, Otto Glauning zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. H.
Schreiber (Leipzig, 1938), 89–98

J. Handschin: ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, AcM, 22 (1950), 69–97; 25 (1953), 87–8

L. Brou: ‘Notes de paléographie musicale mozarabe’, AnM, 7 (1952), 51–76

S. Corbin: ‘Les notations neumatiques à l’époque carolingienne’, Revue d’histoire de l’église de France, 38 (1952),
225–32

E. Jammers: Die Essener Neumenhandschriften der Landes- und Stadtbibliothek Düsseldorf (Ratingen, 1952)

E. Jammers: ‘Die paläofrankische Neumenschrift’, Scriptorium, 7 (1953), 235–59 [repr. in Hammerstein, 1969]

E. Jammers: ‘Die materiellen und geistigen Voraussetzungen für die Entstehung der Neumenschrift’, Deutsche
Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 32 (1958), 554–75

B. Stäblein: ‘Zur Frühgeschichte der Sequenz’, AMw, 18 (1961), 1–33

K. Gamber: Codices liturgici Latini antiquiores (Fribourg, 1963, 2/1968, suppl. ed. B. Baroffio and others, 1988)

M. Huglo: ‘La chironomie médiévale’, RdM, 49 (1963), 155–71

A.-M. Bautier-Regnier: ‘A propos du sens de neuma et de nota en latin médiéval’, RBM, 18 (1964), 1–9

E. Jammers: ‘Studien zu Neumenschriften, Neumenhandschriften und neumierter Musik’, Bibliothek und

Wissenschaft, 2 (1965), 85–161

E. Jammers: ‘Rhythmen und Hymnen in einer St. Galler Handschrift des 9. Jahrhunderts’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein
zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 134–42

E. Hammerstein, ed.: Schrift, Ordnung und Gestalt: gesammelte Aufsätze zur älteren Musikgeschichte (Berne, 1969)
[writings of E. Jammers]

Page 64 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

C. Floros: Universale Neumenkunde (Kassel, 1970)

K. Gamber: ‘Sacramentaria praehadriana: neue Zeugnisse der süddeutschen Überlieferung des vorhadrianischen
Sacramentarium Gregorianum im 8.–9. Jh.’, Scriptorium, 27 (1973), 3–15

M. Haas: ‘Probleme einer “Universale Neumenkunde”’, Forum musicologicum, 1 (1975), 305–22

B. Stäblein: Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, iii/4 (Leipzig, 1975)

M.-E. Duchez: ‘La représentation spatio-verticale du caractère musical grave-aigu et l’élaboration de la notion de
hauteur de son dans la conscience occidentale’, AcM, 51 (1979), 54–73

H. Hucke: ‘Die Cheironomie und die Entstehung der Neumenschrift’, Mf, 32 (1979), 1–16

K. Gamber: ‘Fragmentblätter eines Regensburger Evangeliars aus dem Ende des 8. Jahrhunderts’, Scriptorium, 34
(1980), 72–7

P. Jeffery: ‘An Early Cantatorium Fragment Related to MS Laon 239’, Scriptorium, 36 (1982), 245–52

L. Treitler: ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, JAMS, 35 (1982), 237–79

H. van der Werf: The Emergence of Gregorian Chant, 1 (Rochester, NY, 1983)

S.K. Rankin: ‘From Memory to Record: Musical Notations in Manuscripts from Exeter’, Anglo-Saxon England, 13
(1984), 97–112

L. Treitler: ‘Reading and Singing: on the Genesis of Occidental Music-Writing’, EMH, 4 (1984), 135–208

H. Hucke: ‘Die Anfänge der abendländischen Notenschrift’, Festschrift Rudolf Elvers, ed. H. Herttrich and H.
Schneider (Tutzing, 1985), 271–88

H. Möller: ‘Die Prosula “Psalle modulamina” (Mü 9543) und ihre musikhistorische Bedeutung’, La tradizione dei tropi
liturgici: Paris 1985 and Perugia 1987, 279–96

F. Unterkircher: ‘Fragmente eines karolingischen Chorantiphonars mit Neumen (Wien, Österreichische

Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Ser. n. 3645 und München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Vorsatzblätter in Cgm 6943)’, Codices
manuscripti: Zeitschrift für Handschriftenkunde, 11 (1985), 97–109

M. Huglo: ‘Les évangiles de Landévennec (New York, Public Library, De Ricci 115)’, Landévennec et le monachisme
breton dans le haut Moyen Age: Landévennec 1985 (Landévennec, 1986), 245–52

K.J. Levy: ‘On the Origin of Neumes’, EMH, 7 (1987), 59–90

C.M. Atkinson: ‘From “Vitium” to “Tonus acquisitus”: on the Evolution of the Notational Matrix of Medieval Chant’,
Cantus Planus III: Tihány 1988, 181–97

J. Hourlier: ‘Trois fragments de Laon’, EG, 22 (1988), 31–42

H. Hucke: ‘Gregorianische Fragen’, Mf, 44 (1988), 304–30

M. Bielitz: Die Neumen in Otfrids Evangelienharmonie: zum Verhältnis von Geistlich und Weltlich in der Musik des
frühen Mittelalters sowie zur Entstehung der raumanalogen Notenschrift (Heidelberg, 1989)

K. Levy: ‘On Gregorian Orality’, JAMS, 43 (1990), 185–227

Page 65 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

L. Treitler: ‘The “Unwritten” and “Written Transmission” of Medieval Chant and the Start-Up of Musical Notation’, JM
, 10 (1992), 131–91

B. Sullivan: Grammar and Harmony: the Written Representation of Musical Sound in Carolingian Treatises (diss., U. of
California, 1994)

C.M. Atkinson: ‘De accentibus toni oritur nota quae dicitur neuma: Prosodic Accents, the Accent Theory, and the
Paleofrankish Script’, Essays on Medieval Music: in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995),
17–42

M. Haas: Mündliche Überlieferung und altrömischer Choral: historische und analytische computergestützte
Untersuchungen (Berne, 1996)

M. Bernhard: ‘Die Überlieferung der Neumennamen im lateinischen Mittelalter’, Quellen und Studien zur
Musiktheorie des Mïttelalters, ed. M. Bernhard, 2 (Munich, 1997), 13–91

B: Regional notations

(i) French
Antiphonarium tonale missarum, XIe siècle: codex H. 159 de la Bibliothèque de l’Ecole de médicine de Montpellier,
PalMus, 1st ser., 8 (1901–5/R)

W.H. Frere, ed.: Pars antiphonarii (London, 1923) [facs. of GB-DRc B.3.11]

J. Hourlier: ‘Remarques sur la notation clunisienne’, Revue grégorienne, 30 (1951), 231–40

R.-J. Hesbert, ed.: Les manuscrits musicaux de Jumièges (Mâcon, 1954)

Le manuscrit du Mont-Renaud, Xe siècle: graduel et antiphonaire de Noyon, PalMus, 1st ser., 16 (1955)

S. Corbin: La notation musicale neumatique des quatre provinces lyonnaises: Lyon, Rouen, Tours et Sens (diss., U. of
Paris, 1957)

Fragments des manuscrits de Chartres, PalMus, 1st ser., 17 (1958)

D. Escudier: Le scriptorium de Saint-Vaast d’Arras, des origines au XIIe siècle: contribution à l’étude des notations
neumatiques du Nord de la France (diss., Ecole des Chartes, Paris, 1970)

R.-J. Hesbert, ed.: Le graduel de St. Denis (Paris, 1981) [F-Pm 384]

D. Escudier: ‘La notation musicale de St. Vaast: étude d’une particularité graphique’, Musicologie médiévale: Paris
1982, 107–18

(ii) English
W.H. Frere: The Winchester Troper from MSS of the Xth and XIth Centuries (London, 1894)

L. Gjerløw: Adoratio crucis, the Regularis concordia and the Decreta Lanfranci: Manuscript Studies in the Early
Medieval Church of Norway (Oslo, 1961)

Page 66 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

A. Holschneider: Die Organa von Winchester: Studien zum ältesten Repertoire polyphoner Musik (Hildesheim, 1968)

S.K. Rankin: ‘Neumatic Notations in Anglo-Saxon England’, Musicologie médiévale: Paris 1982, 129–44

S.K. Rankin: ‘From Memory to Record: Musical Notations in Manuscripts from Exeter’, Anglo-Saxon England, 13
(1984), 97–112

(iii) German and St Gallen

Le codex 339 de la Bibliothèque de Saint-Gall (Xe siècle): antiphonale missarum sancti Gregorii, PalMus, 1st ser., 1 (1889)

Le codex 121 de la Bibliothèque d’ Einsiedeln (IXe–XIe siècle): antiphonale missarum sancti Gregorii, PalMus, 1st ser., 4
(1894)

Antiphonaire de l’office monastique transcrit par Hartker: MSS. Saint-Gall 390–391 (980–1011), PalMus, 2nd ser., 1 (1900/
R)

Cantatorium, IXe siècle: no. 359 de la Bibliothèque de Saint-Gall, PalMus, 2nd ser., 2 (1924/R)

H. Malloth: ‘Die ältesten Kärnter Tondenkmäler’, Carinthia I, 156 (1966), 203–52

H. Malloth: ‘Kärnter Tondenkmäler des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters’, Carinthia I, 157 (1967), 542

F. Unterkircher and O. Demus, eds.: Antiphonar von St. Peter (Graz, 1969–74) [A-Wn s.n.2700; colour facs.]

K. Biegaņski and J. Woronczak, eds.: Missale plenarium Bib.Capit.Gnesnensis Ms. 149 (Warsaw and Graz, 1970–72)
[facs.]

S. Corbin: ‘Le fonds d’ Echternach à la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris’, Ecole pratique des hautes études: annuaire, 4
(1971–2), 371–9

K.H. Staub, P. Ulveling and F. Unterkircher, eds.: Echternacher Sakramentar und Antiphonar: vollständige
Faksimile-Ausgabe im Originalformat der Handschrift 1946 aus dem Besitz der Hessischen Landes- und
Hochschulbibliothek Darmstadt (Graz, 1982) [colour facs.]

Die Handschrift Bamberg Staatsbibliothek Lit. 6, Monumenta palaeographica Gregoriana, 2 (Münsterschwarzach, 1986)
[facs.]

G.M. Paucker, ed.: Das Graduale Msc. Lit. 6 der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg: eine Handschriften-Monographie unter
besonderer Berücksichtigung des Repertoires und der Notation (Regensburg, 1986)

A. Haug: Gesungene und schriftlich dargestellte Sequenz: Beobachtungen zum Schriftbild der ältesten ostfränkischen
Sequenzenhandschriften (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1987)

H. Möller: ‘Deutsche Neumen – St. Galler Neumen: zur Einordnung der Echternacher Neumenschrift’, SMH, 30 (1988),
415–30

F.C. Lochner: ‘La “notation d’Echternach” reconsidérée’, RBM, 44 (1990), 41–55

H. Möller, ed.: Das Quedlinburger Antiphonar (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz Mus. ms. 40047)
(Tutzing, 1990) [facs.]

Page 67 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

F.K. Prassl: ‘Beobachtungen zur adiastematischen Notation in Missalehandschriften des 12. Jahrhunderts aus dem
Augustiner-Chorherrenstift Seckau’, Cantus Planus IV: Pécs 1990, 31–54

E. Höchtl: Die adiastematisch notierten Fragmente aus den Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek Melk: Versuch einer
Bestandsaufnahme (diss., U. of Vienna, 1992)

H. Möller: ‘Deutsche Neumenschriften ausserhalb St. Gallens’, De musica et cantu: Helmut Hucke zum 60. Geburtstag,
ed. P. Cahn and A.-K. Heimer (Hildesheim, 1993), 225–42

K. Schlager and A. Haug, eds.: Tropi carminum: Liber hymnorum Notkeri Balbuli: Berlin, Ehem. Preussische
Staatsbibliothek, Ms.theol.lat.qu.11 (z.Zt. Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellónska, Deposit) (Munich,1993)

M. Czernin: ‘Beobachtungen zur Neumenschrift der Handschrift CC 28 der Stiftsbibliothek von Kremsmünster’, SMw,
43 (1994), 7–35

S. Engels: Das Antiphonar von St. Peter in Salzburg: Codex ONB Ser. Nov. 2700 (Paderborn, 1994)

A. Hänggi and P. Ladner, eds.: Missale basileense saec. XI (Codex Gressly) (Fribourg, 1994) [facs.]

W. Arlt and S. Rankin, eds.: Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen Codices 484 & 381, 1: Kommentar, 2: Codex Sangallensis 484,
3: Codex Sangallensis 381 (Winterthur, 1996) [colour facs.]

(iv) Central European

J. Hutter: Česká notace [Czech notation]: Neumy (Prague, 1926) [with Fr. summary]

J. Hutter: Notationis bohemicae antiquae specimina selecta e codicibus bohemicis, 1: Neumae (Prague, 1931)

Z. Falvy and L. Mezey, eds.: Codex albensis: ein Antiphonar aus dem 12. Jahrhundert (Budapest and Graz, 1963)
[facs. of Graz, Universitätsbibliothek, 211]

B. Bujić: ‘Zadarski neumatski fragmenti v Oxfordu’ [Neumatic fragments from Zadar in Oxford], Muzikološki zbornik, 4
(1968), 28–33

J. Szendrei: Középkori hangjegyírások Magyarországon [Medieval notation in Hungary] (Budapest, 1983) [with Ger.
summary]

(v) Spanish
MGG2 (‘Mozarabischer Gesang’; I. Fernández de la Cuesta)

J. Moll: ‘Nuevos hallazgos de manuscritos mozárabes con neumas musicales’, AnM, 5 (1950), 11–14

L. Brou: ‘Fragments d’un antiphonaire mozarabe du monastère de San Juan de la Peña’, Hispania sacra, 5 (1952), 35–
65

L. Brou: ‘Un antiphonaire mozarabe de Silos d’après les fragments du British Museum (Mss. add. 11695, fol. 1r–4v)’,
Hispania sacra, 5 (1952), 341–66

L. Brou: ‘Notes de paléographie musicale mozarabe’, AnM, 7 (1952), 51–76; 10 (1955), 23–44

L. Brou and J.Vives, eds.: Antifonario visigótico-mozárabe de la Catedral de León (Barcelona, 1953–9)
Page 68 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

L. Brou: ‘Le joyau des antiphonaires latins’, Archivos leonenses, 8 (1954), 7–114

A.M. Mundó: ‘La datación de los códices litúrgicos visigóticos toledanos’, Hispania sacra, 18 (1965), 1–25

I. Fernández de la Cuesta, ed.: Antiphonale silense: British Library Mss.Add.30850: introducción, indices y edición
(Madrid, 1985) [facs.]

M. Huglo: ‘La notation wisigothique est-elle plus ancienne que les autres notations européennes?’España en la
música de occidente: Salamanca 1985, 19–26

Antiphonale hispaniae vetus (s. X–XI): Biblioteca de la Universidad de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1986)

A. Durán, R. Moragas and J. Villarreal, eds.: Hymnarium oscense (s. XI), i: Edición facsímil, ii: Estudios (Zaragoza,
1987)

J. Mas: ‘La notation catalane’, RdMc, 11 (1988), 11–30

(vi) Italian
Le codex 10673 de la Bibliothèque vaticane fonds latin (XIe siècle): graduel Bénéventain, PalMus, 1st ser., 14 (1931)

Le codex VI. 34 de la Bibliothèque capitulaire de Bénévent (XIe–XIIe siècle): graduel de Bénévent avec prosaire et tropaire,
PalMus, 1st ser., 15 (1937/R) [incl. J. Hourlier: ‘Etude sur la notation bénéventaine’, 71–161]

R. Arnese: I codici notati della Biblioteca nazionale di Napoli (Florence, 1967)

Le codex 123 de la Bibliothèque angelica de Rome (XIe siècle): graduel et tropaire de Bologne, PalMus, 1st ser., 18 (1969)

A. Moderini: La notazione neumatica di Nonantola (Cremona, 1970)

A.M.W.J. Kurris: ‘Les coupures expressives dans la notation du manuscrit Angelica 123’, EG, 12 (1971), 13–63

M.T.R. Barezzani: La notazione neumatica di un codice Bresciano (secolo XI) (Cremona, 1981)

Le manuscrit VI.33, Archivio arcivescovile Benevento: missel de Bénévent (début du XIe siècle), PalMus, 1st ser., 20 (1983)

J. Boe: ‘The Beneventan Apostrophus in South Italian Notation, A.D. 1000–1100’, EMH, 3 (1983), 43–66

T.F. Kelly: The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge, 1989)

T.F. Kelly: Les témoins manuscrits du chant bénéventain, PalMus, 1st ser., 21 (1992)

J. Boe: ‘Chant Notation in Eleventh-Century Roman Manuscripts’, Essays on Medieval Music: in Honor of David G.
Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA,1995), 43–57

M.T.R. Barezzani and G. Ropa, eds.: Codex angelicus 123: studi sul graduale-tropario bolognese del secolo XI e sui
manoscritti collegati (Cremona, 1996)

J. Boe: ‘Music Notations in Archivio San Pietro C 105 and in the Farfa Breviary, Chigi C.VI.177’, EMH, 18 (1999), 1–45

(vii) Palaeo-Frankish
J. Handschin: ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, AcM, 22 (1950), 69–97; 25 (1953), 87–8
Page 69 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

E. Jammers: Die Essener Neumenhandschriften der Landes- und Stadtbibliothek Düsseldorf (Ratingen, 1952)

E. Jammers: ‘Die paläofrankische Neumenschrift’, Scriptorium, 7 (1953), 235–59

J. Hourlier and M. Huglo: ‘La notation paléofranque’, EG, 2 (1957), 212–19

(viii) Breton
Antiphonale missarum Sancti Gregorii, Xe siècle: codex 47 de la Bibliothèque de Chartres, PalMus, 1st ser., 11 (1912)
[incl. A. Ménager: ‘Etude sur la notation du manuscrit 47 de Chartres’, 41–131]

M. Huglo: ‘Le domaine de la notation bretonne’, AcM, 35 (1963), 53–84; rev. with plates and index as Britannia
Christiana, 1, ed. J.-L. Deuffic and A. Dennery (Daoulas, 1982)

(ix) Messine/Lorraine/Laon
Antiphonale missarum Sancti Gregorii, IXe–Xe siècle: codex 239 de la Bibliothèque de Laon, PalMus, 1st ser., 10 (1909)
[incl. A. Ménager: ‘Aperçu sur la notation du manuscrit 239 de Laon: sa concordance avec les codices rythmiques
sangalliens’, 177–211]

U. Sesini: La notazione comasca del cod. Ambrosiano E.68 sup. (Milan, 1932)

J. Hourlier: ‘Le domaine de la notation messine’, Revue grégorienne, 30 (1951), 96–113, 150–58

W. Lipphardt: ‘Punctum und Pes in Codex Laon 239’, KJb, 39 (1955), 10–40

W. Lipphardt: ‘Flexa und Torculus in Codex Laon 239’, KJb, 41 (1957), 9–15

P.M. Arbogast: ‘The Small Punctum as Isolated Note in Codex Laon 239’, EG, 3 (1959), 83–133

P. Jeffery: ‘An Early Cantatorium Fragment Related to MS. Laon 239’, Scriptorium, 36 (1982), 245–52 [F-LA 266, ff.A–B]

J. Hourlier: ‘Trois fragments de Laon’, EG, 22 (1988), 31–42 [F-LA 9, 121, 266]

(x) Aquitanian
Le codex 903 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris (XIe siècle): graduel de Saint-Yrieix, PalMus, 1st ser., 13 (1925/R) [incl.
P. Ferretti: ‘Etude sur la notation aquitaine d’après le graduel de Saint-Yrieix’, 54–211]

M.-N. Colette: ‘La notation du demi-ton dans le manuscrit Paris, B.N.Lat.1139 et dans quelques manuscrits du Sud
de la France’, La tradizione dei tropi liturgici: Paris 1985 and Perugia 1987, 297–311

B. Gillingham, ed.: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds latin 1139 (Ottawa, 1987) [facs.]

C: Significative letters
R.-J. Hesbert: ‘L’interprétation de l’equaliter dans les manuscrits sangalliens’, Revue grégorienne, 18 (1938), 161–73

J. Smits van Waesberghe: Muziekgeschiedenis der Middeleeuwen (Tilburg, 1938–42)

Page 70 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

E. Cardine: ‘Le sens de iusum et inferius’, EG, 1 (1954), 159–60

J. Froger: ‘L’épître de Notker sur les “lettres significatives”’, EG, 5 (1962), 23–72

M.-C. Billecocq: ‘Lettres ajoutées à la notation neumatique du codex 239 de Laon’, EG, 17 (1978), 7–144

D: Pitch-specific systems
J. Gmelch: Die Vierteltonstufen im Messtonale von Montpellier (Eichstätt, 1911)

S. Corbin: ‘Valeur et sens de la notation alphabétique à Jumièges et en Normandie’, Jumièges … XIIIe centenaire:
Rouen 1954, 913–24

J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘Les origines de la notation alphabétique au Moyen-Age’, AnM, 12 (1957), 3–14

F.E. Hansen, ed.: H 159 Montpellier: Tonary of St. Bénigne of Dijon (Copenhagen, 1974)

W. Babb, C.V. Palisca and A.E. Planchart, eds.: Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises (New
Haven, CT, 1978)

J. Froger: ‘Les prétendus quarts de ton dans le chant grégorien et les symboles du ms. H.159 de Montpellier’, EG, 17
(1978), 145–79

A. Holschneider: ‘Die instrumentalen Tonbuchstaben im Winchester Troper’, Festschrift Georg von Dadelsen zum 60.
Geburtstag, ed. T. Kohlhase and V. Scherliess (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1978), 155–66

R.L. Crocker: ‘Alphabet Notations for Early Medieval Music’, Saints, Scholars, and Heroes: Studies in Medieval Culture
in Honor of Charles W. Jones, ed. M.H. King and W.M. Stevens (Collegeville, MN, 1979), 2, 79–104

A.C. Browne: ‘The a–p System of Letter Notation’, MD, 35 (1981), 5–54

H. Schmid, ed.: Musica et Scolica enchiriadis una cum aliquibus tractatulis adiunctis (Munich,1981)

N. Phillips: ‘The Dasia Notation and its Manuscript Tradition’, Musicologie médiévale: Paris 1982, 157–73

N. Phillips: Musica et Scolica enchiriadis: its Literary, Theoretical, and Musical Sources (diss., New York U., 1984)

A.C. Santasuosso: Letter Notations in the Middle Ages (Ottawa, 1989)

A. Traub: ‘Hucbald von Saint-Amand “De harmonica institutione”’, Beiträge zur Gregorianik, 7 (1989), 3–101 [whole
issue]

W. Arlt: ‘Die Intervallnotation des Hermannus Contractus in Gradualien des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts: das Basler
Fragment N I 6 Nr.63 und der Engelberger Codex 1003’, De musica et cantu: Helmut Hucke zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. P.
Cahn and A.-K. Heimer (Hildesheim, 1993), 243–56

B. Hebborn: Die Dasia-Notation (Bonn, 1995)

Page 71 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

E: Staff notations

(i) Introduction
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘The Musical Notation of Guido of Arezzo’, MD, 5 (1951), 15–53

J. Smits van Waesberghe: De musico-paedagogico et theoretico Guidone Aretino eiusque vita et moribus (Florence,
1953)

S.J.P. van Dijk: Sources of the Modern Roman Liturgy: the Ordinals by Haymo of Faversham and Related Documents
(1243–1307) (Leiden, 1963)

M. Huglo: ‘Règlement du XIIIe siècle pour la transcription de livres notés’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein zum 70.
Geburtstag, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 121–33

J. Smits van Waesberghe: Musikerziehung: Lehre und Theorie der Musik im Mittelalter, Musikgeschichte in Bildern,
3/3 (Leipzig, 1969)

(ii) France, England and Spain

W.H. Frere, ed.: Graduale Sarisburiense (London, 1894/R) [facs. of GB-Lbl Add.12194]

W.H. Frere, ed.: Antiphonale Sarisburiense (London, 1901–24/R) [facs.]

H. Loriquet, J. Pothier and A.K. Collette, eds.: Le graduel de l’église cathédrale de Rouen au XIIIe siècle (Rouen,
1907) [facs. of F-Pn lat.904]

Antiphonaire monastique, XIIIe siècle: codex F. 160 de la Bibliothèque de la cathédrale de Worcester, PalMus, 1st ser., 12
(1922/R)

W.M. Whitehill, J. Carro García and G. Prado, eds.: Liber Sancti Jacobi: Codex Calixtinus (Santiago de
Compostela, 1944) [facs.]

S. Corbin: Essai sur la musique religieuse portugaise au Moyen Age (1100–1385) (Paris, 1952)

R.-J. Hesbert, ed.: Le prosaire de la Sainte-Chapelle (Mâcon, 1952) [part of I-BAca 1]

S.R. Marosszéki: ‘Les origines du chant cistercien: recherches sur les réformes du plain-chant cistercien au XIIe
siècle’, Analecta sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, 8 (1952), 1–179

R.-J. Hesbert, ed.: Le tropaire-prosaire de Dublin: manuscrit Add. 710 de l’Université de Cambridge (vers 1360) (Rouen,
1966)

Jacobus: Codex Calixtinus de la catedral de Santiago de Compostela (Madrid, 1993) [colour facs.]

D. Hiley, ed.: Oxford Bodleian Library MS. Lat.liturg.b.5 (Ottawa, 1995) [facs.]

D. Saulnier, ed.: Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale, 759. Missale (Padua, 1995) [facs.]

O.T. Edwards, ed.: National Library of Wales MS. 20541 E: the Penpont Antiphonal (Ottawa, 1997) [facs.]

Page 72 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iii) Low Countries and Germany

O. Marxer: Zur spätmittelalterlichen Choralgeschichte St. Gallens: der Codex 546 der St. Galler Stiftsbibliothek (St
Gallen, 1908)

M. Sigl: Zur Geschichte des Ordinarium Missae in der deutschen Choralüberlieferung (Regensburg, 1911)

P. Wagner, ed.: Das Graduale der St. Thomaskirche zu Leipzig (14. Jahrhundert) (Leipzig, 1930–32/R)

R.-J. Hesbert, ed.: Le prosaire d’Aix-la-Chapelle (Rouen, 1961) [part of D-AAm 13 (XII)]

M. Härting: Der Messgesang im Braunschweiger Domstift St. Blasii (Handschrift Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv in
Wolfenbüttel VII B Hs 175) (Regensburg, 1963)

Le manuscrit 807, Universitätsbibliothek Graz (XIIe siècle): graduel de Klosterneuburg, PalMus, 1st ser., 19 (1974)

W. Berschin: ‘Historia S. Kuonradi’, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv, 95 (1975), 107–28

W. Arlt and M. Stauffacher, eds.: Engelberg Stiftsbibliothek Codex 314 (Winterthur, 1986)

J. Szendrei: ‘Linienschriften des zwölften Jahrhunderts auf süddeutschem Gebiet’, Cantus Planus IV: Pécs 1990, 17–30

P. van Poucke, ed.: Hildegard von Bingen, Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum: Dendermonde, St.-Pieters
& Paulusabdij, ms. cod.9 (Peer, 1991) [facs.]

A. Haug: Troparia tardiva: Repertorium später Tropenquellen aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, MMMA, Subsidia, i
(1995)

H. Möller, ed.: Antiphonarium: Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Aug.perg.60 (Munich, 1995) [facs.]

J. Szendrei: ‘Prager Quellen zum Hirsauer Choral’, Cantus Planus VII: Sopron 1995, 555–74

D. Hiley, ed.: Moosburger Graduale: München, Universitätsbibliothek, 2° Cod. ms. 156 (Tutzing, 1996) [facs.]

I. de Loos, C. Downey and R. Steiner, eds.: Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS 406 (3.J.7) (Ottawa, 1997)
[facs.]

(iv) Italy
Antiphonarium ambrosianum du Musée britannique (XIIe siècle): codex additional 34209, PalMus, 1st ser., 5 (1896)

Antiphonaire monastique, XIIe siècle: codex 601 de la Bibliothèque capitulaire de Lucques, PalMus, 1st ser., 9 (1906)

P. Ferretti: ‘I manoscritti musicale gregoriani dell’ Archivio di Montecassino’, Casinensia, 1 (1929), 187–203

G. Vecchi, ed.: Troparium sequentiarum nonantulanum (Cod. Casanat. 1741), MLMI, Latina, 1 (1955)

M. Huglo and others, eds.: Fonti e paleografia del canto ambrosiano (Milan, 1956)

B. Stäblein: Hymnen, I: die mittelalterliche Hymnenmelodien des Abendlandes, MMMA, 1 (Kassel, 1956; repr. 1995 with
additional appendix)

M. Lütolf, ed.: Das Graduale von Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (Cod. Bodmer 74) (Cologny-Geneva, 1987) [facs.]

Page 73 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

B.G. Baroffio: ‘Le grafie musicali nei manoscritti liturgici del secolo XII nell’Italia settentrionale: avvio a una ricerca’,
Cantus Planus IV: Pècs 1990, 1–16

G. Cattin: Musica e liturgia a San Marco: testi e melodie per la liturgia delle ore dal XII al XVII secolo (Venice, 1990–92)

N. Albarosa and A. Turco, eds.: Benevento, Biblioteca capitolare 40, graduale (Padua, 1991) [facs., incl. essays by J.
Mallet, A. Thibaut, R. Fischer, T. Kelly]

G. Cavallo, G. Orofino and O. Pecere: Exultet: rotoli liturgici del medioevo meridionale (Rome, 1994)

B.G. Baroffio and Soo Jung Kim, eds.: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, Archivio S. Pietro B 79: antifonario della
Basilica di S. Pietro (Sec. XII) (Rome, 1995) [facs.]

R. Camilot-Oswald: Die Liturgischen Musikhandschriften aus dem mittelalterlichen Patriarchat Aquileia, MMMA,
Subsidia, 2 (1997)

C. Ruini: I manoscritti liturgici della Biblioteca musicale L. Feininger presso il Castello del Buonconsiglio di Trento
(Trent, 1998)

(v) Hungary, Bohemia and Poland

J. Hutter: Česká notace [Czech notation], 2: Nota choralis (Prague, 1930) [with Fr. summary]

J. Hutter: Notationis bohemicae antiquae specimina selecta e codicibus bohemicis, 2: Nota choralis (Prague, 1931)

P. Spunar: ‘Das Troparium des Prager Dekans Vit (Prag, Kapitelbibliothek, Cim 4)’, Scriptorium, 9 (1957), 50–62

K. Szigeti: ‘Denkmäler des gregorianischen Chorals aus dem ungarischen Mittelalter’, SMH, 4 (1963), 129–72

V. Plocek: Catalogus codicum notis musicis instructorum qui in Bibliotheca publica rei publicae Bohemicae
socialisticae in Bibliotheca universitatis pragensis servantur (Prague, 1973) [describes 243 MS sources with musical
notation in CZ-Pu]

T. Miazga: Die Gesänge zur Osterprozession in den handschriftlichen Überlieferungen vom 10. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert
(Graz, 1979)

F. Pokorný: ‘Mährens Musik im Mittelalter’, Hudební veda, 17/1 (1980), 36–52

J. Szendrei and R. Rybarič, eds.: Missale notatum strigoniense ante 1341 in Posonio (Budapest, 1982)

J. Szendrei: Középkori hangjegyírások Magyarorzágon [Medieval notation in Hungary] (Budapest, 1983) [with Ger.
summary]

T. Miazga: Notacja gregoriańska w świetle polskich rekopisów liturgicznych (Graz, 1984)

J. Szendrei: ‘The Introduction of Staff Notation into Middle Europe’, SMH, 28 (1986), 303–19

J. Szendrei: ‘Die Geschichte der Graner Choralnotation’, SMH, 30 (1988), 5–234

L. Dobszay: ‘Plainchant in Medieval Hungary’, Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, 13 (1990), 49–78

J. Szendrey, ed.: Graduale strigoniense: s.XV/XVI (Budapest, 1990–93)

Page 74 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

L. Dobszay: A gregorián ének kézikönyve [Handbook of Gregorian chant] (Budapest, 1993)

H. Vlhová: ‘Die Ordinarium-Tropen im Troparium des Prager Dekans Vít’, Cantus Planus VI: Éger 1993, 763–79

J. Szendrei: ‘Choral notationen in Polen’, Musica antiqua X: Bydgoszcz 1994, 257–74

A. Haug: Troparia tardiva: Repertorium später Tropenquellen aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, MMMA, Subsidia, 1
(1995)

J. Morawski: Recytatyw liturgiczny [Liturgical recitative] (Warsaw, 1996)

J. Szendrei, ed.: The Istanbul Antiphoner (Budapest, 1999) [facs. of TR-Itks 42]

J. Szendrei: ‘Notacja liniowa w polskich żródłach chorałowych XII–XVI wieku’ [Staff notation of Gregorian chant in
Polish sources from the 12th to 16th centuries], Notae musicae artis: notacja muzyczna W żródłach polskich XI–XVI
wieku, ed. E. Witkowska-Zaremba (Kraków, 1999), 187–281

F: Printed notations
H. Riemann: Notenschrift und Notendruck (Leipzig, 1896)

R. Molitor: Deutsche Choral-Wiegendrucke: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Chorals und des Notendruckes in
Deutschland (Regensburg, 1904)

G.M. Suñol: Método completo para tres cursos de canto gregoriano segun la escuela de Solesmes (Montserrat, 1905;
Eng. trans., 1930)

A. Mocquereau: Le nombre musical grégorien ou rythmique grégorienne: théorie et pratique, 1 (Tournai, 1908; Eng.
trans., 1932); 2 (Tournai, 1927)

L. David: ‘La restauration du chant grégorien et le mensuralisme’, Ephemerides liturgicae, 41 (1927), 245–77, 349

J. Gajard: La méthode de Solesmes, ses principes constitutifs, ses règles pratiques d’interprétation (Tournai, 1951)

A.H. King: Four Hundred Years of Music Printing (London, 1964)

A.J. Bescond: Le chant grégorien (Paris, 1972)

Graduale triplex, seu Graduale romanum Pauli PP. VI cura recognitum & rhythimicis signis a Solesmensibus monachis
ornatum, neumis laudunensibus (cod. 239) et sangallensibus (cod. San Gallensis 359 et Einsidlensis 121) nunc auctum
(Solesmes, 1979)

Offertoriale triplex cum versiculis (Solesmes, 1985) [with neumes of F-LA 239 and E 121]

2. Polyphony and secular monophony to c1260.

David Hiley, revised by Thomas B. Payne

This section is devoted almost exclusively to the notational delineation of rhythm, an emphasis borne out
by the theoretical sources from later in this period. Apart from the Aquitanian manuscripts mentioned
below, which display the neume dialects particular to their region of inscription, the music is typically

Page 75 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

written in the square notation of plainchant (see above, §III, 1(vi)), which originally had no rhythmic
significance, but acquired durational values for use in polyphony. Detailed descriptions of the sources of
early polyphony discussed below may be found in Sources, MS, §IV; manuscripts containing secular
monophony are treated in Sources, MS, §III.

(i) Neume patterns in Aquitanian polyphony, c1100–c1200.

Several conspicuous features emerge in the notation of Aquitanian polyphony, including the Codex
Calixtinus (E-SC, likely copied in Spain c1150 by a French production team; see the articles by Williams,
Stones and Díaz y Díaz, in Williams and Stones, 1992). One is a predilection for stronger consonance at the
ends of neume-against-neume or note-against-neume units; another is the use of patterned melismas
(e.g. strings of two- or three-note neumes). Regular neumatic patternings are most apparent in final
melismas (or caudas); they also sometimes appear in organal voices of chant settings. The preference for
consonance at the ends of neumes is particularly striking in texted sections of Aquitanian and
Compostelan conductus, versus and Benedicamus settings, where it appears to belie the supposed pitch
alignment and syllable placement implied by the sources. For instance, in a case where a neume in one
voice is set against a single note and text syllable in another, the stronger consonance with the ending note
of the neume suggests this final pitch should synchronize with the single note and the change to the new
syllable. No contemporaneous body of music theory discusses the rhythmic implications of this repertory.
A connection with Parisian polyphony is possible, but theoretical support for such an association is also
absent. One of the pieces in the Codex Calixtinus is attributed to a Magister Albertus Parisiensis (d 1177),
who has been identified with a cantor of Notre Dame; this and the numerous other ascriptions in this
source, though, have been contested. Despite such obstacles, Stäblein (1963) and Karp (1992) have
proposed that rhythmic configurations akin to those of the later modal system may be present. Ex.5 is an
example of Aquitanian/Compostelan polyphony with such a hypothetical rhythmic transcription.

(ii) Pre-modal rhythm.

As with the interpretations of the Aquitanian repertory, the first manifestations of rhythmic indications in
the Parisian corpus are difficult to construe (for some recent attempts, see Roesner, 1990 and Sanders,
2006). The period proposed for the musical activity is between about 1160 and 1250, while the surviving
manuscript sources and theoretical testimony date from between about 1230 and 1300; this disjunction has
meant that the historical picture is largely speculative, in dispute, and likely to remain so. What does
appear evident is that at some point during the inscription of the Notre Dame repertory certain melismatic
portions of organa (discant passages, copula segments and clausulas) and conductus (caudas) were subject
to rhythmic realization and recorded in a notation that conveyed the essence of this practice. The duration
of pitches was not signaled through the use of discrete note shapes, but by grouping various numbers of
notes together with a single penstroke as in chant—a figure now called a ligature. Successions of ligature
chains containing particular numbers of notes were thereby able to indicate rhythmic values.

The earliest evidence of this practice occurs in the opening (and presumably older) portion of the
anonymous treatise Discantus positio vulgaris (c1230–40), which advises that two-note ligatures represent
a short–long (i.e. breve–long, or B–L) gesture, three-note groups signify long–breve–long (L–B–L) and

Page 76 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

those with four notes are all short; when more than four notes are found in a ligature they are executed at
the discretion of the performer and not according to any specified criteria. In this system the ratio of the
long value to the short is 2:1, with greater or lesser durations described as ‘beyond measure’ (ultra
mensuram). Although such lengths are inexpressible in the Discantus as strictly ‘long’ or ‘short’, they were
not alien to the rhythmic practice. For example, single notes, such as those employed for a chant tenor in a
discant passage or as a solitary figure within an otherwise ligated portion, are described as ‘longer than a
long’, and as having the duration of a long and a breve combined, that is, a ternary (later ‘perfect’) long
value. In addition, the treatise indicates that durations in ligatures are contextually flexible; they may
communicate different values depending on their position in a melodic phrase (e.g. a three-note ligature
may have a value of B–B–L when preceded by a long). Such basic rules of thumb as given in this earlier
section of the Discantus form the starting point for interpreting the rhythmic properties of Parisian
polyphony. However, they neither suggest a fully developed system nor invoke the terminology of the
rhythmic modes that was to be a staple of later theoretical works.

(iii) The system of modal rhythm.

At some point between the formulations in the early part of the Discantus positio vulgaris and the treatise
ascribed to Johannes de Garlandia (c1240–60) the diverse rhythms of Parisian polyphony were abstracted
into a series of repetitive patterns, analogous perhaps to the conception implied by the modern function of
a time signature. The series of rhythmic durations within each pattern was conveyed by chains of ligatures
containing varying numbers of notes, such as a single three-note figure followed by any number of two-
note ligatures, or a separate single note followed by a series of three-note forms -- to mention only two
such designs. These underlying patterns, termed ‘modes’ (Lat. modi, sing. modus; Garlandia: manieres),
formed the principal means of decoding ligature rhythms until the advent of mensural clarifications to
their shapes (see Rhythmic modes). The following list names authors whose works include discussions of
modal rhythm. However, it is important to realize that mensural doctrines appear in treatises even as early
as Garlandia’s text. Furthermore, occasional inconsistency exists in these theoretical works as to the
number of the modes, their ordering, and the depiction of particular ligature shapes.

Anonymous: Discantus positio vulgaris, (c1230–40: survives only in a partly revised form; see Reckow, AcM,
1976, p.137, n.81); ed. Cserba, 1935, pp.189–94Johannes de Garlandia: De mensurabili musica (c1240–60:
portions may stem from an anonymous earlier treatise; the final chapter of the work as it survives in F-Pn
lat.16663, ed. in CoussemakerS, i, postdates Franco); ed. Reimer, 1972Bruges Organum Treatise (possibly
earlier than Garlandia); ed. Pinegar, 1992Anonymus 7 (certain portions identical to the Bruges treatise;
others may postdate Franco; see Reimer, 1972, i, p.31, n.20); CoussemakerS, i, 378–83, and CSM,
xxxviAmerus/Aluredus: De musica libellus (1271); ed. Kromolicki, 1909, and CSM, xxvAnonymus 4 (after
1272, mentions Franco); ed. Reckow, 1967Dietricus: Regule super discantum (c1275); ed. Müller,
1886Magister Lambertus: Tractatus de musica (c1275); CoussemakerS, i, 251–81Anonymus of St Emmeram
(1279); ed. Sowa, 1930, and Yudkin, 1988Franco of Cologne: Ars cantus mensurabilis (c1280: see Frobenius,
1970); CSM, xviiiWalter Odington: Summa de speculatione musicae (before 1300); CSM, xiv

Page 77 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Rhythmic modes and concomitant ligature patterns

Table 6 shows the six commonest rhythmic modes in their most conventional numerical ordering together
with their associated ligature patterns (indicated by brackets over the notes). Each has a fundamental
recurrent pulse equivalent to the ultra mensuram long (= dotted crotchet), and each pulse divides into three
smaller time units (tempora/breves = quaver). Several important distinctions among the patterns are
defined by whether the main pulse falls on the last note of the ligature (i.e. 1, 3a–b, 6a–b) or on the first (2,
4, 6c), whether the pulse is divided L–B (1a–b, 3b, 6b) or B–L (2, 3a, 4, 6c) and whether a ternary ligature
extends over one, two, or three pulses. (The value of the three-note ligature is the most equivocal and in
the 5th mode is restricted largely to the tenor part in discant passages; the 4th mode, curiously, appears to
be a theoretical construction not encountered in practice, but which is included -- as has been argued -- to
make up a complementary pair with mode 3; see Sanders, 1980, n. 101.) In all these important distinctions,
the note shapes as they appear in the manuscript sources remain ambiguous; harmonic consonance, the
succession of ligatures, and the proportions between parts all contribute to suggest (or confound) the
intended rhythm. This ambiguity appears to have prompted the writing of many of the treatises listed
above, as their authors tried to clarify and rationalize the intended durations by modifications to the
standard, chant-based notational figures.

Table 6: Rhythmic modes and concomitant ligature patterns

Page 78 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iv) Coniuncturae, plicae, and strokes.

Perhaps the most intractable of all figures in modal notation were ones that used series of descending
lozenge-shaped notes, similar in appearance to the climacus found in chant sources. These were called
currentes (Lat.: ‘running’) by Anonymus 4, probably as an extended use of a term that originally referred to
the descending scales found in Aquitanian as well as Parisian polyphony. Johannes de Garlandia did not
mention them at all, possibly because they could be confused with the rhomboid semibreve. Lambertus
and Franco of Cologne called the figure the coniunctura (Lat.: ‘joined [notes]’), and even in Franco’s most
rational system it eluded specific rhythmic codification.

Liquescent forms of neumes also appeared in the notation of melismatic polyphony in modal rhythm in
places where they serve no function of text articulation. Because a single liquescent note was usually
written like a ‘U’ or an inverted ‘U’, it was termed Plica (Lat.: ‘fold’, ‘doubling’). A vertical stroke added to
the end of ligatures made them ‘plicata’ (‘plicated’). Usually the plica indicates that an extra note should
be supplied that takes away a portion of the rhythmic value from the note to which it is attached. This extra
note will ascend or descend depending on the direction of the plica stroke. Most typically the presence of a
plica results in an added breve on a weak beat (see modes 6b–c, where the plicas are shown by a stroke
through the notes’ stem), although other values were possible according to the prevailing rhythmic
framework and the length of the host note. Plicas, thus, can sometimes serve as a convenient way to
indicate rhythmic divisions within a modal pattern without disturbing its succession of ligatures. The
liquescent neume, however, did not abandon altogether its original function in such texted music as
conductus, secular monophony, and in chant settings if the cantus firmus demanded it.

Vertical strokes were used primarily for two different purposes: as indications of changes of syllable and to
signify rests. For the first purpose 12th-century scribes would often draw a roughly vertical line through
the entire staff system, although in Parisian sources this shrank to a small stroke drawn through only one
or two lines in each voice staff. At this point in time the length of the stroke does not usually indicate its
intended duration, which frequently corresponds to the penultimate value of the modal pattern.

Whereas former repertories tended to preserve the ligatures of cantus firmi, undifferentiated single notes
(simplices) were commonplace for tenors in the early Parisian corpus, whether the tenor held long notes in
Organum or moved with the pulse in discant (see Discant, §I). Only in the later layers of discant did tenors
include ligatures indicating breves. Although a stroke generally appears after each note of the tenor in
organum, the pitch seems to have been sustained beneath the continuing organal voices. Anonymus 4
called this a burdo (Lat.: ‘support’, ‘drone’).

Page 79 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(v) Modal rhythm in practice.

Patterns of fractio modi after Anonymus 4 (ed. Reckow, i, pp.38–9)

The system of modal rhythm outlined by the theorists is an intellectual abstraction from the highly flexible
practice found in the musical sources. The rudimentary, repetitive patterns of the modes cited by the
theorists are of course frequently encountered in the late 12th- and early 13th-century Parisian repertory,
and are particularly clear in the tenors of later clausulas and motets. But in practice the surface rhythmic
activity suggested by ligature groupings is often so extensively varied (not merely vertically in different
voices but successively in single parts) that the rhythmic modes are only of limited descriptive use if
treated strictly. The modal integrity of a musical phrase may be compromised not only by the insertion of
unligated long notes within its course, but also by the practice of fractio modi (Lat.: ‘breaking of the mode’)
– the introduction of shorter note values than normal into the pattern. Such deviations will alter the
expected sequence of ligatures for a particular mode. Fractio modi may have prompted an early formation
of the 6th mode (6a) from the 1st, as the typical series of two-note ligatures succeeding an initial ternary
figure in mode 1 is, in mode 6, replaced by three-note figures following an initial four-note gesture. In
most cases of fractio modi the final note of the ligature tends to retain its normal value within the
prevailing mode as far as is feasible, with the added notes splitting the prior elements of the pattern within
the ligature. Even with this provision, however, the profusion of ‘non-modal’ ligatures in an ornate
passage of fractio modi can seriously obscure a clear reading of the rhythm. Fig.31 gives some of the
patterns described by Anonymus 4.

Page 80 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.9 Perotinus: Alleluia, Posui adiutorium (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.36v)

Ambiguities within the modal system may be demonstrated by two examples. Ex.9 gives the opening of the
verse section of Perotinus’s Alleluia, Posui adiutorium (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.36v). Judging from the ligature
patterns, both upper parts appear closest in form to the 2nd mode; yet the duplum lacks a final three-note
ligature to match the triplum (which, contrary to the rules, ends with a two-note ligature followed by a
single note). In this case, the penultimate note may reasonably be interpreted as a long. Consonances
between the second note of each ligature, however, are greater in number than between the first – a
transcription in the 1st mode thus appears to be just as appropriate, so that each pulse is coincident with a
consonance.

Page 81 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.10 Excerpt from Benedicamus Domino (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.41r)

Ex.10 is from a Benedicamus Domino (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.41r). Because of the prevalence of repeated notes,
which defy ligation, the passage may be transcribed in the 6th mode (as in Husmann, 1940) as easily as in
the 3rd. But most of the rest of the piece is in the 1st mode, so that a reading in the ‘alternative’ 3rd mode
(3b) probably causes the least disruption, assuming this is to be preferred. The consideration of variants in
the concordant sources may also influence the interpretation, as, for example, in the third phrase where
I-Fl Plut.29.1 notates the duplum with a 2nd-mode pattern, whereas D-W Guelf.628 (677) uses the 1st
mode. Furthermore, cadences such as that in ex.10 are ambiguous in their rhythmic profile and frequently
present problems of interpretation; the transcriptions given here present only a few out of many justifiable
readings.

Page 82 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(vi) Organum purum, modus non rectus, and irregular modes.

For all the ambiguities inherent in the notation of ‘modal’ rhythm, the situation pales even further for
particular segments of sustained-tone organum duplum (termed organum purum by Anonymous IV,
organum in speciali or organum per se by Garlandia), where the extent and type of rhythmic interpretation
has caused the most serious disagreement among scholars. Unlike discant or copula passages, whose
unfolding often suggests a ‘straightforward’ (rectus) rhythmic mode, the ligature formations of organum
purum defy such easy categorization. Garlandia’s representative discussion of the rhythmic component,
with its emphasis on oppositional construction, demonstrates vividly how the subsequent imposition of
the modal system failed to reflect accurately the capricious style of organum purum:

Organum purum is said to be that performed according to a certain mode that is not rectus but non
rectus. A rectus mode is used here to mean that by which discant is performed. … But in non rectus
[measure] the long and breve are taken not in the first way, but according to the context (ex
contingenti).

Just what contexts might affect the performance appear in a later paragraph:

Longs and breves in organum are recognized in this way, that is to say through [concord], through
notation, through the penultimate. Whence the rule: each thing [?duplum note] that falls upon
something [?tenor pitch] in compliance with the strength [of the consonances] is said to be long.
Another rule: whatever is notated long according to the organa before a rest or in [?the] place [of a
concord] is said to be long. Another rule: whatever is accepted before a long rest or before a
perfect concord is said to be long.

Thanks, perhaps, to the vagueness of passages such as this, no agreement on the rhythmic medium of
organum purum has yet emerged. Does the first rule imply that every harmonic interval between duplum
and tenor owes its length to consonance, or only the contact points between the two parts at the start and
close of major sections? Does the last rule apply to all perfect concords, or more specific ones? And what is
the role of the notational component in the upper voice? What purpose should the duplum ligatures serve
and how are they to be coordinated with the other strictures mentioned by Garlandia? Finally and perhaps
most important is the question whether the theoretical information and manuscript sources may either
reflect or recast an oral performance tradition that began at least a half-century earlier. Faced with such
dilemmas it is easy to understand why editors of this repertory often choose a non-committal approach to
organum purum by using stemless note heads, although several transcriptions with specified durations are
also available (e.g. Waite, 1954; Tischler, 1988; Payne, 1996).

Page 83 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Anonymus 4, chap.vii: ‘De modis irregularibus’ (references are to page and line numbers in Reckow’s edn.)

Another perplexing phenomenon related to the performance and rhythmical interpretation of organum are
the ‘modi irregulares’ described by Anonymus 4. According to the theorist, these modes are called
voluntarie (‘capricious’, ‘arbitrary’, ‘done at pleasure’). They incorporate atypical or unusual note
durations with such names as longa media (‘medium long’), brevis parva (‘little long’), longa nimia (‘very
long’), longa tarda (‘slow/late long’), mediocris (‘moderate’), festinans (‘hastening’). While the first two of
Anonymous IV’s irregular modes appear to be rhythmically sharper versions of the normal 1st and 2nd
modes, interpretations of the others have ranged from positing a binary division of the long to mere
nuances of tempo or performance articulation (see fig.32, which gives one of possibly many hypothetical
elucidations of the theorist’s descriptions). Most notable is the theorist’s 7th irregular mode (not included
in fig.32), which he associates directly with organum purum, and which appears to be the most flexible and
all-inclusive in its incorporation of note values:

Page 84 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

And in accordance with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit is the seventh [irregular] mode –
exceedingly noble and exceptionally worthy, all the more voluntary and pleasing. And this mode is
a mixed and universal mode, and it is [made up] of all the two-note ligatures mentioned above,
and all the three-note ligatures, and all the four-note ligatures, etc. And properly speaking it is
called organum purum et nobile (‘pure and noble organum’), etc.

(vii) English practice.

Sanders (1962) has convincingly demonstrated that pairs or longer chains of lozenge shaped notes
(‘English breves’) used in Insular manuscripts dating up to about 1300 signify 1st-mode rhythms (L–B, L–
B etc.). Such breves appear in D-W Guelf.628 (677) (even in the non-English works: for a facs. of
Perotinus’s Sederunt see Sources, ms, §IV, fig. ), GB-Lbl Harl.978 (in which some pieces have been ‘reformed’
by adding tails to alternate lozenges to make them longs) and the Worcester Fragments (earlier layers).
Johannes de Garlandia and Anonymus 4 both reported that the English interpreted ternary ligatures in
what has become known as ‘alternative 3rd mode’ (3b in Table 6. Similarly, Wibberly (EECM, xxvi) argued
that certain nuances in the slanting of ligatured notes by English scribes may reflect an attempt to
distinguish between complementary insular and continental rhythmic practices.

(viii) Mensural notation before Franco.

Clarification of ambiguities in modal notation already appears in the earliest Parisian sources, though
inconsistently, and in the theory of Johannes de Garlandia. Such specifications affected the appearance of
discrete note shapes, ligatures, and to a lesser extent rests.

The pressure towards the codification of note forms seems indebted to the motet (see Motet, §I). Many
early 13th-century motets were clausulas with text added to their upper voice or voices; because the text
usually set a separate syllable to every pitch, the ligatures of these clausulas were thus split into single
notes when written as motets. Hence in older sources the music of motets was often available in
melismatic notations as clausulas, but in texted form with undifferentiated note heads.

All the chief sources of Parisian polyphony up to about 1260 may occasionally distinguish between a single
long and a single breve in instances involving repeated notes (the long with a palpable downward stem
attached to its right-hand side, the breve rendered as a square shape). The opening of the organum
quadruplum Sederunt has already been cited; another example is the clausula Mulierum (Apel, 1942, facs.
52a). But it is also arguable that such cases scribes may denote how such a group of repeated notes
(apparently rendered B-B-L here) could be mentally reconstructed into a three-note ligature. Double
longs, whose lengths are sometimes required based on the rhythmical context of the other parts, are
sometimes distinguished by a relative horizontal elongation of the note shape (see above, ex.6).

In early mensural sources certain conventions were observed regarding the value of the discrete notes. A
long contained three tempora if followed by another long (as in mode 5), and two tempora if succeeded
(mode 1) or preceded (mode 2) by a breve; pairs of breves (mode 3) were normally interpreted in the order
brevis recta (one tempus) – brevis altera (two tempora), except by the English, who preferred the opposite
interpretation (see above, §2(vii)).

Page 85 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.33

The semibreve (single lozenge) attained its form at about the time of De mensurabili musica (c1240–60);
but this shape is rarely encountered in sources from this period. (Both Garlandia and Anonymus 4,
however, used the term semibrevis to refer to half a brevis altera; see Sanders, 1962, p.267.) The earliest
surviving manuscripts clearly and consistently making the distinction are rather later: F-Pn n.a.fr.13521
(‘La Clayette MS’) and GB-Lbl 30091, from the end of the 13th century. Other important steps concerned
the clarification of ligatures. Theorists conferred qualities of ‘propriety’ (proprietas) and
‘perfection’ (perfectio) on the traditional chant-based shapes of modal rhythm. The former term generally
referred to the formation of the first note of the ligature – whether it was drawn ‘properly’ (cum
proprietate) or not (sine proprietate) – the latter originally specified whether the shape of the ligature
concluded in a regular manner (cum perfectione) or denoted a ‘broken’ or ‘unfinished’ figure (hence
‘imperfect’, sine perfectione). Fig.33 gives the basic shapes and their alterations. The meaning of the
modifications (as well as the default forms) depended on the individual theorist. Garlandia, for example,
held that lack of propriety reversed the default values of an entire two- or three-note ligature (a proper,
perfect B–L thus became L–B, and L–B–L inverted to B–L–B), whereas imperfect ligatures needed to be
reconstituted to perfect forms according to the context of the phrase. Franco’s enduring innovation was to
specify undeviating values for ligatures of all types and to equate propriety and perfection respectively
with the durations of only the first and last notes of a figure. (For a comparative table drawn from several
theorists, see Reimer, 1972, i, 56.)

The ligature that became known as ‘having opposite propriety’ (cum opposita proprietate), usually written
with an ascending stroke to the left, is first seen in D-W 1099. Garlandia was the earliest theorist to
describe such a figure, but whereas he interpreted it in a manner akin to fractio modi (with the last note as a
long and all others equal either to a breve, or a long plus a breve depending on the number of notes in the
ligature), later practice (as in Franco) was to read the first two notes as semibreves and the remainder
according to the rules of perfection (see below, §III, 3). An alternative form of the descending ligature cum
opposita proprietate had three lozenges with a tail descending obliquely from the left of the first, and is
found in some French and many English manuscripts.

Johannes de Garlandia used a stroke through one space of the staff for a breve rest and a stroke through
two or more for a long (the number of tempora was undifferentiated). Magister Lambertus used a stroke
through one space for the semibreve rest, through two for the brevis recta, three for the brevis altera and
longa imperfecta, and four for the longa perfecta (a practice found in D-BAs lit.115). Franco used strokes
through the lower portion of a space for semibreve rests, and one complete space for each tempus. The

Page 86 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

duration of the two-tailed plica might also be differentiated. The plicated breve had either a very short tail
to the right or a single tail to the left, the plicated long a long tail to the right and a shorter one to the left.
English scribes used a lozenge with a short tail descending obliquely to the left for a semibreve.

(ix) The rhythmic interpretation of polyphonic and monophonic conductus.

The melismatic caudas of the more complex Parisian conductus were usually written in the ligature
notation (‘sine littera’) associated with modal rhythm. Realization of the syllabic sections (‘cum littera’),
however, is far less certain. As with the texted versions of early motets, the note values set to the cum littera
portions of conductus verses are ambiguous in the major sources; but in contrast to the motet the routine
absence of melismatically or mensurally notated forms of the music compounds the problems of
interpretation. Often it is presumed that the texts themselves provide clues for performance in a particular
rhythmic mode. However, there are several methodological problems with such a premise. Firstly, datable
examples of Parisian conductus indicate that the genre was cultivated from about 1160 to about 1240, well
before the codification of the modal system and only briefly coincident with the imposition of its
strictures; it is therefore questionable whether modal interpretations of conductus poetry should apply to
the entire repertory, if at all. Secondly, the modal system originated as a means of interpreting ligatures in
a melismatic context; it cannot be assumed that its successive long and breve durations apply equally to
cum littera passages before the advent of the motet. Lastly, although the poetry of conductus is ‘rhythmic’
in the specific sense that it relies on lines with set numbers of syllables that incorporate an accentual stress
at the end of the line, the accentual configurations within each line do not always approach the regularity
of poetic metre and can frustrate a performance that adheres too strictly to a modal pattern (see Sanders,
1995).

Page 87 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.8 Neume patterns in Aquitanian/Compostelan polyphony (after Stäblein, 1963; Karp, 1992) (a) Ad superni regis (contrafactum of
Noster cetus; E-SC Codex Calixtinus, f.214v) (b) hypothetical rhythmic transcription of (a)

Page 88 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Ex.11 Hac in anni ianua (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.229v)

The series of transcriptions of the opening of Hac in anni ianua (ex.11) reflects the diversity of attempted
solutions with specified rhythms (see also Apel, 1942, p.258). Exx.11a–d treat each syllable as occupying
the same length of time. 11a interprets the ligatures in binary rhythm (perhaps the least justifiable
historically) and 11b in ternary, both within the 1st mode; 11c gives a strict reading in mode 1, as if there
were no text (compare the treatment and results with the Aquitanian versus in ex.8), and 11d is a strict
reading in mode 2. Exx.11e–f abandon the principle of giving equal time to each syllable: 11e interprets the
text as if in the 1st mode; 11f as if in the 2nd. On the other hand, ex.11g gives the closing cauda of the piece;
its ligatures suggest the 3rd mode (although the alternative mode 3 could serve equally well), which

Page 89 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

conceivably could influence the choice of rhythm for the rest of the work. Page (1997) has suggested
transcribing the syllabic portions of all conductus with unmeasured values to allow for flexibility in
execution, a practice that has become increasingly common.

Ex.12 Turmas arment christicolas (I-Fl Plut.29.1, f.431v)

Given the difficulties of transcribing polyphonic conductus, where the rhythm might be expected to be
evident from the relationship between the parts, it is not surprising that monophonic conductus present
even greater problems. In several of the more elaborate works, rhythmic transcriptions that give each
syllable an equal duration are often complicated by the presence of compound neumes of six or more notes
(these are occasionally present in polyphonic conductus also). As an illustration, ex.12 gives a rhythmic
rendition of the opening of one of the most ornate works in the Parisian corpus, Turmas arment christicolas,
on the murder of Adalbert of Leuven, Bishop of Liège, by German knights in 1192. The principle of equal
syllables has been applied wherever a syllable carries one, two or three notes; where it has four or more its
value has been extended to two or more dotted crotchets. If such an interpretation was originally intended,
the notation displays nothing of the regular ligature patterns characteristic of the organa tripla and

Page 90 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

quadrupla of this period, nor is the stress of the text complemented. Interestingly, the ligature shapes and
melodic content of ornate monophonic conductus such as this often recall the modus non rectus of organum
purum rather than the more clearly notated forms of the rhythmic modes. As a result, transcription in
unmeasured values for the pieces in this repertory, as well as for other types of monophony from the
period, has become standard practice.

(x) The rhythmic interpretation of secular monophony.

The same cautions exercised in the treatment of conductus rhythm apply to the secular monophonic
repertory, but with even more circumspection. The application of modal rhythms before the codification of
the system and outside the Parisian orbit is highly questionable (this includes the majority of troubadour
and trouvère songs): the texts are non-metrical and therefore not conducive to patterned rhythms, and,
except for a handful of songs in F-Pn fr.846 and a few in other manuscripts, mensural notation is not used,
even though the bulk of the sources of secular monophony dates from after c1250. In retrospect, the
suggestion that troubadour and trouvère melodies might be transcribed in rhythmic patterns resembling
those of the rhythmic modes (see Sanders, 1985) seems to have been adopted with excessive zeal, although
it still has its adherents.

Yet, as in the case of the conductus, even with a preference for unmeasured transcriptions, opinions are
divided on the fundamental procedures for interpreting the songs. Among representative treatments, van
der Werf (1972 etc.) suggested an essential rhythmic equality for each pitch that could be adapted to
accommodate rhetorical features of the poem. Stevens (1986) proposed a single elastic rhythmic unit for
each syllable, and along with Page (1987) recommended the recognition of various registers (high/courtly
versus low/popular styles) among songs – distinctions that could affect the imposition of rhythm as well
as the use of instruments in performance. Aubrey’s approach (1996) is the most flexible and inclusive,
eschewing single, systematic procedures and suggesting that the different contexts in which songs were
performed might have significantly altered the presentation of even the same piece by the same executor.
This method favours the investigation of each piece on its own terms to uncover patterns of musical
structure and emphasis that can inform the rhythmic treatment.

Bibliography

Theoretical sources
listed alphabetically as items largely undatable

Amerus: Practica artis musice, ed. J. Kromolicki Die Practica artis musicae des Amerus und ihre Stellung in der
Musiktheorie des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1909); ed. C. Ruini, CSM, 25 (1977)

Anonymous: Ad organum faciendum [Milan organum treatise (prose and verse); Berlin treatises A and B; Montpellier
treatise], ed. H.H. Eggebrecht and F. Zaminer:Ad organum faciendum: Lehrschriften der Mehrstimmigkeit in
nachguidonischer Zeit (Mainz, 1970) [Lat. with Ger. trans.]; Eng. trans. of Milan and Berlin B, J.A. Huff, Music Theorists in
Translation, 8 (Brooklyn, 1963)

Page 91 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Anonymous: Discantus positio vulgaris, CoussemakerS, 1, 94–7; ed. S.M. Cserba:Hieronymus de Moravia O.P.:
Tractatus de musica (Regensburg, 1935), 189–94; Eng. trans., J. Knapp, JMT, 6 (1962), 203–7; McKinnon, Strunk’s
Source Readings, 1 (1998), 108–12

Anonymous: Musica enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis, GerbertS, 1, 152–73, 173–212; ed. H. Schmid: Musica et scolica
enchiriadis (Munich, 1981); Eng. trans., R. Erickson: Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, ed. C.V. Palisca (New
Haven, CT, 1995)

Anonymous [St Emmeram anonymus], ed. H. Sowa: Ein anonymer glossierter Mensuraltraktat 1279 (Kassel, 1930);
Eng. trans., Yudkin (1990)

Anonymous [Vatican organum treatise], ed. F. Zaminer: Der Vatikanischen Organum-Traktat (Tutzing, 1959); ed. I.
Godt and B. Rivera: ‘The Vatican Organum Treatise: a Colour Reproduction, Transcription, and Translation into
English’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–81, in memoriam, ed. L.A. Dittmer (Henryville, PA, 1984), 2, 264–345

Anonymus 4 [CoussemakerS, i]: De mensuris et cantu, CoussemakerS, 1, 327–65; ed. F. Reckow Der Musiktraktat des
Anonymus 4: Edition und Interpretation der Organum purum-Lehre (1967), 1; Eng. trans., Yudkin (1985)

Anonymus 7 [CoussemakerS, i]: De musica libellus, CoussemakerS, 1, 378–83; ed. G. Reaney,CSM, 36 (1996), 19–35;
Eng. trans., J. Knapp: ‘Two 13th-Century Treatises on Modal Rhythm and the Discant’, JMT, 6 (1962), 200–215 [see
also Pinegar, 1992, for edn of Bruges organum treatise]

Dietricus: Regule super discantum, ed. H. Müller Eine Abhandlung über Mensuralmusik (Leipzig, 1886)

Franco of Cologne: Ars cantus mensurabilis, CoussemakerS, 1, 117–36; GerbertS, 3, 1–16; ed. G. Reaney and A.
Gilles, CSM, 18 (1974); ed. F. Gennrich, Musikwissenschaftliche Studien-Bibliothek, 15–16 (Darmstadt, 1957)

Guido frater: Ars musice mensurate, ed. F.A. Gallo Mensurabilis musicae tractatuli, AntMI, Scriptores, 1/1 (1966), 17–
40

Guido of Arezzo: Micrologus, GerbertS, 2, 2–24; ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe, CSM, 4 (1955); Eng. trans., W.
Babb, in Hucbald, Guido and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, ed. C.V. Palisca (New Haven, CT, 1977)

Hieronymus de Moravia: Tractatus de musica, CoussemakerS, 1, 1–94; ed. S.M. Cserba: Hieronymus de Moravia
O.P.: Tractatus de musica (Regensburg, 1935)

Jacobus of Liège: Speculum musice, CoussemakerS, 2, 193–433 [attrib. Johannes de Muris]; ed. R. Bragard, CSM, 3
(1955–73)

Johannes de Garlandia: De mensurabili musica, CoussemakerS, 1, 175–82; later version as De musica mensurabili
positio, CoussemakerS, 1, 97–117; ed. E. Reimer (Wiesbaden, 1972); Eng. trans., S. Birnbaum (Colorado Springs, CO,
1978)

Magister Lambertus [Pseudo-Aristoteles]: Tractatus de musica, CoussemakerS, 1, 251–81; CSM (forthcoming)

W. Odington: Summa de speculatione musicae, CoussemakerS, 1, 182–250; ed. F.F. Hammond, CSM, 14 (1970);
Eng. trans. of pt.vi, J.A. Huff, MSD, 31 (1973)

For further bibliography seeOrganum.

Page 92 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

monophony to c1260: studies

J.B. Beck: Die Melodien der Troubadours (Strasbourg, 1908/R)

P. Aubry: Trouvères et troubadours (Paris, 1909, 2/1910; Eng. trans., 1914/R)

F. Ludwig: ‘Zur “modalen Interpretation” von Melodien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, ZIMG, 11 (1909–10), 379–82

P. Aubry and A. Jeanroy, eds.: Le chansonnier de l’Arsenal (trouvères du XIIe–XIIIe siècle) (Paris, 1909–12)

J.B. Beck: La musique des troubadours (Paris, 1910/R)

E. Jammers: ‘Untersuchungen über die Rhythmik und Melodik der Melodien der Jenaer Liederhandschrift’, ZMw, 7
(1924–5), 265–304

R. Lach: ‘Zur Frage der Rhythmik des altfranzösischen und altprovenzalischen Liedverses’, Zeitschrift für französische
Sprache und Literatur, 47 (1924–5), 35–59

J.B. Beck, ed.: Le chansonnier Cangé: manuscrit français no.846 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, Corpus
cantilenarum medii aevi, 1st ser., 1 (Paris and Philadelphia, 1927/R) [facs.]

J. Handschin: ‘Die Modaltheorie und Carl Appels Ausgabe der Gesänge von Bernart de Ventadorn’, Medium aevum, 4
(1935), 69–82

J.B. Beck and L. Beck, eds.: Le manuscrit du roi: fonds français no.844 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, Corpus
cantilenarum medii aevi, 1st ser., 2 (London and Philadelphia, 1938/R) [facs.]

H. Anglès: ‘Der Rhythmus der monodischen Lyrik des Mittelalters und seine Probleme’, IMSCRIV: Basle 1949, 45–50

H. Husmann: ‘Zur Grundlegung der musikalischen Rhythmik des mittellateinischen Liedes’, AMw, 9 (1952), 3–26

H. Husmann: ‘Zur Rhythmik des Trouvèregesanges’, Mf, 5 (1952), 110–31

H. Husmann: ‘Die musikalische Behandlung der Versarten im Troubadourgesang der Notre Dame-Zeit’, AcM, 25
(1953), 1–20

H. Husmann: ‘Das Prinzip der Silbenzählung im Lied des zentralen Mittelalters’, Mf, 6 (1953), 8–23

F. Gennrich: ‘Grundsätzliches zur Rhythmik der mittelalterlichen Monodie’, Mf, 7 (1954), 150–76

H. Husmann: ‘Das System der modalen Rhythmik’, AMw, 11 (1954), 1–38

F. Gennrich: ‘Ist der mittelalterliche Liedvers arhythmisch?’, Cultura neolatina, 15 (1955), 109–31

F. Gennrich: Musica sine littera: Notenzeichen und Rhythmik der Gruppennotation (Darmstadt, 1956)

F. Gennrich: ‘Wer ist der Initiator der “Modaltheorie”? Suum cuique’, Miscelánea en homenaje a Monseñor Higinio
Anglés (Barcelona, 1958–61), 315–30

H. Anglès: ‘Die volkstümlichen Melodien bei den Trouvères’, Festgabe für Joseph Müller-Blattau, ed. W. Salmen
(Saarbrücken, 1960, 2/1962), 15–22

H. Anglès: ‘Der Rhythmus in der Melodik mittelalterlicher Lyrik’, IMSCRVIII: New York 1961, 1, 3–11

B. Kippenberg: Der Rhythmus im Minnesang: eine Kritik der literar- und musikhistorischen Forschung (Munich, 1962)
Page 93 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

H. van der Werf: ‘The Trouvère Chansons as Creations of a Notationless Musical Culture’, CMc, no.1 (1965), 61–8

H. van der Werf: ‘Deklamatorischer Rhythmus in den Chansons der Trouvères’, Mf, 20 (1967), 122–44

H. van der Werf: The Chansons of the Troubadours and Trouvères: a Study of the Melodies and their Relation to the
Poems (Utrecht, 1972)

E. Jammers: Aufzeichnungsweisen der einstimmigen ausserliturgischen Musik des Mittelalters, Palaeographie der
Musik, 1/4 (Cologne, 1975)

B. Stäblein: Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, 3/4 (Leipzig, 1975)

T. Karp: ‘Three Trouvère Chansons in Mensural Notation’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–1981, in memoriam ed. L.A.
Dittmer (Henryville, PA, 1984), 474–94

H. van der Werf: The Extant Troubadour Melodies: Transcriptions and Essays for Performers and Scholars (Rochester,
NY, 1984)

C. Page: Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Instrumental Practice and Songs in France, 1100–1300 (Berkeley,
1986)

J. Stevens: Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050–1350 (Cambridge, 1986)

E. Aubrey: The Music of the Troubadours (Bloomington, IN, 1996)

S Engels: ‘Mittelalterliche Notationen und ihre Bedeutung für eine musikalische Interpretation in einstimmigen
Gesängen’, De Musica Disserenda, 5/1 (2009), 19–32

polyphony to c1260: studies

G. Jacobsthal: Die Mensuralnotenschrift des zwölften und dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1871/R)

W. Niemann: Über die abweichende Bedeutung der Ligaturen in der Mensuraltheorie der Zeit vor Johannes de
Garlandia (Leipzig, 1902/R)

F. Ludwig: Repertorium organorum recentioris et motetorum vetustissimi stili, 1/1 (Halle, 1910/R), 42–57

A.M. Michalitschke: Theorie des Modus: eine Darstellung der Entwicklung des musikrhythmischen Modus und der
entsprechenden mensuralen Schreibung (Regensburg, 1923)

J. Handschin: ‘Zur Notre Dame-Rhythmik’, ZMw, 7 (1924–5), 386–9

A.M. Michalitschke: ‘Zur Frage der Longa in der Mensuraltheorie des 13. Jahrhunderts’, ZMw, 8 (1925–6), 103–9

A.M. Michalitschke: ‘Studien zur Entstehung und Frühentwicklung der Mensuralnotation’, ZMw, 12 (1929–30), 257–
79

H. Sowa: ‘Zur Weiterentwicklung der modalen Rhythmik’, ZMw, 15 (1932–3), 422–7

H. Husmann, ed.: Die drei- und vierstimmigen Notre-Dame-Organa: kritische Gesamtausgabe, Publikationen älterer
Musik, 11 (Leipzig, 1940/R)

W. Apel: The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA, 1942, rev. 5/1961; Ger. trans., rev., 1970)

Page 94 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

R. von Ficker: ‘Probleme der modalen Notation (zur kritischen Gesamtausgabe der drei- und vierstimmigen
Organa)’, AcM, 18–19 (1946–7), 2–16

M. Bukofzer: ‘Rhythm and Meter in the Notre Dame Conductus’, BAMS 1948, 63–5

F. Gennrich: ‘Perotins Beata viscera Mariae virginis und die “Modaltheorie”’, Mf, 1 (1948), 225–41

W. Apel: ‘From St. Martial to Notre Dame’, JAMS, 2 (1949), 145–58

J. Handschin: ‘Zur Frage der Conductus-Rhythmik’, AcM, 24 (1952), 113–30

W. Waite: ‘Discantus, Copula, Organum’, JAMS, 5 (1952), 77–87

C. Parrish: ‘Some Rhythmical Problems of the Notre Dame Organa and Conductus’, JAMS, 6 (1953), 89–90

H. Husmann: ‘Das System der modalen Rhythmik’, AMw, 11 (1954), 1–38

W.G. Waite: The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony: its Theory and Practice (New Haven, CT, 1954/R)

H. Husmann: ‘Les époques de la musique provençale au Moyen Áge’, Actes et mémoires du ler congrès international
de langue et littérature du Midi de la France: Avignon 1955 (Avignon, 1957), 197–201

C. Parrish: The Notation of Medieval Music (New York, 1957, 2/1959/R), chaps.3–4

H. Tischler: ‘Ligatures, Plicae and Vertical Bars in Premensural Notation’, RBM, 11 (1957), 83–92

H. Tischler: ‘A propos the Notation of the Parisian Organa’, JAMS, 14 (1961), 1–8

E.H. Sanders: ‘Duple Rhythm and Alternate Third Mode in the 13th Century’, JAMS, 15 (1962), 249–91

B. Stäblein: ‘Modale Rhythmen im Saint-Martial-Repertoire?’, Festschrift Friedrich Blume, ed. A.A. Abert and W.
Pfannkuch (Kassel, 1963), 340–62

E.F. Flindell: ‘Aspekte der Modalnotation’, Mf, 17 (1964), 353–73

F. Reckow: Der Musiktraktat des Anonymus 4, 2: Interpretation der Organum purum-Lehre (Wiesbaden, 1967)

F. Reckow: ‘Proprietas und perfectio: zur Geschichte des Rhythmus, seiner Aufzeichnung und Terminologie im 13.
Jahrhundert’, AcM, 39 (1967), 115–43

G.A. Anderson: ‘Mode and Change of Mode in Notre Dame Conductus’, AcM, 40 (1968), 92–114

G.A. Anderson, ed.: The Latin Compositions in Fascicules VII and VIII of the Notre Dame Manuscript Wolfenbüttel
Helmstadt 1099 (1206), pt.i: Critical Commentary, Translation of the Texts and Historical Observations (New York, 1968–
76)

R. Flotzinger: Der Discantussatz im Magnus liber und seiner Nachfolge (Vienna, 1969)

S. Fuller: Aquitanian Polyphony of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 1969)

R.A. Rasch: Iohannes de Garlandia en de ontwikkeling van de voor-Franconische notatie (New York, 1969) [with Eng.
and Ger. summaries]

H.H. Eggebrecht and F. Zaminer, eds.: Ad organum faciendum: Lehrschriften der Mehrstimmigkeit in
nachguidonischer Zeit (Mainz, 1970)
Page 95 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

W. Frobenius: ‘Zur Datierung von Francos Ars cantus mensurabilis’, AMw, 27 (1970), 122–7

J. Stenzl: Die vierzig Clausulae der Handschrift Paris, Bibliothèque nationale latin 15139 (Saint Victor-Clausulae) (Berne,
1970)

H.H. Eggebrecht: ‘Organum purum’, Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins, ed. T.G.
Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 93–112

W. Frobenius: ‘Longa–Brevis’, ‘Minima’, ‘Modus (Rhythmuslehre)’, ‘Perfectio’, ‘Prolatio’, ‘Proprietas

(Notationslehre)’, ‘Semibrevis’, ‘Semiminima’, (1971–4), HMT

R. Flotzinger: ‘Zur Frage der Modalrhythmik als Antike-Rezeption’, AMw, 29 (1972), 203–8

E. Reimer: Johannes de Garlandia: De mensurabili musica, 2: Kommentar und Interpretation der Notationslehre
(Wiesbaden, 1972)

G.A. Anderson: ‘Magister Lambertus and Nine Rhythmic Modes’, AcM, 45 (1973), 57–73

G.A. Anderson: ‘The Rhythm of cum littera Sections of Polyphonic Conductus in Mensural Sources’, JAMS, 26 (1973),
288–304

R. Baltzer: Notation, Rhythm, and Style in the Two-Voice Notre Dame Clausula (diss., Boston U., 1974)

K.-J. Sachs: ‘Punctus’ (1974), HMT

G.A. Anderson: ‘The Notation of the Bamberg and Las Huelgas Manuscripts’, MD, 32 (1978), 19–67

G.A. Anderson: ‘The Rhythm of the Monophonic Conductus in the Florence Manuscript as Indicated in Parallel
Sources’, JAMS, 31 (1978), 480–89

J. Knapp: ‘Musical Declamation and Poetic Rhythm in an Early Layer of Notre Dame Conductus’, JAMS, 32 (1979), 383–
407

E. Roesner: ‘The Performance of Parisian Organum’, EMc, 7 (1979), 174–89

L. Treitler: ‘Regarding Rhythm and Meter in the Ars Antiqua’, MQ, 65 (1979), 524–58

E.H. Sanders: ‘Consonance and Rhythm in the Organum of the 12th and 13th Centuries’, JAMS, 33 (1980), 264–86
[see comments by Reckow and reply, ibid., 34, 1981, 588–9]

H. Tischler: ‘Versmass und musikalischer Rhythmus in Notre-Dame-Conductus’, AMw, 37 (1980), 292–304

J. Yudkin: ‘The Copula According to Johannes de Garlandia’, MD, 34 (1980), 67–84

C. Morin: ‘Mise en place de l’écriture polyphonique: l’école de Notre-Dame’, EG, 20 (1981), 69–76

R. Rastall: The Notation of Western Music: an Introduction (New York, 1982)

E.H. Roesner: ‘Johannes de Garlandia on organum in speciale’, EMH, 2 (1982), 129–60

H. Tischler: ‘A Propos Meter and Rhythm in the Ars Antiqua’, JMT, 26 (1982), 313–30

L. Treitler: ‘Regarding “A Propos Meter and Rhythm in the Ars Antiqua”’, JMT, 27 (1983), 215–22

J. Yudkin: ‘The Rhythm of Organum Purum’, JM, 2 (1983), 355–76

Page 96 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

M. Haas: ‘Die Musiklehre im 13. Jahrhundert von Johannes de Garlandia bis Franco’, Geschichte der Musiktheorie, ed.
F. Zaminer, 5 (Darmstadt, 1984), 91–158

D. Hiley: ‘The Plica and Liquescence’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–1981, in memoriam, ed. L.A. Dittmer (Henryville,
PA, 1984), 379–92

E.H. Sanders: ‘Sine littera and Cum littera in Medieval Polyphony’, Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul
Henry Lang, ed. E. Strainchamps, M.R. Maniates and C. Hatch (New York, 1984), 215–31

H. Tischler: ‘Gordon Anderson’s Conductus Edition and the Rhythm of Conductus’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–
1981, in memoriam, ed. L.A. Dittmer (Henryville, PA, 1984), 561–73

J. Yudkin: ‘The Anonymous of St. Emmeram and Anonymous IV on the Copula’, MQ, 70 (1984), 1–22

E.H. Sanders: ‘Conductus and Modal Rhythm’, JAMS, 38 (1985), 439–69

L.C.H. Spottswood: Accents in Texted Ligatures: the Influence of Old French on the Rhythm and Notation of the
Polyphonic Conductus (diss., U. of Maryland, 1985)

J. Yudkin: The Music Treatise of Anonymous IV: a New Translation (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1985)

B. Gillingham: Modal Rhythm (Ottawa, 1986)

H. Ristory: ‘Ein Kurztraktat mit Binärmensuration und praefranconischem Gepräge’, Studi musicali, 15 (1986), 151–
66

E. Apfel: Die Lehre vom Organum, Diskant, Kontrapunkt und von der Komposition bis um 1480 (Saarbrücken, 1987,
4/1997)

M.E. Fassler: ‘Accent, Meter, and Rhythm in Medieval Treatises “De rithmis”’, JM, 5 (1987), 164–90

M. Huglo: ‘La notation franconienne: antécédents et devenir’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 31 (1988), 123–32

M. Lütolf: ‘Les notations des XIIe–XIIIe siècles et leur transcription: difficultés d’interprétation’, Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale, 31 (1988), 151–60

M. Pérès: ‘L’interprétation des polyphonies vocales du XIIe siècle et les limites de la paléographie et de la
sémiologie’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 31 (1988), 169–78

H. Tischler, ed.: The Parisian Two-Part Organa (New York, 1988)

G. Le Vot: ‘La notation et l’oralité des musiques polyphoniques aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles’, Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale, 31 (1988), 133–50, 179–81

M.E. Wolinski: The Montpellier Codex: its Compilation, Notation, and Implications for the Chronology of the
Thirteenth-Century Motet (diss., Brandeis U., 1988)

C.M. Atkinson: ‘Franco of Cologne on the Rhythm of Organum Purum’, EMH, 9 (1989), 1–26

L. Lera: ‘Grammatici della notazione di Notre-Dame’, AcM, 61 (1989), 150–74

R.L. Crocker: ‘Rhythm in Early Polyphony’, CMc, nos.45–7 (1990), 147–77

N.E. Smith: ‘The Notation of Fractio modi’, CMc, nos.45–7 (1990), 283–304

Page 97 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

J. Knapp: ‘Polyphony at Notre Dame of Paris’, NOHM, 2 (2/1990), 557–635

E.H. Roesner: ‘The Emergence of Musica mensurabilis’, Studies in Musical Sources and Style: Essays in Honor of Jan
LaRue, ed. E.K. Wolf and E. Roesner (Madison, WI, 1990), 41–74

L.C.H. Spottswood: ‘The Influence of Old French on Latin Text Settings in Early Measured Polyphony’, Beyond the
Moon: Festschrift Luther Dittmer, ed. B. Gillingham and P. Merkley (Ottawa, 1990), 163–82

H. Tischler: ‘Words and Music in the Middle Ages: a Critique of John Stevens’ “Words and Music in the Middle Ages:
Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050–1350”’, De musica hispana et aliis: miscelánea en honor al Prof. Dr. José
Lopez-Calo, ed. E. Caseres and C. Villanueva (Santiago de Compostela, 1990), 181–96

J. Yudkin, ed. and trans.: De musica mensurata: the Anonymous of St. Emmeram: Complete Critical Edition,
Translation, and Commentary (Bloomington, IN, 1990)

S. Pinegar: Textual and Conceptual Relationships among Theoretical Writings on Measurable Music from the Thirteenth
and Early Fourteenth Centuries (diss., Columbia U., 1991)

J. Yudkin: ‘The Anonymous Music Treatise of 1279: Why St. Emmeram?’, ML, 72 (1991), 177–96

T. Karp, ed.: The Polyphony of Saint Martial and Santiago de Compostela (Oxford, 1992)

S. Pinegar: ‘Exploring the Margins: a Second Source for Anonymous 7’, JMR, 12 (1992), 213–43

J. Williams, A. Stones, eds.: The Codex Calixtinus and the Shrine of St. James (Tübingen, 1992)

E.H. Roesner, ed.: Les quadrupla et tripla de Paris, Le magnus liber organi de Notre-Dame de Paris, 1 (Les Remparts,
1993) [see esp. ‘Introduction: the Interpretation of Rhythm’]

E.H. Sanders: ‘The Earliest Phases of Measured Polyphony’, Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past, ed. C.
Hatch and D.W. Bernstein (Chicago, 1993), 41–58

M. Huglo: ‘The Origin of the Monodic Chants in the Codex Calixtinus’, Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G.
Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 195–206

E.H. Sanders: ‘Rithmus’, Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA,
1995), 415–40

A.M. Busse Berger: ‘Mnemotechnics and Notre Dame Polyphony’, JM, 14 (1996), 263–98

T.B. Payne, ed.: Les organa à deux voix du manuscrit de Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, cod. Guelf. 1099
Helmst., Le magnus liber organi de Notre-Dame de Paris, 6 (Les Remparts, 1996) [incl. ‘Introduction: the Interpretation
of Rhythm’]

C. Page: Latin Poetry and Conductus Rhythm in Medieval France (London, 1997)

R. Eberlein: ‘Vormodale Notation’, AMw, 55/3 (1998), 175–94

T.C. Karp: ‘Measurability in Medieval Music before 1300’, Orbis Musicae: Studies in Musicology, 12 (1998), 107–39

E.H. Sanders: French and English Polyphony of the 13th and 14th Centuries: Style and Notation (Aldershot, 1998)

L. Lera: ‘Polifonia delle orgini: Per superare un’ “‘impasse”’. Musica e storia, 7/1 (1999), 31–46

Page 98 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

M.-N. Colette, M. Popin and P. Vendrix: Histoire de la notation: du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance (Paris, 2003)

A.M. Busse Berger: Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley, 2005)

E.H. Sanders: ‘The Notation of Notre-Dame Organa tripla and quadruple’, Le notazioni della polifonia vocale dei
secole IX–XVII: Antologia, Parte prima, secoli IX–XIV, ed. D. Sabaino and S. Aresi (Pisa, 2007), 57–128

G. Gross: Chanter en polyphonie à Notre Dame de Paris aux 12e et 13e siècles, Studia Artistarum, 14 (Turnhout, 2007)

S. Rankin: ‘Thirteenth-Century Notations of Music and Arts of Performance’, Vom Preis des Fortschritts: Gewinn und
Verlust in der Musikgeschichte, eds. A. Haug and A. Dorschel (Vienna, London and New York, 2008), 110–41

For further bibliography see Organum.

3. Polyphonic mensural notation, c1260–1500.

Margaret Bent

(i) General.
Well before this period the notation of pitch had lost all ambiguity apart from occasional uses of the Plica
and the operation of the rules of musica recta and Musica ficta. The four-line staff used for plainchant was
still sometimes retained in polyphony, especially for a voice presenting plainchant, but the five-line staff
had come to be used for polyphonic voices. A six-line staff became normal for the 14th-century Italian
repertory, and was occasionally used outside it. Additional staff-lines were provided throughout the period
wherever the range of a voice demanded, though the leger line itself was rare. The most commonly used
clef was the C (on any line), as in plainchant, and its position was readily movable from line to line when
range or a copying error made this expedient. Of the other two clefs used in plainchant the F came
increasingly into use with the gradual extension of the lower pitch register, but the B♭ – that is, the ♭ sign
used on its own as a clef – was rare in polyphony, probably because of the growing use of the same symbol
to supply what would later be called a key signature. The treble G clef appeared in the 14th century; it came
increasingly into use, especially in England, again in connection with extension of range; bass G and D
clefs are rare. (See Staff and Clef.)

Score notation had disappeared by about 1260, except for late copies of the organum and conductus
repertory, and certain categories of composition in England, for which it was retained late into the 15th
century (including carols, homophonic sequences and cantilenas, and English discant). Notation in
separate voices reflected their new rhythmic independence.

Page 99 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Fig.34

Throughout the period there were three principal signs for what are now called accidentals. They did not
function as modern accidentals do, in that they did not signify the automatic raising or lowering of an
otherwise ‘natural’ note by a semitone. They were adjuncts of the solmization system: the signs in fig.34a
(alternative forms adopted by different scribes) designated the note following it to be sung to the syllable
mi, and fig.34b designated it to be sung to the syllable fa. Fig.34c was often used simply as an alternative to
fig.34b, though it seems to have been used by some scribes to refer to notes in the upper octave of a given
voice range. In consequence, the note F, for example, would be rendered not flat but F♮ by the placing of the
‘flat’ sign (fig.34b) before it; a ‘sharp’ or hard b(♭) sign before the note E would render it E♮. Ambiguity
could arise with A and D as to whether a flat sign meant natural or flat, and with G and D as to whether a
sharp sign meant natural or sharp; but this ambiguity could usually be resolved by consideration of
context. Significantly, the three clef signs discussed above were all indications of fa in the three basic
hexachords (based on G, C and F respectively).

(ii) Franconian notation.

The development of notation during the period c1260–1500 was almost exclusively in the realm of rhythm,
and specifically concerned with achieving precise notation for note values shorter than the long and breve.
The 13th century saw the gradual adoption of graphic distinctions between the long and the breve, both as
isolated note shapes (simplices) and as they appear within ligatures. The forms of square note with and
without stem had been used arbitrarily in the Florence manuscript (I-Fl Plut.29.1), but were used
throughout the next generation of sources, including the Montpellier manuscript (F-MOf H196), to
indicate long and breve respectively (see Sources, MS, §V for these manuscripts). Ligatures began to have
fixed evaluations regardless of their modal context, even though they still often adhered to modal patterns
and though the values assigned to them derived from their modal interpretations. These and other
fundamental changes can be traced in the musical sources, and are mentioned in the theoretical writings
(c1240) ascribed to Johannes de Garlandia, Magister Lambertus (before 1279) and the St Emmeram
anonymus [Sowa anon. 1930] (1279), all of which are now dated earlier than the main formulation of these
changes by Franco of Cologne (?c1280) on whose rules the following summary is based.

The Franconian system required that note symbols should be capable of indicating the rhythmic modes
rather than being determined by them. Under this system, each of the three principal note values had two
states. The long was either ‘perfect’ or ‘imperfect’, there was also a duplex long, worth two longs, which

Page 100 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Franco explained as a means of avoiding repeated notes. The breve was either recta or altera (‘other’ –
Robert de Handlo in 1326 proposed that the breve be thought of as alterata, ‘altered’, CoussemakerS, i, 385).
The semibreve could be either ‘major’ or ‘minor’.

The perfect long was worth three breves. The imperfect long was worth two breves, as had been the earlier
long, and was used in combination with a preceding or following breve; it could not stand on its own (i.e.
only triple time was allowed on the level of the long), and hence could not be called longa recta (but see
Johannes de Garlandia, ed. Reimer, i, 37). When a long preceded a second long the first must always be
perfect (thus, in terms of breves, 3–3 or 3–2).

The brevis altera was worth two recta breves. It arose as the second breve in the context breve–breve–long
(1–2–3 breve units respectively): see fig.35a (in the upper voice the first breve is subdivided into
semibreves). Although identical in duration with the imperfect long it could not be written thus because of
the preceding rule. Where a long followed by a breve would normally be imperfect, it could be rendered
perfect by the placing immediately after it of a dot or stroke, variously called tractulus, signum perfectionis
or divisio modi, as in fig.35b . A long followed by two breves was perfect unless preceded by a single breve.
The following set of patterns illustrates the operation of the system (numerals represent multiples of
breve-values; primes represent signs of perfection):

LBLB = 2–1–2–1

L′BLB = 3–1–2–1

LBBL = 3–1–2–3

BLBBL = 1–2–1–2–3

LB′BL = 2–1–1–2

LBBBL = 3–1–1–1–3

LB′BBL = 2–1–1–2–3

LBBBBL = 2–1–1–1–1–3

L′BBBBL = 3–1–1–1–1–2

The brevis recta might contain not more than three semibreves and not fewer than two. If three, they would
be equal and all minor; if two, they would be minor–major (1–2). Franco made no provision for two equal
semibreves, though several earlier theorists did not specify the value of a pair of semibreves when it
constituted a breve nor did they recognize a group of three (Johannes de Garlandia, ed. Reimer, i, 50;
Dietricus, ed. Müller, 5; Amerus, p.II). (The semibreve pairs in F-MOfH196 and D-BAs ED.N.6, and possibly
other sources, in most cases lend themselves much more comfortably to equal performance, and it is not
always certain that Franco’s rules apply.)

Page 101 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

There is no provision as yet for the breve to be imperfected by the semibreve, or for the semibreve to stand
alone: the breve-semibreve relationship was not at that stage analogous to that of the long-breve. This
meant also that the principle of ‘alteration’ did not apply. A breve preceding a second breve is not said to be
perfect, because there is no question of its being imperfected. Similarly, the second of a pair of semibreves
is not said to be ‘altered’ before a breve, because a pair of semibreves is rendered iambically, regardless of
what follows. Hence the following patterns (numerals represent multiples of semibreve-values):

BSSSS = 3–1–2–1–2

SSS′SS = 1–1–1–1–2

Several of Franco’s contemporaries (e.g. St Emmeram anonymus, 1279) added to the semibreve-pair rule
‘and vice versa’, implying the reverse interpretation (2–1); and one later writer, the author of the Quatuor
principalia (CoussemakerS, iv; see also John of Tewkesbury), even attributed this interpretation directly to
Franco.

Franco defined ascending and descending plicae for the long and breve. Plicae continued in use in the 14th
century, but their pitch and rhythmic evaluation are sometimes open to question (see Handlo’s
evaluations, CoussemakerS, i, 383ff; also ed. in Lefferts). They were obsolete before 1400, by which time any
surviving plica shapes no longer have the former significance of a plica.

Franco took over the existing ligature shapes with their connotations of propriety and perfection
depending on the presence or absence of stems (see §III, 2). He provided evaluations that were mostly
consistent with the earlier system but which could stand independent of their modal meanings. The first
note of a ligature ‘with propriety’ was a breve, the last note of a ligature ‘with perfection’ was a long. He
opened the door to many hitherto unused ligature shapes and provided a means of evaluating them, simple
for anyone familiar with the existing shapes. A ligature with a stem ascending from the first note was
described as having ‘opposite propriety’: it signified two semibreves. All notes other than the first and last
were breves. In practice, downward stems were occasionally used to create a long in the middle of a
ligature; the upward stem could occur elsewhere than at the beginning to create two semibreves; and the
long body of the duplex long or maxima could be used to create this value anywhere in the ligature. These
are later modifications to Franco’s system. Notes in ligature were subject to the same rules for
imperfection and alteration as single notes, but in practice grouping in ligatures tended to favour certain
groupings as strongly as did a divisio modi.

Franco advocated the use of ligatures where possible; if possibility here implies absence of constraints
from word underlay, he did not say so. However, it remains generally true (with a few exceptions) that two
syllables do not have to be fitted to one ligature. On the other hand, Franco disallowed the pre-Franconian
practice of notating 5th-mode tenors in motets as three-note ligatures and insisted on a succession of
separate longs. Fig.36 shows the principal ligature shapes of the Franconian system. (An oblique shape
involves only two pitches: the first and last covered by the ligature.) In evaluating ligatures of more than

Page 102 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

two notes, the first and last were treated as though each formed a two-note ligature with its neighbour.
Middle notes were breves unless modified by stems making them longs or semibreves, or by extension of
the note body to make a duplex long or maxima (see fig.37).

Fig.38

Fig.38 shows the rests given by Franco, together with their values in terms of recta breves. They are
respectively the perfect long, the imperfect long and brevis altera, the brevis recta, the major semibreve, the
minor semibreve and the finis punctorum, which marked the end of a section or piece and was
immeasurable. All these rests were fixed in value, not subject to imperfection or alteration.

Franco made no provision for a binary division of the long, though it is generally agreed that some pre-
Franconian compositions require this. Such a division became common in the following generation (see
Sanders, 1962). After Franco the breve was further subdivided, being replaceable by more than three
semibreves. The evaluation of these smaller semibreves differed, both in theory and in practice, in the
separate 14th-century traditions of France, Italy and England, and the resulting rhythmic differences
contributed largely to the musical distinctness of the three styles. Franco was the starting-point for all
three. In none of them was a primary division of the breve into more than three semibreves called for:
smaller note values were achieved by further subdivision of the primary divisions – subdivisions that were
still regarded as types of semibreve, and were written without differentiation as semibreves. In addition,
French and Italian theorists introduced imperfect time, with two equal semibreves constituting one breve,
on an equal footing with perfect time.

Jacobus of Liège alleged that Petrus de Cruce had used up to seven semibreves in the space of a breve. He
said that ‘another’ had used up to nine semibreves, and Robert de Handlo and John Hanboys said the same
of a ‘Johannes de Garlandia’ (CoussemakerS, i, 389; see also edn by Lefferts); both cite pre-Ars Nova motets
(F-MOf H196) in support. They do not specify the semibreves’ values. But Petrus seems to have earned
Jacobus’s approval for staying within the Franconian tradition and distinguishing the semibreves
adequately from each other without recourse to stems; and Robert de Handlo attributed to him the
orthodox Franconian division of the breve into two unequal or three equal semibreves. In view of these two
facts, there is no compelling reason to assume that his shorter notes were anything other than forerunners
of one of the 14th-century systems, all of which arranged the shorter notes, according to rules prescribed
in increasing detail as the century progressed, within the primary perfect or imperfect division. (Apel’s
claim (1942, 5/1961, p.319) that Petrus introduced a system without precedent or progeny using five or
seven equal semibreves is based on a misreading of Jacobus, who would surely have condemned such
temerity.) There is no mention of Petrus in the early French or Italian treatises.

Page 103 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iii) French 14th-century notation.

Fig.39

The first theoretical formulations of French 14th-century notation were those of Philippe de Vitry and
Johannes de Muris dating from the early 1320s. Their starting-point was explicitly the teaching of Franco.
In addition to the triple division of the breve permitted by the latter, they reintroduced duple division and
further subdivided these semibreves into shorter notes, which were regarded as different orders of
semibreves, and were at first not differentiated graphically except for the occasional lengthening
downstem. The first surviving musical instances of this practice are some of the motets interpolated
between about 1317 and 1319 into one copy of the roman de Fauvel (F-Pn fr.146). Some are cited in Ars nova,
and Vitry may well have been the composer of them, for composer and theorist alike were concerned
mainly with a metrical scheme in which the breve was divided into two equal semibreves each of which was
in turn subdivided into three smaller values. Fig.39 shows the interpretation of the contents of the breve
when subdivided by two, three, four and five semibreves respectively. Other musical sources of these

Page 104 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

motets corroborate these interpretations by distinguishing the shorter order of semibreve with an upward
stem, thereby converting them into a new level of note value known as the minima. Italian theorists of the
time (see §iv below) also gave these interpretations.

Vitry’s Ars nova established the following hierarchy of five possible subdivisions of the breve: ‘minimum
perfect time’ (i.e. Franconian, although he stated that interpretation of semibreve pairs as 2–1 had been
superseded by that of 1–2, and thus departed from Franconian practice in his only statement about perfect
time), three semibreves; ‘minimum imperfect time’, two semibreves each comprising two minims;
‘medium perfect time’, three semibreves each comprising two minims; ‘major perfect time’, three
semibreves each comprising three minims; ‘major imperfect time’, two semibreves each comprising three
minims (Roesner, Avril and Regalado, 30–38).

Taken together with later treatises embodying the theory of the Ars Nova as it developed (including
Johannes de Muris’s later treatise, Libellus cantus mensurabilis, c1340, and Anonymus 5 of CoussemakerS,
iii), the French system can be summarized as follows. There was a graphic distinction of the minim by an
upward stem from approximately the time of Vitry’s treatise. The four principal levels of note value, the
long, breve, semibreve and minim, were thus visually distinct. The relationships between these four levels
of note value were given names: modus (‘mode’ or ‘mood’) for the long-breve relationship, tempus (‘time’)
for breve-semibreve, prolatio (‘prolation’) for semibreve-minim. Each of these relationships might be
binary or ternary. The various relationships of mode, time and prolation came to be termed
‘mensurations’. The four combinations of tempus and prolatio were attributed to Vitry as the ‘quatre
prolacions’. Various special signs were proposed for the available mensurations, but none was much used
during the 14th century. Their appearance in the later part of the century reflected the existence in
composition of a wider range of possibilities and therefore the need to specify which combination of
relationships was in force. Yet they were in practice confined, with few exceptions, to the circle for perfect
tempus and the half-circle for imperfect tempus, with a dot in the centre to designate major prolatio (its
absence designated minor).

The existing range of symbols for rests was extended. The semibreve rest became a short vertical bar
suspended from a staff-line, and the minim a similar bar placed upon a staff-line. These rests, like
Franco’s, were fixed in value. Within a given mensuration, which established the value of each rest as
perfect or imperfect, no rest was imperfectible or alterable – a situation that did not apply in either Italy or
England.

Dots were used to mark off groups of notes according to tempus, that is according to breves’-worth, by
extension of Franco’s principle, and also to indicate perfection. This led in later treatises towards the idea
of a ‘dot of addition’ which added half again to the value of an imperfect note. At first this concept was
expressed in terms of showing the perfection of an imperfect note. Muris stated that an imperfect note
might be made perfect by the addition of half its value (Libellus; no dot is mentioned there, but one source
of the treatise has a musical example with a dotted breve in imperfect time). Anonymus 5 stated that ‘a dot,
when it perfects, always adds to the note after which it is placed the neighbouring part’ (i.e. the next note
value down).

Page 105 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Vitry prescribed red notes for various purposes. Where black notes were perfect, red indicated imperfect
mode or imperfect mode and time. The roles of black and red could also be reversed. Red could be used to
prevent individual notes from being perfect or altered (i.e. to fix their value regardless of context). Red
could effect octave transposition (though no surviving examples are known) or pick out a plainchant voice.

Franco’s rules for imperfection of the long were now also applied to the breve and semibreve, and his rules
for alteration of the breve to the semibreve and minim. The precise evaluation of any note depended on the
governing mensuration and on the context.

Not only could the long be imperfected by the breve, the breve by the semibreve and the semibreve by the
minim, but imperfection by non-adjacent values was permitted – for example the long by the semibreve
and the breve by the minim. A note could be imperfected to a varying extent: a breve might be imperfected
by one minim or two. Vitry specified four types of semibreve: the major (i.e. altera), equal to six minims,
the ‘semimajor’ or imperfect equal to four or five, the recta or vera equal to three, and the minor equal to
two. The minim was often described as a semibrevis minima, the lowest value that a semibreve could have.

Fig.40

Franco’s rule that a long preceding a long was always perfect came to be strictly applied to breves and
semibreves, and was later formulated as the rule similis ante similem perfecta (‘like before like is perfect’).
Particular contexts yielded fixed values for certain notes by requiring them to be perfect: for example, the
semibreve shown in fig.40a could be imperfect, yet the first semibreve in fig.30b had to be perfect, so that
only by means of the minima altera could the rhythm given in fig.40c be shown. Such alteration of the
minim became possible only when the minim was graphically distinct: a pair of unstemmed semibreves,
according to Vitry, was trochaic. The full application of these relationships on all levels was not yet in
operation at the time of Vitry’s treatise.

Syncopation was discussed by theorists, and was allowed by Johannes de Muris in perfect or imperfect
mood, time and prolation. Although it was not discussed systematically, it seems clear from the musical
sources that the means of syncopation were notes or rests of fixed value (e.g. any rest, or a note
imperfected by coloration or perfected by a dot). Dots of syncopation are in effect dots of division
unusually positioned to show displacement. A note set off by two dots, as found in later 14th-century
sources, is thus isolated as the agent of displacement or prevented from alteration.

Page 106 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iv) Italian 14th-century notation.

The early development of Italian Trecento notational theory has been clarified by reference to treatises
which apparently antedate Marchetto da Padova, who had long been regarded as its first exponent (Gallo,
La teoria della notazione, 1966). Amerus, in 1271, recognized exclusively binary division of the long with
each of the two breves further subdivided into two semibreves. Guido frater (?1326–30) showed the
systematic fusion of this binary tradition with Franconian teaching, dealing with perfect and imperfect
time, and agreed in most essential points with Marchetto’s Pomerium.

In perfect time the breve was divided into three ‘major’ semibreves (the use of the term is different from
Vitry’s). Each of these might be divided into two ‘minor’ semibreves (as in fig.41a ), and each of those into
two ‘minimum’ semibreves, totalling 12 minimum semibreves or minims (Guido: semibreves minime;
Marchetto: minime). Alternatively, each major semibreve might be divided into three, making nine in all;
Guido, unlike Marchetto, spoke of this as a French practice. (Guido called the resulting nine notes
minimum semibreves, whereas Marchetto called them minor semibreves.) In imperfect time the breve was
divided into two equal major semibreves and was defined as two-thirds the value of the breve of perfect
time. Each of these two major semibreves might be divided into two minor semibreves, and each of those
into two minims, making eight minims in all (Guido: semibreves minime; Marchetto: minime in secundo
gradu. Guido and Marchetto both called this manner of division the ‘Italian way’. Alternatively, each of the
two major semibreves might be divided into three minims (Marchetto: minime in primo gradu), making six
minims in all (as in fig.41b, bars 4–5); this Guido and Marchetto call the ‘French way’ (their evaluations
are shown in fig.42). Marchetto admitted, but did not enlarge upon, the further division of the six minims
of imperfect time into two to make 12, and into three to make 18.

Unstemmed semibreves (naturales) were evaluated according to certain prescriptions which could be
overruled artificially (via artis) by means of stems. Downward stems (as in fig.41b, bar 3) indicated longer
notes whose precise value depended on context as well as on the ‘division’ (approximately equivalent to
the French ‘mensuration’) that was in operation. Upward stems indicated the minim, whose value was
fixed within any division that contained that level of note. The use of these stems was not necessary, even
that of stems for minims, if what was required was the normal arrangement of a certain number of notes
within a certain division. It became necessary only with abnormal arrangements of notes.

The primary division of perfect time placed the longer of two notes at the end of the tempus unless a
downward stem was attached to the first note (as in fig.41a, bars 1, 8). This is not the same as alteration in
French notation, since here a semibreve in such a position need not precede a breve; the procedure is
Franconian. Whenever unequal division of notes within an ‘Italian’ division was called for, the longer note
(or notes) was again placed at the end (as in fig.41a, bars 2–3) unless modified by stems. But the ‘French’
divisions, whose evaluations as given in the right-hand column of fig.42 are taken from Guido, normally
placed the shorter notes after the longer. Though not entirely consistent, and thus in defiance of
Marchetto’s attempt to impute superior logic to the French system, they are the rhythms most commonly
encountered in contemporary French music.

Page 107 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Unless bounded by a breve or ligature, each tempus group of semibreves was marked off by a dot. Any
ligature comprising two semibreves occupied a full tempus. Although Guido provided two forms of
semibreve rest (both standing on the staff-line), one occupying a quarter, the other a third of the space
between two staff-lines (ed. Gallo, 27), he did not equate these with the three levels of semibreve. In
practice, rests were inconsistently indicated and were as much subject to variation in value as the notes to
which they corresponded; this was diametrically opposed to the French use of rests, to which however
Italian notation moved closer as the century progressed.

The breve could not be imperfected: the rhythm that French notation rendered as an imperfect breve
followed by a semibreve (2–1) was represented in Italian notation by a semibreve with a downward stem
followed by a plain semibreve: that is, a semibreve prolonged by via artis to two-thirds of a tempus followed
by a major semibreve. Hence, since a semibreve could not occupy a tempus alone, no semibreve could be
used alone. That also derives from Franco.

Marchetto proposed that the initial letters of certain modi and divisions be used to identify them. This was
the counterpart to the French mensuration signs (see (iii) above), which found no place in the Italian
tradition until it merged with the French later in the century. Marchetto advocated ‘.i.’ and ‘.p.’ for
‘imperfect’ and ‘perfect’ modus (see figs.41b and a ), not for the divisions of senaria imperfecta and perfecta
(see fig.43) which had not yet acquired these names. The letters ‘.b.’ and ‘.t.’ were to indicate the binary
and ternary divisions of the breve (CSM, vi, 164). The letters ‘Y’ and ‘G’ were to indicate the Italian and
French (literally ‘Gallic’) manners in imperfect time. In addition, the letters ‘S.G.’ were used presumably
for secundum gallicos or senaria gallica in I-Rvat Rossi 215. The later uses of letters, derived from musical
sources and subsequent theoretical writings, in particular from Prosdocimus de Beldemandis, are shown in
fig.43. There seems to be no theoretical or practical justification for the widespread modern teaching that
undesignated semibreves in senaria imperfecta are to be read with the longest note last (in the bar or in
each half of it); if anything other than the French way was wanted, it was specified by stems.

Fig.43

Minims were present only in the French divisions and in the third division or beyond of the Italian manner.
They did not technically halve the value of a semibreve, although two minims were equal to one minor
semibreve, because they were themselves a kind of semibreve. Semiminims, on the other hand, which were

Page 108 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

mentioned in Ars nova but not by the Italian theorists, came into use in later musical sources to divide the
minim in half. They had a loop to the right or left of the minim stem. Triplets – three minims in the time of
two – were shown by a loop in whichever was the opposite direction (as in fig.41c ).

Fig.44

Other innovations of the later sources included the dragma – a semibreve with upward and downward
stem (fig.44a) – with a fixed value of two minims. This was often used to represent three minor
semibreves in the time of two major semibreves. The same effect could also be achieved by void coloration,
which could give three notes in the time of two or four in the time of three. A note augmented by half was
represented as shown in fig.44b. A dot could not be used because of its function as marking the division.

(v) Late 14th-century notation.

Towards the end of the century, in the music of Landini’s generation, many French features had entered
Italian notation. The Italian division signs, although Prosdocimus’s formulation of them was even later,
were increasingly superseded by actual or implicit French mensuration signs. Dots of division, downward
stems and variable rests gradually disappeared. Breves were imperfected, and dots of addition replaced the
other special signs. The notational unrest of this stage was reflected in many pieces combining French and
Italian characteristics, and in the existence of more than one notated version of some pieces, an otherwise
rare phenomenon (Fischer, 1959). The eventual absorption of Italian notation by French was the result of a
final exploitation of the inherent possibilities of both systems. Extreme rhythmic complexities were
indulged in by composers of both nationalities, largely in the orbit of the schismatic papal court at Avignon
and of Gaston Fébus, Count of Foix.

The principal technique used was syncopation. The existing means of fixing the values of notes that were
to act as syncopating agents were greatly expanded by the use of a variety of stems, hooks, dashes and
loops whose precise meaning varied from piece to piece and sometimes within a single piece, as well as by
the use of displaced dots of division. Specialized colorations were also used. These sometimes fixed note
values and were thus additional means of achieving syncopation, and sometimes they expressed a
proportional relationship of one passage to another (see §vii below). The main manuscripts containing
this sophisticated and short-lived repertory are I-MOe α.5.24, F-Pn it.568 and CH 564 (for further
discussion see Stone, 1994).

(vi) English 14th-century notation.

Robert de Handlo, in 1326, gave clear indications that the English continued to pursue the notational
individuality they had shown in their pre-Franconian notation (see §III, 2 above) into the 14th century,
and musical sources confirm this. Handlo’s treatise is an expanded and glossed version of Franco; his
other chief authorities were Petrus de Cruce and a certain ‘Johannes de Garlandia’ (for discussion of the

Page 109 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

identity of the theorist see Johannes de Garlandia). Here if anywhere there is justification for crediting
Petrus de Cruce with an important stage in notational development; however, Handlo’s account does not
permit the ascription to him of any advance on Franco that was not more exhaustively dealt with by
Johannes de Garlandia. All three follow Franco in accepting only a ternary division of the breve. (Other than
an apparent reference to duple time in the problematic dicta of Petrus le Viser (CoussemakerS, i, 388; see
also edn of Robert de Handlo by Lefferts), there is no theoretical support for duple time in England until
the late 14th-century treatise of Hanboys, though a few compositions at an earlier date require duple
interpretation.)

The basic ternary division of the breve was into three ‘minor’ semibreves. If two semibreves took the place
of a breve, one of them became major and was distinguished by a downward stem. Some evidence, more
musical than theoretical, points to pairs of semibreves without stems and separated by dots often being
performed trochaically (see (ii) above). Evidence for trochaic performance of undesignated pairs of breves
in 13th-century English music is strong (Sanders, 1962): this may support the 14th-century case, but the
grounds are musical rather than notational, because Franco’s long-breve relationship was not applied at
the level of the semibreve (i.e. like Italy, unlike France).

Each of the three minor semibreves was subject to a further subdivision into three. Each minor
semibreve’s-worth might be marked off by a small circle, or signum rotundum, which was quite distinct
from the dot of division used to mark off tempus. If only two semibreves fell within one such division they
were to be read unequally as 1–2 (minima–minorata) unless the reverse was indicated by a downward stem
on the first of the pair. As in Italy, the French concepts of imperfection and alteration were entirely absent
and cannot thus be used to justify iambic interpretation of strings of semibreve pairs. The system of circles
reflected an English reluctance to use stems where a note could be evaluated by convention, although not
many occur in surviving musical sources. If four was considered the basic Italian division of the breve and
six the French, the English was nine, which necessitated some additional clarification by stems or circles.

Later in the century, after the period of French influence discussed below, Hanboys (?c1370) distinguished
within imperfect time between curta and longa mensura, the former having four minims to the breve, the
latter eight (as in GB-Lbl Sloane 1210 and DRc 11).

Rests were inconsistently notated early in the century; by the latter half, despite the allegation by several
English theorists, including Hanboys, that rests could be altered or imperfected, the forms of rests
followed French practice: semibreve hanging from a staff-line, minim placed on a line. There is one
important exception: a rest intersecting a line, in effect a semibreve plus a minim rest, was often used for
the perfect semibreve. Even in a major-prolation piece an imperfect semibreve rest was often shown by the
normal semibreve rest, whereas in French notation it would be shown by two minim rests (as it sometimes
was in England, too).

Fig.45

Page 110 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Other English peculiarities, mostly with theoretical and musical documentation, included the brevis erecta
(fig.45a) to indicate chromatic alteration, the swallow-tailed note (fig.45b) to indicate rhythmic alteration
(also serving to elongate the first of a pair of semibreves – it appears to be a successor to the downward-
stemmed semibreve), and the use of the stepwise descending form of the semibreve–semibreve ligature
(fig.45c) to indicate rhythmic alteration of the second note.

It is clear from the variety of notational practice in musical sources, as well as from the treatise of
Hanboys, that at this period there was no single English notation but, rather, that there were diverse
English notations. Hanboys cited some individual notational practices of which he disapproved. One of
these accords with a surviving musical composition which is adjacent in its source to an example of
approved practice.

French influence was not felt until some time after the middle of the century. It is clearly present in the
pro-Vitrian treatise Quatuor principalia (completed in 1351), as well as in some imported French motets, all
of which are in imperfect time and major prolation. The dot of addition makes no appearance in England
(nor is there any substitute for it, as in Italy) until the very end of the century when the French influence
was most fully assimilated, just before the Old Hall manuscript (GB-Lbl Add.57950) was compiled. Quatuor
principalia condemned some uses of the more notably eccentric auxiliary signs in England, but at the same
time achieved some startling fusions of English and French practice. Imperfect breves started to appear in
English sources around that time, often in trochaic alternation with semibreves. Quatuor principalia
declared the major semibreve (presumably of the English tradition) to have the same value as an imperfect
breve and to be written like it. Thus it is not known whether these English breves were thought of as
imperfected breves or major semibreves (evidence of parallel passages favours semibreves). Minims, with
upward stems, began to appear around that time, occasionally in combination with unstemmed minims
and in conjunction with signa rotunda which are in fact made redundant by the stems and did not long
survive them.

(vii) 15th-century notation.

In England about 1400 there existed notational practices as complex as those in southern France; these can
be seen in the Old Hall repertory. There are canonic and isorhythmic pieces that involve advanced
notational features, and virtuoso essays in syncopation and complex proportional usage. The full resources
of continental coloration were available: that is, in addition to normal black-full notes there were black-
void, red-full and red-void; and two pieces in the Old Hall repertory use blue-full notes. The normal
coding of colour for proportions in English pieces was black-void 2:1, red-full 3:2, red-void 3:1. These
colorations could be further modified by the use of numerals and signatures. They made it possible to
conceive of rhythmic patterns that could otherwise have been notated in only the most clumsy or
inadequate way. It was this, rather than innate conservatism, that led the English to retain some use of
black-full notation, alongside black-void, after most continental scribes had abandoned black-full about
1430.

Page 111 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Coloration was used also to express imperfection: to prevent alteration and perfection in notes that might
otherwise be subject to them, rather than to bring about a reduction in all note values. When the notation
was principally black-full, the coloration was red or black-void; when black-void, the coloration was
normally black-full. The indication of imperfection remained the most common function of coloration
throughout the 15th century and into the 16th. Fig.46 shows black-void coloration being used to bring
about imperfection and to prevent alteration (see also Woodley, 1993).

Part of the tenor of a Gloria by Dunstaple (I-Bu 2216, p.24), with transcription (below)

The earliest examples of black-void notation date from about 1400 and are mostly English. The reason for
the change is obscure but may perhaps best be accounted for by the change in writing habits associated
with the general move from parchment to paper as the main writing surface. It is also true that the greater
simplicity of style that dawned with the 15th century did not, except in the continuing English tradition,
require the availability of so many colorations for proportions. For the change was much more than a
simple reversal of black-full and black-void: as black-void superseded black-full, so the latter came
largely to replace red-full and thus red notation came to be abandoned (as in fig.47 – see bars 8–9).
Continental compositions using proportions (e.g. those in GB-Ob Can.misc.213, from the late 1430s)
inclined much more to the use of numerical proportion signs and mensuration signs with graphic or
numerical modifications.

The reason for proportional notation lay in what may be called minim equivalence: that is, in French
notation, where a change of mensuration occurred, the relationship between the two mensurations was
that of minim = minim (this is clearly established at this time by pieces in which mensuration changes in
the different parts occur at different points in the composition – it applies in fig.47 between bar 16 and bar
17). Proportional notation was simply a way of overriding that equivalence, and thus of extending the
possibilities of the mensural system. It did so for shorter or longer passages by expressing a different note
relationship to a preceding passage or to other voices in the composition.

If the relationship was expressed numerically, the number of new units would be placed above the
equivalent number of old units in the form of a fraction. The unit referred to in such a fraction was
normally the minim, though it could be the semibreve of the same kind. Thus the ‘3’ in fig.47, which
implies 3 over 2, indicates the occurrence of three minims in the time of the previous two. The half-circle

Page 112 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

with vertical bar (often called ‘cut C’ by modern writers: fig.48a) indicated what was known as
‘diminution’: that is, the performance of a passage faster than normal, by a specified ratio. Sometimes
diminution occurred in the exact ratio of 2:1, in which case it was called dimidietas. In other cases it did not
or could not; a slight acceleration may be denoted by Tinctoris’s acceleratio mensurae. Anonymus 12
(CoussemakerS, iii, 484) reported that with the circle with vertical bar (‘cut O’: fig.48b) one third of all
values was taken away. Later in the century these ‘cut’ mensuration signs were sometimes used as a
conventional signal for imprecise diminution which enabled longer note values to be written, and
sometimes they were used with no apparent mensural significance or as general-purpose signs (Wegman,
1992; Bent, 1996). This was a way of avoiding an otherwise inevitable flood of short note values, with their
less easily legible stems. The reversed half-circle (fig.48c) sometimes carried the function of duple
diminution when placed after a passage governed by the half-circle. However, when it occurred after a
passage with a triple dimension to its mensuration (circle or half-circle with dot) it indicated a proportion
of 4 : 3 (see Hamm, 1964; see also Proportional notation). The principle of equating notes of different
denominations by means of a stated ratio became a well-established practice in the music of Ockeghem’s
generation, when numerically modified mensuration signs could shift the basic set of relationships in the
way shown in fig.49.

Fig.49

But apart from the cultivation of proportions in a few works by a small number of composers, the trend of
the late 15th century was towards notational simplification. It is significant that, at just the same time, the
late 15th century and the early 16th, cases arose of a simplified notation using only one note shape and
repeating it at the same pitch to make up any note of greater value, or using only a short vertical stroke in
the same way. Such a notation was presumably designed for singers who could not cope with the
complexities of the mensural system, especially with imperfection and alteration. It was in the early 16th
century that note values in mensural notation came to be precisely determined by their appearance
regardless of context, rather than by their denomination as long, breve, semibreve or minim in a given
context (the step that Franco had achieved) – at least, that became true of the essential working of

Page 113 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

notation, for imprecision and considerations of context in practice continue to feature in notation right up
to the present day. However, in about 1500 musicians increasingly often placed a dot after a note that was
to be perfect, even where earlier practice would not have required one. The practice of alteration gradually
decayed. An intermediate stage before notators felt free to place an imperfect breve before a perfect one
was the use of the coloured (black-full) breve where previously an altered semibreve would have been
used.

Bibliography

Theoretical sources

Listed alphabetically as items largely undatable

Amerus: Practica artis musice, ed.J. Kromolicki Die Practica artis musicae des Amerus und ihre Stellung in der
Musiktheorie des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1909); ed. C. Ruini, CSM, 25 (1977)

Anonymous [John of Tewkesbury]: Quatuor principalia, CoussemakerS, 4, 200–98

Anonymous [St Emmeram anonymus], ed. H. Sowa: Ein anonymer glossierter Mensuraltraktat 1279 (Kassel, 1930)

Anonymus 5 [CoussemakerS, iii]: Ars cantus mensurabilis, CoussemakerS, 3, 379–98

Anonymus 12 [CoussemakerS, iii]: Tractatus de musica; Compendium cantus figurati; De discantu,CoussemakerS, 3,

475–95

Anselmi, Giorgio: De musica, ed. G. Massera Georgii Anselmi Parmensis ‘De musica’ (Florence, 1961)

Dietricus: Regule super discantum, ed. H. Müller Eine Abhandlung über Mensuralmusik (Leipzig, 1886)

Franco of Cologne: Ars cantus mensurabilis, CoussemakerS, 1, 117–36; GerbertS, 3, 1–16; ed. F. Gennrich (ed. G.
Reaney and A. Gilles, CSM, 18 (1974)

Gaffurius, Franchinus: Practica musicae (Milan, 1496, 2/1497), ed. and trans., C.A. Miller, MSD, xx (1968); Eng.
trans., I. Young: The Practica musicae of Franchinus Gafurius (Madison, WI, 1969)

Guido frater: Ars musice mensurate, ed. F.A. Gallo Mensurabilis musicae tractatuli, AntMI, Scriptores, 1/1 (1966), 17–
40

Hanboys, John: Summa, CoussemakerS, 1, 403–48; ed. and trans. P.M. Lefferts (Lincoln, NY, 1991)

Jacobus of Liège: Speculum musice,CoussemakerS, 2, 193–433 [attrib. Johanes de Muris]; ed. R. Bragard, CSM, 3
(1955–73)

Johannes de Garlandia (attrib.): De mensurabili musica, CoussemakerS, 1, 175–82; ed. E. Reimer (Wiesbaden,
1972); Eng. trans., S. Birnbaum (Colorado Springs, CO, 1978); later version as De musica mensurabili positio,
CoussemakerS, 1, 97–117

Lambertus [Pseudo-Aristoteles]: Tractatus de musica, CoussemakerS, 1, 251–81; CSM (forthcoming)

Page 114 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Marchetto da Padova: Pomerium, GerbertS, 3, 121–87; ed. G. Vecchi, CSM, 6 (1961)

Marchetto da Padova: Lucidarium, GerbertS, 3, 64–121; ed. R. Monterosso, Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 7 (1966),
914–31; ed. and trans. J. Herlinger (Chicago, 1985)

Muris, Johannes de: Notitia artis musice, GerbertS, 3, 312, 256–7, 311–15 [book 1]; 292–301 [book 2]; ed. U.
Michels, CSM, 17 (1972), 47–107; partial Eng. trans. in StrunkSR2, 2, 152–9

Muris, Johannes de: Compendium musice practice, GerbertS, 3, 301–7; ed. U. Michels, CSM, 17 (1972), 119–46

Muris, Johannes de: Libellus cantus mensurabilis, CoussemakerS, 3, 46–8; ed. D. Katz, The Earliest Sources for the
‘Libellus cantus mensurabilis secundum Johannem de Muris’ (diss., Duke U., 1989), 266–88

Odington, Walter: Summa de speculatione musice, CoussemakerS, 1, 182–250; ed. F.F. Hammond, CSM, 14 (1970);
Eng. trans. of pt.vi, J.A. Huff, MSD, 31 (1973)

Petrus de Cruce: Tractatus de tonis, CoussemakerS, 1, 282–92; ed. D. Harbinson, CSM, 29 (1976)

Prosdocimus de Beldemandis: Tractatus practice cantus mensurabilis ad modum Ytalicorum, CoussemakerS, 3,

228–48; ed. C. Sartori as La notazione italiana del Trecento (Florence, 1938); Eng. trans., J.A. Huff, MSD, 29 (1972)

Robert de Handlo: Regule, CoussemakerS, 1, 383–403; Eng. trans., L.A. Dittmer (Brooklyn, NY, 1959); ed. and trans.
P.M. Lefferts (Lincoln, NY, 1991)

Vitry, Philippe de (attrib.): Ars nova,CoussemakerS, 3, 13–22; ed. G. Reaney, A. Gilles and J. Maillard, CSM, 8
(1964); Eng. trans., L. Plantinga, JMT, 5 (1961), 204–23

polyphony c1260–1500: studies

H. Bellermann: Die Mensuralnoten und Taktzeichen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1858, 2/1906, enlarged
4/1963, ed. H. Husmann)

J. Wolf: Geschichte der Mensural-Notation von 1250–1460 nach den theoretischen und praktischen Quellen (Leipzig,
1904/R) [see also review by F. Ludwig, SIMG, 6 (1904–5), 597–641]

E. Kurth: ‘Kritische Bemerkungen zum V. Kapitel der “Ars cantus mensurabilis” des Franko von Köln’, KJb, 21 (1908),
39–47

J. Wolf: ‘Ein anonymer Musiktraktat aus der ersten Zeit der Ars nova’, KJb, 21 (1908), 33–8

J. Wolf: Handbuch der Notationskunde, 1 (Leipzig, 1913/R), pts.iii, iv

J. Wolf: Musikalische Schrifttafeln (Leipzig, 1922–3)

J. Wolf: Die Tonschriften (Breslau, 1924)

H. Birtner: ‘Die Probleme der spätmittelalterlichen Mensuralnotation und ihrer Übertragung’, ZMw, 11 (1928–9),
534–48

A.M. Michalitschke: ‘Studien zur Entstehung und Frühentwicklung der Mensuralnotation’, ZMw, 12 (1929–30), 257–
79

A. Tirabassi: Grammaire de la notation proportionelle et sa transcription moderne (Brussels, 1930)

Page 115 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

J. Wolf: ‘L’arte del biscanto misurato secondo el maestro Jacopo de Bologna’, Theodor Kroyer: Festschrift zum
sechzigsten Geburtstag, ed. H. Zenck, H. Schultz and W. Gerstenberg (Regensburg, 1933), 17–39

W. Apel: ‘The Partial Signatures in the Sources up to 1450’, AcM, 10 (1938), 1–13 [see also Postscript, AcM, xi (1939),
40–42]

C. Sartori: La notazione italiana del Trecento (Florence, 1938)

W. Apel: The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA, 1942, 5/1961; Ger. trans., rev., 1970), pt.ii, pt.iii
chaps.5–9

G. De Van: ‘La prolation mineure chez Guillaume de Machaut’, Sources, 1 (Paris, 1943), 24–35

F. Gennrich: Abriss der frankonischen Mensuralnotation, Musikwissenschaftliche Studien-Bibliothek, i–ii (Nieder-

Modau, 1946, 2/1956)

H. Anglès: ‘La notación musical española de la segunda mitad del siglo XV’, AnM, 2 (1947), 151–73

F. Gennrich: Abriss der Mensuralnotation des XIV. Jahrhunderts und der ersten Hälfte des XV. Jahrhunderts,
Musikwissenschaftliche Studien-Bibliothek, iii–iv (Nieder-Modau, 1948, 2/1965)

W. Apel: Introduction to French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1950)

M.F. Bukofzer: Studies in Medieval & Renaissance Music (New York, 1950)

A. Carapetyan: ‘A Fourteenth-Century Florentine Treatise in the Vernacular’, MD, 4 (1950), 81–92

L.A. Dittmer: ‘The Ligatures of the Montpellier Manuscript’, MD, 9 (1955), 35–51

R.H. Hoppin: ‘A Musical Rotulus of the Fourteenth Century’, RBM, 9 (1955), 131–42

N. Pirrotta: ‘Marchettus de Padua and the Italian Ars Nova’, MD, 9 (1955), 57–71

H. Anglès: ‘Die alte spanische Mensuralnotation’, Musikwissenschaftlicher Kongress: Vienna 1956, 7–17

K. von Fischer: Studien zur italienischen Musik des Trecento und frühen Quattrocento (Berne, 1956)

K. von Fischer: ‘Zu Johannes Wolfs Übertragung des Squarcialupi-Codex’, Mf, 9 (1956), 77–89

R.H. Hoppin: ‘Conflicting Signatures Reviewed’, JAMS, 9 (1956), 97–117

G. Massera: ‘Un sistema teorico di notazione mensurale nella esercitazione di un musico del ’400’, Quadrivium, 1
(1956), 273–300

G. Reaney: ‘The “Ars Nova” of Philippe de Vitry’, MD, 10 (1956), 5–33

G. Vecchi: ‘Su la composizione del Pomerium di Marchetto da Padova e la Brevis compilatio’, Quadrivium, 1 (1956),
153–205

L.A. Dittmer: ‘The Dating and the Notation of the Worcester Fragments’, MD, 11 (1957), 5–11

H. Hewitt: ‘A Study in Proportions’, Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge, MA, 1957),
69–81

A. Kellner: Ein Mensuraltraktat aus der Zeit um 1400 (Vienna, 1957), 72

Page 116 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

C. Parrish: The Notation of Medieval Music (New York, 1957, 2/1959/R), chaps.5–7

H. Anglès: ‘De cantu organico: tratado de un autor catalán del siglo XIV’, AnM, 13 (1958), 1–24

K. von Fischer: ‘Trecento – Trecentoprobleme’, AcM, 30 (1958), 179–99

A. Gilles and G. Reaney: ‘A New Source for the Ars nova of Philippe de Vitry’, MD, 12 (1958), 59–66

K. von Fischer: ‘Zur Entwicklung der italienischen Trecento-Notation’, AMw, 16 (1959), 87–99

U. Günther: ‘Der Gebrauch des tempus perfectum diminutum in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047’, AMw, 17 (1960),
277–97

U. Günther: ‘Die Anwendung der Diminution in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047’, AMw, 17 (1960), 1–21

R.H. Hoppin: ‘Notational Licences of Guillaume de Machaut’, MD, 14 (1960), 13–27

R. Federhofer-Königs: ‘Ein anonymer Mensuraltraktat aus der 2. Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts in der
Stiftsbibliothek Michaelbeuren/Salzburg’, KJb, 46 (1962), 43–60

A. Geering: ‘Eine tütsche Musica des figurirten Gesangs 1491’, Festschrift Karl Gustav Fellerer zum sechszigsten
Geburtstag, ed. H. Hüschen (Regensburg, 1962), 178–81

U. Günther: ‘Die Mensuralnotation des Ars nova in Theorie und Praxis’, AMw, 19–20 (1962–3), 9–28

C. Hamm: ‘Manuscript Structure in the Dufay Era’, AcM, 34 (1962), 166–84

F.J. León Tello: Estudios de historia de la teoría musical (Madrid, 1962, 2/1991)

E.H. Sanders: ‘Duple Rhythm and the Alternate Third Mode in the 13th Century’, JAMS, 15 (1962), 249–91

R. Bockholdt: ‘Semibrevis minima und Prolatio temporis’, Mf, 16 (1963), 3–21

K. von Fischer: ‘Neue Quellen zur Musik des 13., 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts’, AcM, 36 (1964), 79–97

S. Gullo: Das Tempo in der Musik des XIII. und XIV. Jahrhunderts (Berne, 1964)

C. Hamm: A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay based on a Study of Mensural Practice (Princeton, NJ, 1964)

A. Hughes: ‘Mensuration and Proportion in Early Fifteenth Century English Music’, AcM, 37 (1965), 48–59

R. Mužíková: ‘Pauli Paulirini de Praga musica mensuralis’, Acta Universitatis Carolinae: philosophica et historica, 2
(Prague, 1965), 57–87 [with Ger. summary p.87]

F.A. Gallo: ‘Citazioni da un trattato di Dufay’, CHM, 4 (1966), 149–52

F.A. Gallo: La teoria della notazione in Italia dalla fine del XIII all’inizio del XV secolo (Bologna, 1966)

T. Göllner: ‘Notationsfragmente aus einer Organistenwerkstatt des 15. Jahrhunderts’, AMw, 24 (1967), 170–77

A. Hughes: ‘The Old Hall Manuscript: a Re-appraisal’, MD, 21 (1967), 97–129

A. Hughes and M. Bent: ‘The Old Hall Manuscript: an Inventory’, MD, 21 (1967), 130–47

Page 117 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

R. Strohm: ‘Ein Zeugnis früher Mehrstimmigkeit in Italien’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967),
239–49

M. Bent: ‘New and Little-Known Fragments of English Medieval Polyphony’, JAMS, 21 (1968), 137–56

F.A. Gallo: ‘Alcune fonti poco note di musica teorica e practica’, L’ars nova italiana del trecento: convegni di studi
1961–1967, ed. F.A. Gallo (Certaldo, 1968), 49–76

C.A. Miller: ‘Gaffurius’s Practica musicae: Origin and Contents’, MD, 22 (1968), 105–28

G. Vecchi: ‘Primo annuncio del sistema proporzionale di Marchetto in un passo del “Lucidarium”’, Quadrivium, 9
(1968), 83–6

M. Bent: The Old Hall Manuscript: a Paleographical Study (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1969)

R. Federhofer-Königs: ‘Ein Beitrag zur Proportionslehre in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts’, SM, 11 (1969),
145–57

F.A. Gallo: ‘Tra Giovanni de Garlandia e Filippo da Vitry: note sulla tradizione di alcuni testi teorici’, MD, 23 (1969), 13–
20

U. Michels: ‘Der Musiktraktat des Anonymus OP: ein frühes Theoretiker-Zeugnis der Ars nova’, AMw, 26 (1969), 49–62

G. Vecchi: ‘Anonimi Rubrice breves’, Quadrivium, 10/1 (1969), 125–34

E.C. Fellin: A Study of Superius Variants in the Sources of Italian Trecento Music: Madrigals and Cacce (diss., U. of
Wisconsin, 1970)

W. Frobenius: ‘Zur Datierung von Francos Ars cantus mensurabilis’, AMw, 27 (1970), 122–7

N.S. Josephson: ‘Vier Beispiele der Ars Subtilior’, AMw, 27 (1970), 41–58

U. Michels: Die Musiktraktate des Johannes de Muris (Wiesbaden, 1970)

C. Wolff: ‘Arten der Mensuralnotation im 15. Jahrhundert und die Anfänge der Orgeltabulatur’, GfMKB: Bonn 1970,
609–13

N. Böker-Heil: ‘Weisse Mensuralnotation als Computer-Input und -Output’, AcM, 43 (1971), 21

R. Bockholdt: ‘Französische und niederländische Musik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts’, Musikalische Edition im
Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins, ed. T.G. Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 149–73

C. Dahlhaus: ‘Die Mensurzeichen als Problem der Editionstechnik’, Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen
Bewusstseins, ed. T.G. Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 174–88

W. Frobenius: ‘Minima’, ‘Semibrevis’, ‘Tactus’ (1971), HMT

F.A. Gallo: ‘Due trattatelli sulla notazione del primo Trecento’, Quadrivium, 12/1 (1971), 119–30

N.S. Josephson: ‘Rodericus, Angelorum psalat’, MD, 25 (1971), 113–26

M.L. Martinez-Göllner: ‘Musik des Trecento’, Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins, ed.
T.G. Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 134–48

Page 118 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

H. Schoop: Entstehung und Verwendung der Handschrift Oxford Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213 (Berne, 1971)

W. Arlt: ‘Der Tractatus figurarum: ein Beitrag zur Musiklehre der “Ars Subtilior”’, Schweizer Beiträge zur
Musikwissenschaft, 1 (1972), 35–53

J.A. Bank: Tactus, Tempo and Notation in Mensural Music from the 13th to the 17th Century (Amsterdam, 1972)

W. Frobenius: ‘Prolatio’, ‘Semiminim’ (1972), HMT

H. Besseler and P. Gülke: Schriftbild der mehrstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, iii/5 (Leipzig, 1973)

W. Frobenius: ‘Longa – Brevis’, ‘Perfectio’ (1973), HMT

F.A. Gallo: ‘Figura and Regula: Notation and Theory in the Tradition of Musica mensurabilis’, Studien zur Tradition in
der Musik: Kurt von Fischer zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. H.H. Eggebrecht and M. Lütolf (Munich, 1973), 43

W. Frobenius: ‘Modus (Rhythmuslehre)’, ‘Proprietas (Notationslehre)’ (1974), HMT

P. Gossett: ‘The Mensural System and the Choralis Constantinus’, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Music in Honor
of Arthur Mendel, ed. R. Marshall (Kassel and Hackensack, NJ, 1974), 71–107

K.-J. Sachs: ‘Punctus’ (1974), HMT

M. Bent: ‘A Preliminary Assessment of the Independence of English Trecento Notations’, La musica al tempo del
Boccaccio e i suoi rapporti con la letteratura: Siena and Certaldo 1975 [L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, 4 (Certaldo,
1978)], 65–82

L. Treitler: ‘Regarding Meter and Rhythm in the Ars Antiqua’, MQ, 45 (1979), 524–58

M.P. Long: Musical Tastes in Fourteenth-Century Italy: Notational Styles, Scholarly Traditions, and Historical
Circumstances (diss., Princeton U., 1981)

A.E. Planchart: ‘The Relative Speed of Tempora in the Period of Dufay’, RMARC, no.17 (1981), 33–51

E. Schroeder: ‘The Stroke Comes Full Circle: 𝇉 and 𝇍 in Writings on Music, ca. 1450–1540’, MD, 36 (1982), 119–66

F.A. Gallo: ‘Die Notationslehre im 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts’, Die mittelalterliche Lehre von der Mehrstimmigkeit,
Geschichte der Musiktheorie, ed. F. Zaminer, 5 (Darmstadt, 1984), 257–356

W. Arlt: ‘A propos des notations pragmatiques: le cas du codex Las Huelgas: remarques générales et observations
particulières’, RdMc, 13 (1990), 401–19

A.M. Busse Berger: ‘The Myth of diminutio per tertiam partem’, JM, 8 (1990), 405–10

E. Roesner, F. Avril and N.F. Regalado: Introduction to Le Roman de Fauvel in the Edition of Messire Chaillou de
Pesstain (New York, 1990)

B.J. Blackburn, E.E. Lowinsky and C.A. Miller, eds.: A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians (Oxford, 1991)

R.C. Wegman: ‘What is “acceleratio mensurae”?’, ML, 73 (1992), 515–23

A.M. Busse Berger: Mensuration and Proportion Signs: Origins and Evolution (Oxford, 1993)

R. Woodley: John Tucke: a Case Study in Early Tudor Music Theory (Oxford, 1993)

Page 119 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

A. Stone: Writing Rhythm in Late Medieval Italy: Notation and Musical Style in the Manuscript Modena, Biblioteca
Estense, Alpha.M.5.24 (diss., Harvard U., 1994)

M. Bent: ‘The Use of Cut Signatures in Sacred Music by Binchois’, Binchois Studies: New York 1995

A. Blachly: Mensuration and Tempo in 15th-Century Music: Cut Signatures in Theory and Practice (diss., Columbia U.,
1995)

M. Bent: ‘The Early Use of the Sign 𝇉’, EMc, 24 (1996), 199–225

M. Bent: ‘The Use of Cut Signatures in Sacred Music by Ockeghem and his Contemporaries’, Johannes Ockeghem:
Tours 1997, 641–680

B.J. Blackburn: ‘Did Ockeghem Listen to Tinctoris?’, Johannes Ockeghem: Tours 1997, 597–640

A.M. Busse Berger: ‘Cut Signs in Fifteenth-Century Musical Practice’, Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies
in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. J.A. Owens and A.M. Cummings (Warren, MI, 1997), 101–12

4. Mensural notation from 1500.

Geoffrey Chew, revised by Richard Rastall

(i) General.
The simplified void notation of the late 15th century and the 16th, used throughout Europe for the
international polyphonic repertory, was, like the medieval systems from which it developed, a singer’s
notation. It was not well suited to notating more than a single melodic line, especially when associated
with printing by movable type. In succeeding centuries, however, especially after the rise of the
thoroughbass, theory and teaching were increasingly controlled by instrumentalists such as keyboard
players, and the staff notation used for the bulk of the repertory was influenced by instrumental
requirements, adopting many features that permitted it to express increasingly complex information.
Conversely, keyboard tablature began to decline. The instrumental features adopted included, in the 16th
and 17th centuries, the bar-line, beam and slur, permitting the clear grouping of notes for rhythmic and
other purposes; the standardization of clefs, facilitating the sight-reading of even fairly complex textures;
and the reintroduction of the score, which had been dropped in French notation in the 13th century. In the
16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the demisemiquaver and the hemidemisemiquaver were added to the range
of note values; keyboard notation adopted, when necessary for the sake of clarity, a score layout with more
than two staves to the system, not previously used except in the partitura. In the 19th century, the
vocabulary of signs for dynamics, accents and articulation was greatly extended; some novel features,
which became basic to 20th-century practice, were introduced by Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt.

Thus notation continued to develop after the 16th century. Yet a rift gradually developed between
notational theory and notational practice; professional musicians often came to treat theory as elementary
and in consequence to expound it merely within the sphere of musical rudiments or incidentally in
treatises on performance. This situation began to change only in the second half of the 19th century.
Meanwhile, however, proposals for reform had been made, from the 17th century onwards, by those

Page 120 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

seeking a universal musical notation. Even though most proposed reforms were impracticable and were
adopted by no-one but their inventors, as a whole they strikingly illustrate the desire of Western notators
for a notation independent of any single musical style. Even a system as economical and adequate as Tonic
Sol-fa was not adopted for the bulk of diatonic music: its limitation in practice to a single style was felt as a
fatal flaw, as similar limitations had never been present in medieval notational systems. That did not
prevent its use for the benefit of the musically uneducated: and Tonic Sol-fa merely exemplifies the
numerous novel notational systems for vocal music devised from the 16th century onwards for this
purpose. These systems are often unconcerned with theoretical abstractions, and thus resemble
instrumental tablatures. Most of them were based on popular solmization practice, and many provide the
same information in more than one way.

A turning-point in notational practice seems to have occurred in the second half of the 19th century in
consequence of the harmonic and rhythmic theory of the period (Moritz Hauptmann, Hugo Riemann and
Mathis Lussy). The notational principles outlined, to some extent en passant, by these theorists were
popularized in Germany, France and Britain and may have laid the foundations for a number of details of
modern notational theory and practice. In particular, the rules for orthography in accidentals and in
rhythmic notation (with slurs and beams) came under close scrutiny, with attempts to abolish the less
theoretically justifiable aspects of notation in the 18th century and the early 19th. The heavily edited
versions of Classical works produced by Riemann and others may well represent attempts at transcription
into a new notational language, rather than arbitrary suppression of the composer’s wishes in favour of
the editor’s; perhaps for that reason, some scholars opposed the concept of the Urtext edition, holding that
the careless adoption of obsolete and hence misleading notational conventions was indefensible.

The notation evolved by Riemann and Lussy, precise as it is in rhythmic detail, well deserves the title of
‘orthochronic’ notation (an equivalent term was coined by Chailley, 1950): note shapes uniquely fix
durational relationships between notes, and there are no subdivisions of notes other than duple unless
specially indicated. However, the extension of this term to all notation since the 16th century seems
arbitrary, since no account is then taken of the numerous conventions whereby rhythms intended in
performance were not explicitly indicated in the score. These conventions, including the occasional
anomalous triple subdivision of note values, were widespread until the last third of the 19th century, and
may be found in much music (though not the bulk of the repertory) even later than that. The term
‘orthochronic’ is, accordingly, avoided here in favour of the more comprehensive term ‘mensural’, which
may legitimately be used wherever note shapes are directly related – even if only vaguely or notionally – to
the durations of notes in performance; in other words, to almost all notation in the mainstream repertory,
classical or popular, except tablature, from Franco of Cologne to the present.

In the 20th century proposals for notational reform by professional notators and experiments in notation
by composers greatly increased. Where these are not simply arbitrary, they represent to some extent
further developments of the notation of the late 19th century, with further extensions of the capacity of
mensural notation to carry large quantities of information; they may be seen as new departures reflecting
the new ideas underlying the music. With the rise of historical musicology and ethnomusicology, notation
has been faced with new problems in the attempt to use it to represent material originally designed for
another, or no, notational system. In ethnomusicology, notation has become for almost the first time on

Page 121 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

any large scale descriptive rather than prescriptive. Since most musical works notated in the 20th century
were tonal and traditional in style, whether editions of old music or new compositions, only certain
universally useful devices, such as the representation of durations proportionally by the spacing and
alignment of notes, gained universal currency.

The fullest discussion of the history of Western notation, copiously illustrated, is to be found in the two
volumes of Wolf’s Handbuch der Notationskunde (1913–19/R), to which the reader is referred for more
detailed information; a shorter survey is Rastall’s The Notation of Western Music (1983, rev. 2/1998). Apel’s
Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (1942, rev. 5/1961) is also valuable for medieval and Renaissance
notations. For information on recent notational usage the volumes by Read (1964 and 1978), Karkoschka
(Schriftbild, 1966) and Risatti (1975) may be found helpful.

(ii) Notes: shapes, colours, abbreviations.

Void (‘white’) notation (see §3(vii) above), with duple relationships for the most part between note values,
and dots (when used for rhythmic purposes) only as dots of addition, was generally (though not
universally) adopted by the early 16th century in both vocal and instrumental music, tablatures apart. It
was generally adopted by printers from Petrucci onwards, since it was readily adaptable to printing from
movable type; in some music, such as popular metrical psalters, this notation survived virtually unchanged
for centuries (as in fig.50, a 19th-century metrical psalter). Even when the appearance of the notation
changed, the representation of primary (uninflected) pitches by their position on the staff, in the manner
established in the Middle Ages, remained unchanged in succeeding centuries except in occasional
instances where staff notation was treated as a tablature. The latter may be seen in the modern notation of
harmonics on string instruments by finger position rather than by sound, and more strikingly still from
the 17th century in Scordatura notation, where the written notes or chords represent finger positions and,
since the instrument is abnormally tuned, do not correspond with the sounds. For the notation of
accidentals, see §(vi) below.

After 1600 black-full notation (i.e. where the note heads of minims and higher values are black) was never
again of great importance, despite the advocacy of such a notation by Lacassagne (1766). It was used for
symbolic reasons in some works of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, such as Ockeghem’s Missa ‘mi-mi’,
with black-full notes at the word ‘mortuorum’, and J.C. Kerll’s Missa nigra (see Eye music). The opposition
of void and full notes was used also in various 20th-century reform proposals, for distinguishing pitches
rather than durations (e.g. in Equitone, where full notes are a semitone higher than the equivalent void
notes, and in Klavarskribo, where void and full notes correspond with white and black notes on the modern
keyboard).

Red notes were still in occasional use at the beginning of the 16th century for distinguishing rhythmic
proportions (as in GB-Llp 1, probably dating from the reign of Henry VIII), but dropped out of general use
as rhythmic style became simpler; their use would, moreover, have entailed unnecessary expense in music
printing. They continued, however, to be described by theorists such as Morley (A Plaine and Easie
Introduction, 1597; ed. Harman, pp.114ff), and red and other colours have remained in occasional use to the
present day in one of their oldest and simplest uses: to distinguish individual strands of the notation from

Page 122 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

one another. Red, green and black notes are used for this purpose in the 16th-century manuscript D-Bsb
Mus.ms.theor.57, and red and black notes on a single staff in the 18th-century manuscript Bsb Mus.ms.
40296. Red is used to distinguish the main melody in 16th-century Spanish lute tablatures (here with red
numerals rather than red notes); and the same principle appears in a few late 19th-century editions.
Dallapiccola used square red notes for a canon whose resolution is printed in normal notation, in the
‘Andantino amoroso e contrapunctus tertius’ from the Quaderno musicale di Annalibera (1952). Other uses
of colour include yellow or red for notes subject to chromatic alteration (G.M. Trabaci).

Coloration in a more general sense – full notes used in opposition to void notes for rhythmic purposes –
survived in the 16th and 17th centuries especially for expressing hemiola rhythms in 3/2 time, three full
semibreves or equivalent replacing two normal void dotted semibreves. The derivation of these full
semibreves from 14th- and 15th-century imperfect semibreves is clear, even though redundant dots had
been placed after perfect semibreves generally from about 1500; the continuing influence of 15th-century
principles may be seen in the omission of dots after ‘perfect’ void semibreves in even so late a source as
Caccini’s Euridice of 1600.

Soon after 1600, coloration was used for entire movements in mensural notation, such as courantes,
whether or not hemiola rhythms were intended (fig.51a, from Frescobaldi, 1626, where the rests show that
the ‘crotchets’ are coloured minims). This practice, derived from tablature notation, may have contributed
to the increasing use of the crotchet as the beat; in G.B. Fontana’s practice (1641, fig.51b) crotchet rests are
used to correspond to coloured minims, and the semibreve rest is used for a bar’s rest (Riemann, 1910, pp.
140ff).

Page 123 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(a) Coloration used throughout a section in triple time, the notes with stems (‘crotchets’) being equivalent in value to minim rests
(see line 2, bar 3) (Frescobaldi, ‘Il primo libro di capricci’; Venice: Alessandro Vincenti, 1626) (b) Coloration used throughout a section
in triple time, the notes with stems (‘crotchets’) being equivalent in value to semiminim rests (see system 2, bar 1) (G.B. Fontana,
‘Sonate a 1.2.3.’; Venice: Bartolomeo Magni, 1641)

Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Smaller note values (fusa and semifusa) were increasingly used in the 16th century, owing to, or resulting
in, the slowing down of note values in general (see §(iii) below). In the late Middle Ages, a semiminim
could be written as a coloured note (red in black notation, black in void notation) with a stem but without a
flag, or as a non-coloured note with both stem and flag; this generated a series of smaller note values with
alternative forms, the non-coloured forms bearing one more flag than the coloured. These alternative
forms remained theoretically available, although the coloured forms (as in modern practice, where a
crotchet is the coloured form of the minim) have been generally preferred. This meant, paradoxically, that
as small note values were increasingly used, and especially as the semiminim came to represent the beat at
the end of the 16th century, ‘void’ notation (i.e. notation in which the minim and larger values were
written with white note heads) consisted more and more of black notes.

Page 124 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The non-coloured forms of the semiminim and below, which in the 16th century often occur in sections in
fast triple time where the time unit was the semibreve rather than the minim, survived until the 18th
century (fig.52, from Couperin). By the time of Couperin almost all the shorter note values used today may
be found, mostly in written-out ornamentation; both small and large note values, with corresponding
exceptional time signatures, occur for symbolic reasons in Telemann’s Getreuer Music-Meister of 1728 (see
Eye music, fig.). Beethoven used small note values and rests particularly lavishly (fig.53, from the Fantasia
op.77). For the grouping of smaller note values by means of beams, and for the continuing use of ligatures,
see §(iv) below.

Void notation for a triple-time section in an 18th-century work (F. Couperin, ‘Second livre de pieces de clavecin’; Paris, 1745)

Small note values in a slow tempo with quaver beats, including in the penultimate bar semihemidemisemiquavers and a
semihemidemisemiquaver rest (Beethoven, Fantasia op.77; Vienna: Artaria, c1810)

Page 125 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Standard small melodic formulae, mostly of short notes (ornaments), had been abbreviated with special
signs in keyboard tablatures from the late Middle Ages onwards, and in medieval vocal music some
abbreviations are also found to indicate repeated material (for an example see Isorhythm). The double bar
with two (or four) dots to indicate repetition is already found in essence in 15th-century polyphony. A large
vocabulary of signs indicating abbreviations of ornaments, not generally precise before the 17th century,
was developed in the 18th century, especially in French keyboard and lute music (see Ornaments, §7). Some
notators, such as Bach, often preferred to write ornaments out in full, a tendency increasingly evident in
the 19th century as improvised ornamentation declined (see Improvisation, §II, 3(iv)). A parallel
phenomenon was the increasing reluctance of notators during the 19th century to abbreviate at the
repetitions of short phrases, for example in Alberti basses. (For details of special notations for abbreviating
repeated notes and figures see Periodicals, .)

Notation for the Geneva melodies in a Malay metrical psalter, including traditional clefs, time signatures, lozenge-shaped notes and
the custos at line ends (‘Sûrat Segala Mazmûr’; Haarlem: Enschedé, 1822) [tops of two columns]

The lozenge-shaped notes of many 15th-century sources continued to be used in much printing from
movable type (see fig.50 above) and in carefully written manuscripts throughout the 16th century.
Rounded note shapes came increasingly to replace them from as early as the 15th century (fig. 74, with
pear-shaped notes, from I-PEc G.20); no adequate reason seems yet to have been given for this change.
Etienne Briard jettisoned the lozenge-shaped notes in favour of oval ones in French printing as early as
about 1530, but in England the change did not occur in printing until Carr’s Vinculum societatis (1687; fig.
54).

Page 126 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Modern oval notes, with modern bar-lines, beams and slurs (J. Carr, ‘Vinculum societatis’; London, 1687)

Notes of a smaller than normal size occur in early 19th-century English songs, printed as keyboard music
(i.e. with the vocal part and accompaniment notated on two staves rather than three: see §(v) below). The
main melody is notated normally, whereas the accompaniment on the upper staff is distinguished by small
notes (fig.55). The use of small notes to distinguish ornamentation, alternative versions of passages or
other subsidiary material became normal in 19th-century piano music (fig.56, from Chopin’s Prelude op.
28 no.8, published in 1839; the proportion of small notes to large is particularly high). The small notes

Page 127 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

often did not count towards the value of the full bar; sometimes they refer to notes intended to be played
very rapidly. (For the use of small notes to represent music without a regular pattern of beats, see §(iii)
below.)

Small notes distinguishing subsidiary material from a song melody (R.A. Smith, ‘The Scottish Minstrel’, i; Edinburgh: Purdie, 1821)

Small notes, to be played in measured time, distinguishing ornamental figuration (Chopin, Prelude op.28 no.8; Paris: Catelin, 1839)

Unconventional note shapes, like some coloured notes, have occasionally been used within the normal
mensural system for special purposes (see fig.57, with reversed note shapes representing one strand of a
complex texture). The problem of differentiating such strands was solved by Schoenberg, on the other
hand, by the use of squared slurs joined to the capital letters H (Hauptstimme, principal voice) or N
(Nebenstimme, subordinate voice).

Reversed notes distinguishing a subsidiary strand of the texture (J.S. Bach, arr. M. Hess, ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’; London: Oxford
University Press, 1926); the small note in bar 1 of system 2 also has this meaning, and the note in parentheses may be omitted

Page 128 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Since the reintroduction of the score, and particularly in the 20th century, duration has frequently been
related to the horizontal distance between notes, though aesthetic considerations have often led notators
to place notes symmetrically between bar-lines, so that arguments about simultaneity cannot usually be
settled conclusively by considering alignment. Thus the staff has been treated as the axis of a graph; and,
as far as this is true, the indication of duration by note shapes is redundant. Reformers have sometimes
attempted to eliminate the redundancy: Hans Wagner (Vereinfachte Notenschrift, 1888) proposed the
abolition of all note shapes but the semibreve. The Equitone and Klavarskribo systems have attempted the
same: duration is related to the distance between notes, and note shapes are used to represent pitch.

Other proposals for changing or abolishing the mensural note shapes, up to the late 19th century, have
generally been of little practical significance. Examples are the 15th-century proposals of Giorgio Anselmi
to distinguish durations by ascending and descending stems variously applied to a void breve shape
(Gaffurius, Practica musice, 1496, ii, chap.4) and, as one of the first efforts to devise a thoroughly reformed
notation, J. van der Elst’s series of somewhat complex note shapes (fig.58, from Notae Augustinianae, 1657;
see also his Den ouden ende nieuwen grondt van de musijcke, 1662) for both vocal and instrumental notation.
Another unsuccessful reform, that of Sauveur (Système général des intervalles des sons, 1701), attempted to
give each pitch a distinctive note shape, and may thus be seen as a forerunner of the 19th-century shape-
note system (see §5(iv) below; the shape-notes were taken up and used in a different sense by Cowell: see
§(iii) below). (For details of other reforms, see Wolf, 1919, 335ff; for novel note shapes representing
various durations, see Risatti, 1975, pp.1ff.)

Proposed novel note shapes (right) compared with the established shapes (left) (J. van der Elst, ‘Notae augustinianae’, Ghent, 1657)

For chords including several adjacent semitones, notated on a single staff, traditional mensural notation is
inadequate, allowing as it does only for two vertical groups of notes a 3rd apart, either side of the stem.
From the early 20th century such chords were notated with supplementary diagonal stems branching from
the common stem, by means of which the chords could include three vertical groups of notes. The
extension of such chords into clusters suggested the adoption of abbreviated signs, notably those of Henry
Cowell, which have been adapted also to represent sustained clusters (see fig.59 and Risatti, 1975, pp.26–
7, 36).

Page 129 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iii) The division of time.

Vestiges of the system of proportional mensuration signs persisted to the 18th century in some places.
After 1500 the more complex proportions are found only in theoretical works, and in a few 16th-century
polyphonic works to illustrate the text (e.g. the pieces by Renaldi and Striggio quoted by Morley, 1597).
Nevertheless proportional signatures, in the form of fractions like those of the 15th century and, as then,
cancelled by the reciprocals of the fractions, were used in the 17th and the early 18th centuries in Italy and
Germany for pieces with short sections in different metres (e.g. 12/8 is cancelled by 8/12, 6/4 by 4/6).
Apel’s suggestion (Notation of Polyphonic Music, 5/1961, pp.163, 442) that these mensuration changes
might have carried connotations of tempo change seems only speculative. Examples of this notation occur
in Frescobaldi, Corelli’s op.5, Georg Muffat (Apparatus musico-organisticus, 1690), F.X. Murschhauser
(Prototypon longo-breve organicum, 1707) and the manuscript CS-KRa II/133. On the more complicated
question of

and

as proportional signatures, see below.

A fundamental change in tactus notation occurred, however, from the 17th century; it eroded the
significance of proportional signatures for tempo, and makes unambiguous determination of tempo very
difficult in a good deal of later music. In medieval notation there was a progressive slowing down of note
values (see §3 above), and this continued during the 16th century, partly no doubt owing to the
proliferation of short note values. By the second half of the century the minim had become the normal beat
in polyphony. But this slowing down did not continue uniformly throughout the polyphonic repertory:
even though the crotchet became the main time unit for much music in the 17th century, the minim
continued to be the normal beat in much music produced for popular consumption, such as the metrical
psalters and hymnals, and in church music in the stile antico. Indeed it still survives as the normal beat in
hymn tunes and Anglican chants; the crotchet has only recently taken its place in some hymn tunes, and
then usually only when settings are complex or connotations of a modern style are sought.

The change, then, lies largely in the increasing readiness of notators arbitrarily to adopt different note
lengths as the main beat in different contexts (for an example of this see Madrigal,). This variety in tactus
notation presumably had its roots in the 15th-century notation of augmentation and diminution, which
continued to be expounded as the basis for theoretical distinctions such as those between

Page 130 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

and

. By the time of Beethoven any note value between the semiquaver and the dotted minim was capable
of functioning as the main beat (compare parts of the Arietta of the Sonata op.111, fig.63 below, with
his scherzos: that of the Ninth Symphony includes specific recognition of the dotted minim as the beat
– ‘ritmo di tre battute’, etc.).
With this increasing variety of augmentation and diminution, especially from the 18th century, any note
value could theoretically function as the beat, independent of considerations of tempo, through a novel
explanation of fractional time signature (found at least as early as G.M. Bononcini’s Musico prattico, 1673).
Here, as in modern theory, the denominator of the fraction representing the time signature indicates the
note value on which the metre is based (usually the beat, with the figure 1 for the semibreve, 2 for the
minim, 4 for the crotchet etc.), and the numerator indicates the number of such note values to the bar.

Parallel with the partial emancipation of the time signature from tempo, there were two developments
tending to make the determination of tempo and time easier: the increased use of bar-lines and of verbal
specifications of tempo. Vertical lines had been used through staves in medieval score notation, not in their
modern sense as bar-lines but to divide sections from one another; but some 15th- and 16th-century
keyboard and lute sources include the visual separation of units of one or more bars, either by a space left
between them or by a bar-line. Such bar-lines are used with varying degrees of consistency and frequency
(for bar-lines marking off single beats, see Apel, 1942, p.67). The bar-line was used in vocal music also
(mainly in scores) from the late 16th century, but was not adopted generally in mensural notation until the
18th century. Even later than that some notation lacked it, as do some 19th- and 20th-century editions of
old music. In 20th-century music dotted bar-lines were used to clarify the subdivisions of larger bars, as in
Debussy’s Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (from Préludes, i, 1910). (For the use of
conflicting bar-lines, see below.)

The increasing unreliability of time signatures as indicators of tempo is also reflected in the adoption of
Italian (and later German, English and other) terms for this purpose. These tempo indications (in
Donington’s terminology, ‘time-words’: see Interpretation of Early Music, 3/1974, pp.386ff), like bar-lines,
seem to have appeared first in polyphonic music for soloists, perhaps because of the complexity of this
music from the individual performer’s point of view when compared with vocal music. Tempo indications
occur in Luis de Milán’s El maestro (1536) but were not generally adopted before the 17th century: the terms
adagio, allegro, grave, largo, lento and presto are attested between 1596 and 1619, with others during the
17th century. These tempo indications have not always carried their present connotations, nor has their
significance always been precise. From the early 19th century (Beethoven) they were supplemented still
further by metronome indications, and in the 20th century (Bartók) by precise indications of the duration
of a piece in minutes and seconds (see Tempo and expression marks and Metronome).

Page 131 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Despite these developments, time signatures never completely lost their associations with tempo,
although the associations of numerical (fractional) time signatures, taken in isolation, are seldom
unambiguous. No consistency exists in the music of the last three centuries even in the relationship
between the note values chosen to function as beats and tempo.

With

and

, the circular and semicircular signatures inherited from the Middle Ages, practice was even more
confused. Theorists continued to expound the significance of vertical bars in time signatures (as in

), and of the reversal of symbols (e.g. in

) as signifying diminution; but even when distinctions can be drawn between

meaning 4/4 and

(‘alla breve’) meaning 2/2 or 4/2 (the latter, for example, in the Credo of Bach’s B minor Mass), it is by
no means clear that the tempos of the beats were intended to be equivalent. In the 16th century the
sign

Page 132 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

became uncommon, the basic duple metre of most polyphony being signified by

; precisely the reverse convention became common at the beginning of the 17th century, and the
reason for the change is obscure, for no change in meaning seems necessarily to have been intended.
This change occurred in English music printing quite suddenly about 1594 in madrigal partbooks and
about 1621 in psalm books: see fig.60. These signs may enclose a dot without changing in meaning.
Similarly,

is sometimes used as a synonym for

3,

3/2,

3/2,

3/2, 3, 3/1 and so on, for quick triple time; from the 17th century

Page 133 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

and

seem to have been dropped until

was later revived with a new meaning (see below). These time signatures were used without total
consistency well into the 19th century at least; Schubert often used

adagio movements in 4/4 and

for fast movements, whereas Bruckner used

for fast 4/4 movements and

for slow movements. (In the first movement of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, moreover, it is hard to
see a real tempo difference being intended between the allegro moderato 𝇍 of the opening and the ruhig

at bar 51.) Even books of rudiments may imply that

Page 134 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

and

are synonyms (Dibdin, Music Epitomized, 1808 edn., p.37).

English psalm book with a time signature with an imperfectly deleted bar (Sternhold and Hopkins, ‘The Whole Booke of Psalmes’;
London: Stationers’ Company, 1626)

Page 135 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The most that can be said is that vertical bars in time signatures, and reversed (‘retorted’) signs, indicate
relatively fast tempos, but not always reliably; this is particularly likely when 𝇍 is used for music in the stile
antico, or when the time signature changes during the course of a piece. (For relevant passages from a wide
variety of theorists, see Donington, Interpretation of Early Music, 3/1974, pp.405ff.) There has been no
thorough investigation of time signatures used since the 16th century; the degree of ambiguity at different
times and places can scarcely be assessed, and the reasons for it are unknown.

Signs sometimes used in the 18th and 19th centuries as equivalents of 4/2 (‘great alla breve’) rather than 𝇍
(2/2 or 4/4) include 2/1, 𝇉, revived in a new sense (e.g. Bach, Gigue from Partita no.6, BWV830), CC
(Rossini),

and

(Schubert, Impromptu D899 no.3, altered to

by Schubert’s publisher).

was sometimes written as

Page 136 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(i.e. with its elements spaced out).

Even when the tempo implied by a time signature is clear, divisions of the time within individual bars are
not always literally those written, even apart from considerations of agogics, in terms of which most
notators intended the written note values to be interpreted with some degree of rhythmic freedom.
Unwritten rhythmic conventions cannot generally be guessed in European music before the 16th century.
At that period Tomás de Santa María wrote of pairs of notes written equal but intended to be played
unequally (Arte de tañer fantasia, 1565); this may have been widespread, and a similar practice is well
attested in 17th- and 18th-century France (see Notes inégales). In some cases of unequal performance of
note pairs, the first note of each pair was to be lengthened; in others it was the second note, though this
was generally indicated in some other way. Even written-out ornaments must have been subject to some
rhythmic alteration in practice: some trills written as successions of even rapid notes were intended to
begin slowly and then speed up. Such practice was in certain contexts so much a matter of course that
notational devices were used to indicate the absence of inequality: either a verbal direction (e.g. ‘notes
égales’) or dots written over individual notes (Marin Marais). A comparable unwritten rhythmic
convention, attested in some 19th-century keyboard music, is the introduction of unwritten rhetorical
pauses (see Franklin Taylor’s preface to his Clementi edition, concerning the Didone abbandonata Sonata),
though Lussy (1874) sought to restrict this practice to salon pieces (Eng. trans., pp.207–8).

Discrepancies between written and intended rhythms are particularly likely when different strands of the
texture are notated in different time signatures; these multiple time signatures (in Read’s terminology,
‘polymeters’) occur fairly frequently in the 18th century (as in Bach and Mozart). In such cases it is usually
at least possible that the conflicting rhythms which result are to be accommodated to one another (for
exceptions, see below). Dotted-note figures with duple subdivisions against triplets are cases in point:
particularly in late Baroque music it often seems likely that dotted rhythms are to be relaxed into triplet
rhythms: the use of a crotchet and quaver under the numeral 3 (and often slurred), for the more accurate
notation of triplet rhythms in cases such as these, is attested in the mid-18th century (Arne, 1756; see fig.
61, where it is immediately adjacent to the older convention) but not generally used before the 19th. In
some 19th-century notation, for example chorus parts in Verdi operas, the accommodation of dotted
rhythms to triplets also seems highly probable. There is even some evidence in the 19th century of duplets
in a melody and triplets in an accompaniment being accommodated to each other (Bochsa, New and
Improved Method of Instruction for the Harp, c1818–19, p.60); although theorists explain triplets as three
notes in the time of two, they do not always state that all the notes involved are equal in length. Some
piano notation, with polyphonic figuration and notes occurring in more than one polyphonic voice,
absolutely requires accommodation of the rhythms, though its evidence ought not, perhaps, to be pressed
into proving rhythmic accommodation elsewhere. The correct practice in Schubert’s music, where dotted
and triplet rhythms often appear simultaneously, is particularly difficult to establish (see MT, civ (1963),
626, 713, 797, 873).

Page 137 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Three different but perhaps synonymous rhythmic conventions in a single piece in 6/8 time: crotchet-quaver alone (bar 8), crotchet-
quaver with a figure 3 signifying a triplet (penultimate bar), and dotted quaver-semiquaver (system 2, bar 1) (T.A. Arne, ‘VIII Sonatas
or Lessons’; London: Walsh, 1756)

On the other hand, even an apparently straightforward case of dotted notes against triplets in Paisiello was
cited as early as 1806 by Callcott (fig. 87, from A Musical Grammar, p.236, repeated in many subsequent
editions) as an ambiguous case: ‘There is some doubt whether this Melody should be played as written, or
as if it were compound; that is, one dotted Crotchet, one Crotchet, and one Quaver, in the first Measure’.
The possibility of maintaining conflicting rhythms in certain contexts had been raised by some in the
second half of the 18th century (Quantz, Eng. trans., 1966, p.82; Türk, 1789). A general tendency in cases of
conflict to accommodate all rhythms to the most relaxed within a texture ultimately lacks logic, and a
cautious approach combined with aesthetic judgment seems advisable in the present lack of detailed
studies based on a large cross-section of notational evidence.

A distinction between intended and written rhythms, literally interpreted, is likely, on the grounds of the
category to which a piece belongs, until the 19th century at least and even later in popular music. Double-
dotting, though attested in Marais as early as 1701, is, like the precise notation of triplets, uncommon in
mensural notation before the 19th century; yet the French overture is a well-known example of a category
with a well-defined tradition of tempo and double-dotting in performance, which was required but not
normally spelt out in the notation. There were conventions concerning the tempo and rhythmic features of
various categories, particularly dances, such as the minuet, gavotte, chaconne and pastorale; these
conventions varied to some extent according to period and country, and were sometimes ambiguous even
to contemporaries. Nevertheless the notation used for them might for the sake of convenience vary in
literal detail from the intended effect, if there was no danger of misunderstanding at the time – for
example in the choice of

Page 138 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

as the time signature of a gigue, with quick triple time intended throughout (see Ferguson, 1975, pp.
92–3).
The tradition-bound approach to notation implicit in practice such as this led some to retain traditional
‘category’ notation even when the notation was no longer suitable to the category. Chopin, for example,
retained the 3/4 time signature of the scherzo (descended from the 18th-century minuet) even though the
tempo had so greatly increased by his time that the bar contains only one beat, and single phrases
frequently contain notes tied over three or four bars, as well as rests of two bars or more (fig.62).
According to later 19th-century rhythmic theory, this traditional notation seemed inadequate (for
criticisms of category notation based ultimately on this theory, see S. Macpherson, 1908, rev. 1915, pp.39ff,
and 1911, rev. 1932, p.17). Nevertheless, category (or rather style) notation remained alive in 20th-century
popular music notation: notated almost universally in

, it very often requires to be interpreted on grounds of style as if notated with unequal pairs of notes
closer to 12/8; moreover, certain other rhythmic characteristics (syncopation etc.) are frequently
required by the style though not spelt out in the notation.

Notation of a fast scherzo in the traditional 3/4, although this tends to obscure the rhythmic structure (Chopin, Scherzo op.54, 1842;
autograph, PL-Kj)

Biblioteka Jagiellonska, Krakow

In addition to these complexities, there are many contexts in 18th-century music where triple subdivisions
of notes are extensively tolerated. The lack of theoretical provision for such practice at times renders
passages difficult to read: a notable example is the Arietta of Beethoven’s sonata op.111 (fig.63) where the
demisemiquavers are to be taken as ‘perfect’ in the medieval sense unless followed by a
hemidemisemiquaver and thus rendered ‘imperfect’ (this detail of Beethoven’s notation survives in
modern editions of the sonatas).

Page 139 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

A mixture of triple and duple subdivisions of semiquavers and, in the 12/32 section, demisemiquavers (Beethoven, Piano Sonata op.
111; London: Clementi, 1823); in the second 12/32 bar, for example, demisemiquavers equal three hemidemisemiquavers except
when followed and ‘imperfected’ by a single hemidemisemiquaver

The confusion in the use of time signatures and subdivision of beats, especially in relation to tempo, was
recognized by Riemann (Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik, 1884). He recognized that the choice of note
length for the beat was often arbitrary, particularly since 6/8, for example, could represent either two or
six beats to the bar. Accordingly, and to facilitate the representation of beats with triple subdivisions, he
proposed a system of time signatures based on the beat, ignoring differences that had long been artificial,
such as that between 2/4 and 2/8. In his reformed system, time signatures were to comprise simple
integers (e.g. 2, for two beats to the bar, whatever their nominal value), integers separated by dots (e.g. 2.3,
meaning six beats in two groups of three each) or fractions (e.g. 2/3, meaning two beats with triple
subdivisions, or 3.2/3 meaning six beats with triple subdivisions in three groups of two). However soundly
based and economical, this ingenious system did not win general acceptance, though the use of the simple
integer (found with a more restricted meaning earlier in the French Baroque), omitting the denominator of
the conventional fractional time signature, is fairly widespread in 20th-century mensural notation.

Another abortive attempt to increase the variety of the subdivisions of the beat, in this case well beyond
the capacity even of 14th-century Ars Subtilior notation though not matching the theoretical potential of
15th-century proportional notation, was the system proposed by Henry Cowell. He sought to supplement
the traditional vocabulary of note lengths with ‘two-third notes’, ‘four-fifth notes’, ‘four-seventh
notes’ (i.e. as fractions of a semibreve) and further submultiples of the semibreve, which were to be
represented with void notes of various shapes without stems (triangles, squares, lozenges etc.). Some of
these shapes were borrowed from traditional American shape-note notation (see §5(iv) below). These
notes would then generate others by the addition of stems and flags, in the same way as the semibreve:

Page 140 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

with a stem, for example, ‘third-notes’, ‘two-fifth notes’, ‘two-seventh notes’ and so forth. The system is
exemplified in Cowell’s Fabric of 1917, published in 1922 (fig. 90 : see also Read, 1964, 2/1969, pp.76–7;
Stone, 1963, p.19). A further system of durational proportions, based on ratios and not requiring novel note
shapes – and thus more flexible than Cowell’s system – has been adopted by Stockhausen (Klavierstück I).

Multiple time signatures occasionally occur from the 18th century in pieces where there is clearly no
question of accommodating the rhythms in one part to those in another: Fux’s Concentus musico-
instrumentalis (DTÖ, xlvii, Jg.xxiii/2) has a movement with a simultaneous ‘Aria italiana’ in 6/8 and an
‘Aire française’ in

; and the ‘Fanfare’ from La triomphante in Couperin’s tenth ordre (fig.64) has conflicting signatures, with
the explanatory note ‘Quoy que les valeurs du dessus ne semblent pas se raporter avec celles de la
basse; il est d’usage de le marquer ainsi’. In some 20th-century music and editions of older music, both
conflicting signatures and conflicting bar-lines may be found (figs.65 and 66: examples from Bartók,
String Quartet no.3, 1929, and an edition of Monteverdi madrigals by Leichtentritt).

Notation with conflicting time signatures, 9/8 against 3/4 (F. Couperin, ‘La triomphante’, from ‘Second livre de piéces de clavecin’;
Paris, 1733)

Page 141 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Score notation of early music with conflicting bar-lines (Monteverdi, ed. H. Leichtentritt, ‘12 fünfstimmige Madrigale’; Leipzig: Peters,
1909)

Time signatures representing additive metres (those in which the beats within a bar cannot be subdivided
into groups of equal size) are found in the 18th century: Handel included a few orchestral bars in 5/8 in
Orlando (1733) to represent madness; Burney (History) termed this ‘a division of time which can only be
borne in such a situation’. (The principle of additive rhythm occurs much earlier than this in vers mesurés à
l’antique.) Additive time signatures were used by Reicha (‘3/8 et 2/8’), Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Bartók (3 + 3 +
2 over 8) and others, but Moritz Hauptmann’s rhythmic theory regarded them as ‘inorganic’ and thus to be
condemned (1853, Eng. trans., 1888, pp.196ff). A list of 20th-century works with additive and other
unusual signatures may be found in Read, 1964, 2/1969, pp.159ff; some are based (not necessarily
consistently) on small rapid note values, rather than beats, as the unit for the numerator of the fraction. A
variant of this occurs in Stockhausen’s Klavierstück I, with the smallest note value, not necessarily directly
represented in the changing time signatures, regarded as the basic time division. As changes of time
signature within a piece became increasingly common in the 20th century, various notational details were
simplified: the double bar previously usual before a change was often reduced to an ordinary single bar-
line, time signatures were enlarged and written between the staves, or above the staff (Debussy).

For music partly or entirely outside a system of regular beats, notational practice has varied. The oldest
sign representing an indefinite prolonging of a note’s duration is the pause sign or fermata (a semicircle
over a dot), inherited from the Middle Ages and still universally used in Western notation (in the 20th
century it was sometimes modified to provide various degrees of extra length, or inverted to signify

Page 142 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

shortening rather than lengthening). Relatively lengthy passages of music without a regular metric beat
occur from the 17th century onwards in recitative; Italian recitative was normally divided arbitrarily into
bars of four beats, with

as a time signature, whereas French recitative was notated with frequent changes of time signature
more closely reflecting the declamation of the text. (The arbitrary use of a time signature in Italian
recitative is paralleled by the occasional 16th- and 17th-century practice of notating pieces in duple
metre even though their musical sense is triple: see Apel, Notation, pp.66–7.) An experimental notation
is found in some French harpsichord pieces of the last quarter of the 17th century and the early 18th
century, where conventional time divisions are quite abandoned and the music notated either entirely
in ‘semibreves’ grouped with slurs, or in a mixture of ‘semibreves’ joined with slurs and ‘short note
values’ joined with beams (fig. 94 ; for details of this notation and its interpretation see Prélude non
mesuré, and Moroney, 1976).
Various methods were used from the 18th century to notate irregular expressive melodies in free rhythm in
instrumental music as for example in written-out cadenzas or in keyboard fantasias (Mozart, Beethoven).
They may be notated, like Italian recitative, by using a regular time signature and bar-lines and by dividing
the passage arbitrarily into beats, as in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (fourth movement) or in his Piano
Sonata op.31 no.2 (first movement). This notation has been maintained by later composers, including
Wagner, for the shepherd’s piping in Act 3 scene i of Tristan und Isolde. Alternatively the passages may be
written without a time signature, either in notes of conventional size, or in small notes, or a mixture of the
two, grouped with beams as required to clarify the accentuation, and with any bar-lines irregularly placed
as an auxiliary means of grouping: this method was used by Mozart and many later composers.

In notation of this sort the note values carry only imprecise connotations of duration. A more systematic
use of imprecise durations was required in some 20th-century works: notes of indeterminate length were
notated in various novel ways, sometimes with imprecise distinctions between longer and shorter notes
(see Risatti, 1975, pp.1ff). In some 20th-century music, great rhythmic variety within the texture had to be
represented without the aid of regular beats in any strand, and increased precision was sought in the
notation of accelerandos and decelerandos, previously indicated only with verbal directions in the score.
This was sometimes achieved through the modification of aspects of notation not formerly used to
represent the division of time: converging and diverging multiple beams used for groups of short note
values notated in an otherwise traditional fashion may denote increasing and decreasing tempos; or staves
may be slanted upwards from the horizontal to denote an increase in tempo and downwards to denote a
decrease in tempo (Bussotti). Other devices include the multiplication of metronome indications at short
intervals, the use of ‘+’ and ‘−’ signs for (imprecise) tempo changes and so on (see Risatti, 1975, pp.21ff).
Rhythmic proportions more complex than those available with the traditional numerals (3 = three in the
time of two, 5 = five in the time of four, etc.) have been represented by a precise spacing of notes to a
specific scale (e.g. one second to 2·5 cm of score); this notation may be supplemented with auxiliary signs
specifying the duration of individual ‘bars’ (short subdivisions) within the music, resembling the
specifications of precise lengths in an architectural scale-drawing. In 20th-century music generally,

Page 143 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

whatever the style, vertical alignment of different parts of the texture became a generally reliable
indication of the order in which notes are to be sounded, and whether or not notes are simultaneous; and
spacing of notes tends generally to be proportional to their durations.

(iv) The joining and separation of notes.

15th-century ligature theory was fully expounded by Morley (1597), and still appears in 17th-century
didactic material; but it was not always thoroughly understood, even by theorists, and the only ligature to
remain in fairly common use was that ‘with opposite propriety’ signifying two semibreves. Even this
ligature was confined mostly to music in the stile antico. The ligature system was unsuited to printing by
movable type, and since it applied only to long note values it was relatively useless after the minim had
become the basic beat in polyphony. The two-semibreve ligature survived in Austria as late as the first half
of the 18th century (Fux).

Ligatures had always been relatively uncommon in keyboard and other instrumental notation, but a
comparable device had been the beam, found in some but not all early keyboard sources to join together
groups of small note values (e.g. in the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, D-Mbs Cim.352b and in some sources to join
groups of rhythm signs together in a characteristic grid pattern. In these sources the primary sense of the
beam is rhythmic, since the first of any group of notes joined together is stressed; this continued to be the
meaning of the beam in instrumental music even after it had been transferred to vocal music. Another
device comparable to the ligature was the slur or tie; the latter occurs in 16th-century keyboard sources
such as Cavazzoni’s Recerchari, motetti, canzoni (1523) and Buus’s Intabolatura d’organo (1549; fig.67). Both
the beam and the slur came to be used in vocal music for a purpose originally served by the ligature: to join
together the notes to be sung to a single syllable, the slur for long note values, and both the beam and the
slur for short ones. Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, iii, 2/1619) recommended the slur in place of all
ligatures save that ‘with opposite propriety’; both the slur and the beam are used to join notes to be sung to
a single syllable in Gabriel Bataille’s Airs de différents autheurs (1608; fig.68), and occur generally, though
not always consistently, in 17th-century printed collections and manuscripts of vocal music from Italy and
southern Germany. They occur for a similar purpose in English printed music first in the Vinculum societatis
of J. Carr (1687; see fig.54 above); it is not clear which (perhaps both) of these notational innovations is
intended by the ‘vinculum’ of the title.

16th-century Italian keyboard notation, including ties across bar-lines with the beginnings and ends of ties separated where
necessary (J. Buus, ‘Intabolatura d’organo’; Venice: Antonio Gardane, 1549)

Page 144 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Staff notation for the vocal line (using bars and slurs) with tablature for the lute (G. Bataille, ‘Airs de différents autheurs’; Paris: Pierre
Ballard, 1608)

This 17th-century convention still survives in most vocal music, though some notators have begun to
adopt a notation more closely resembling instrumental notation, since syllabic vocal music is often
difficult to read if small note values are at all numerous. 20th-century additions to it in scholarly editions
of old music included square slurs to represent notes originally grouped as ligatures, and dotted, hairline
or slashed slurs to differentiate editorial from original ones. Even Lussy in the 19th century, despite his
concern to use the beam in the service of rhythmic theory, made a specific exception in favour of
traditional vocal notation (Eng. trans., p.29).

In instrumental music the beam continued to be used for joining together small notes, in groups generally
corresponding to a single beat or to simple multiples and submultiples of beats. An extension of its use
occurred in the breaking of secondary beams (generally all but the first beam) within a group to clarify the
subdivisions of the group, a practice not apparently found in Beethoven but attested at least as early as
Liszt (fig. 98, from his Fantaisie romantique sur deux mélodies suisses, 1837 edn) and adopted by many later
notators, including Reger. This notation was recommended by Lussy since it clarified accentuation within
groups, and is now part of standard notational practice (Read, 1964, 2/1969, pp.83–4).

Certain simple standard formulae involving syncopation had been notated since the Middle Ages contrary
to the principle that a note or rest symbol should always occur on each beat, the note being tied to the last
note of the previous beat if necessary. The chief examples of these exceptions were patterns involving a
note value between two of the next shorter note value (e.g. quaver-crotchet-quaver) and dotted notes; and

Page 145 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

until the 18th century at least, it was possible to write a void note with a bar-line passing through it, or a
note in one bar and its dot in the next (the latter device occurs occasionally even in Brahms’s practice).
Other unorthodox groupings of notes, uncommon up to the 18th century, were used more frequently from
the early 19th; they were condemned in terms of later 19th-century rhythmic theory.

Some 19th-century unorthodox rhythmic groupings of notes were undertaken purely for considerations of
simplicity, for example Clementi’s use in Gradus ad Parnassum of a minim (meaning a dotted crotchet tied
to a quaver) in 9/8 time (fig.69). Some, however, represent the first examples of beaming across beats and
across bar-lines in order to clarify cross-rhythms. This latter practice, whose introduction is often
erroneously attributed to early 20th-century composers, is found occasionally in Beethoven’s notation,
notably in the Rondo of his Piano Sonata op.10 no.3, 1793 (fig.70), though it is exceptional as early as this.
It occurs in Schumann’s notation of his characteristic staggered rhythmic groups as early as his ‘Abegg’
Variations op.1 (1830) and more extensively in later works such as Carnaval (1834–5: fig.71). The practice is
important in the notation of 20th-century composers such as Stravinsky, Bartók and Prokofiev. Some
19th-century notators, including Brahms, sometimes used slurs across bar-lines to achieve the same
effect. The use of beams over rests, again in the interest of clarifying rhythm, is also attested in the first
half of the 19th century though it is often attributed to 20th-century notators.

Unorthodox rhythmic notation for the sake of convenience: a minim used for a dotted crotchet tied to a quaver (Clementi, ‘Gradus ad
Parnassum’; Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1817–26)

Beaming across bar-lines (Beethoven, Piano Sonata op.10 no.3; Vienna: Eder, 1798)

Page 146 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Beaming across bar-lines throughout to show cross-rhythms (Schumann, ‘Paganini’, from ‘Carnaval’ op.9; Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel,
1837)

Further 20th-century developments involving beams included beams broken by notes or rests but visually
continuing through them (Debussy, as in fig.72, from Danseuses de Delphes, from Préludes, i, 1910, and later
composers), rests connected to beams with stems (Stockhausen, as in fig.73, from Klavierstück IV; any
distinctions intended by the various ways of connecting the rests and beams seem obscure), and notes
written as single notes (with flags) but joined together with beams (Boulez, Le marteau sans maître, 1953–5
and others; this symbol has been used in conflicting senses). (For the use of beams to group together
relatively fast notes of imprecise value, and to indicate duration in other ways, see Risatti, 1975, pp.7ff.)

Since the 16th century, slurs have come to be used for various other purposes; all of these imply joining
together two or more notes. For example, slurs in instrumental music might by the 17th century refer to
bowing, breathing or tonguing units (see fig.74) and hence, sometimes, phrasing (see Donington,
Interpretation, 3/1974, pp.473–4), sometimes denoting that the first note under the slur was to be
accented, or, with quavers slurred in pairs in the French Baroque style, that a rhythmic inequality was
intended (see Notes inégales). (For further details on early conventions for notating bowing, see Wolf,
1919, 240–41; for further on phrasing slurs, see below.) In keyboard music, from the 18th century at the
latest, rapid slurred white-note scales implied a glissando, single or double, as in Bach’s Concerto in C for
two harpsichords BWV1061, and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C op.53, last movement; the glissando (here
termed ‘sdrucciolato’) and other special effects are illustrated in a didactic ‘Lesson … of Different Touches’
in Pasquali’s Art of Fingering (?1760; fig.75). Vertical slurs beside chords in 18th- and 19th-century
keyboard music indicated, like the short angled line through the chord, and wavy lines (at first an
alternative form) that have now superseded both, that the chords were to be broken or ‘sprinkled’.

Page 147 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

17th-century English viol tablature, with slurs indicating that notes are to be bowed together and with other special signs to indicate
various graces (GB-Mp 832 Vu51, Manchester Lyra Viol MS, p.127)

Manchester public Libraries

Despite the early use of the slur for phrasing, consistency in the use of the legato slur was apparently not
generally achieved until the middle of the 19th century. Slurs imply in a general way that the music is to be
performed legato, and the notes at the beginnings and ends of the slurs are usually not intended to be
given any special treatment (for Berlioz’s practice, which may not have been peculiar to him, see
Temperley, ‘Berlioz and the Slur’, ML, 1, 1969, p.388–92). The desire of notators to represent phrasing
more precisely seems likely to have developed from the rhythmic theory of the second half of the 19th
century. Lussy deplored the lax practice of earlier notators (Eng. trans., p.44) and proposed that in
keyboard notation the slur should represent phrasing by being equated with physical action: ‘All the notes
… covered by a slur … should be played … with a single movement of the wrist for the first note, and the
other notes must be articulated by the fingers alone, the hand merely gliding to right or left without any
further movement of the wrist’. (The practice of placing a dot under the last note of a slurred group at this
period, presumably indicating staccato detachment of that note, was deplored by Lussy on the grounds
that it misled performers into accenting these notes.) Later writers who distinguished between traditional
notation and accurate phrasing notation include Tobias Matthay (The Slur or Couplet of Notes, London,
1928) and Stewart Macpherson, who devoted considerable space to an attack on traditional notation and an
exposition of the ‘correct uses of notational signs’ (Studies in Phrasing and Form, rev. 1932, pt.i), requiring
editors to adopt consistent phrasing notation rather than reproduce the original ‘with an almost touching
fidelity’. Riemann (Musik-Lexikon, 1882) sought still further precision, because of the ambiguity of the
slur: he proposed the use of squared slurs or commas in order to avoid confusion with the legato slur, but
from 1900 used both squared and conventional slurs for phrasing. For an example of the complexity of
Riemann’s phrasing notation as evolved for his special ‘phrasing editions’ of various classical works, see
fig.76. The comma was frequently used in 20th-century notation, as in Riemann’s, in order to notate
articulation in a melody (see also Rhythm).

Page 148 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Phrasing notation designed by Riemann as systematic musical punctuation: slurs and small vertical dashes mark off the rhythmic
units of his theory; bracketed numerals indicate the incidence, or distortion, of 8-bar phrases (W.F. Bach, Suite, g, ed. H. Riemann;
Leipzig: Steingräber, 1893)

Debussy seems to have broken new ground with ties and slurs, particularly in indicating their beginnings
and endings separately (La fille aux cheveux de lin), and, later, in notating chords sustained over two or
more bars by a series of small ties across the bar-line, without repetition of the chords themselves. He also
used ties to indicate, without theoretical accuracy, that notes within a broken chord were to be sustained
until, and beyond, the end of a bar (fig. 108, from Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses, from Préludes, ii, 1913).

Special notation for various degrees of articulation: ‘sdr’ and slurs for sdrucciolato or glissando, ‘st’ and dashes for staccato, ‘st.mo’
and slurs over dotted notes for staccatissimo (a series of markedly detached notes all to be played with the same finger) (N. Pasquali,
‘The Art of Fingering the Harpsichord’; Edinburgh: Bremner, ?1760) [bars 1–6, 8–14]

Signs indicating the separation of notes, motifs and phrases rather than their conjunction are found in the
early 17th century: Cavalieri used a signum at the ends of lines of text in vocal parts, perhaps, as Schering
suggested, indicating breathing marks (fig. 109, from Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo, 1600: GMB, p.
183; see Signum concordantiae and Fermata). This usage may be seen in chorales of Bach’s time and Bach
himself used a fermata on the last note of the phrase of a cantus firmus in chorale preludes, even though

Page 149 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

the accompanying figuration allows no pause. Staccato signs (dots or vertical dashes) are found in the
Baroque period; for the sake of illustration Pasquali (1758; fig.75) distinguished several different degrees
of articulation, but distinctions between dots, dashes and other symbols became generally consistent only
in the 19th century. Some of these symbols, including dots, seem also to have meant accents; it is not
always clear in Chopin’s music, for example, whether bass notes with dots over or under them are to be
detached or accented. In the late 19th and the 20th centuries, notably in the music of Reger, Debussy and
Schoenberg, an elaborate hierarchy of some dozen different combinations of signs has sometimes been
used to cover the range from strong accents to lightly detached notes, and numerals have sometimes been
substituted for these (e.g. Read, 1964, chap.15). Many new symbols were introduced in the 20th century to
denote related matters such as attack and playing technique on specific instruments.

(v) Clefs, staves, leger lines.

The F and C clefs, positioned so as to avoid leger lines, were supplemented from the 14th century with the
G clef and a bass G or gamma clef (fixing bass G), in order to allow further exploration of the treble and
bass registers without the necessity for leger lines. From the 15th century standard combinations of clefs
became increasingly common in vocal music: three-part songs were often notated with a C clef on the first
line for the upper voice and C clefs on the fourth line for tenor and contratenor. Later, standard
combinations of three different clefs came to be used in four-part songs. In 16th-century polyphony, after
Petrucci’s publications, combinations of four different clefs became more common and the combination of
soprano, alto, tenor and bass clefs – that is, C clefs on the first, third and fourth lines and an F clef on the
fourth line – first became standard, together with the combinations of transposed clefs, used to avoid
leger lines (and obsolete by the 17th century), known as Chiavette.

Small notes distinguishing subsidiary material from a song melody (R.A. Smith, ‘The Scottish Minstrel’, i; Edinburgh: Purdie, 1821)

Page 150 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

From the 17th century the G clef was increasingly used, especially in instrumental notation. It occurs on
the first line for violins and recorders (Lully): this practice was largely French but also occurred in
Germany (Bach used it mainly for the Violino piccolo). But increasingly it came to appear on the second
line, as in modern practice, for all instruments of treble range. It occurs in 17th- and 18th-century English
vocal and keyboard music, for example, in the upper staves of songs notated as keyboard music (melody
line and bass, without a separate staff for the keyboard right hand; for a later example of this usage, see fig.
55 above). Purcell used it in vocal ensemble music for the treble line, with C clefs for alto and tenor lines.
The form of the G clef found in Vinculum societatis of 1687 (see fig.54 above) occurs throughout the 18th
century in English notation.

C clefs were retained in Italian 17th- and 18th-century vocal music, and in German, both scores and parts,
for soprano, alto and tenor lines; they still appear in the notation of Wagner, Brahms and Schoenberg and
are not wholly obsolete even today. In vocal scores both in Germany and elsewhere, however, modern
practice is found as early as the beginning of the 19th century, with G clefs for soprano and alto and a G clef
with octave transposition for the tenor (this notation was not however universal at that time, even in
England). The C clef on the first line remained normal in German keyboard music until a remarkably late
date; Mozart sometimes used it, and although Haydn and Schubert favoured the G clef, the C appears in
isolated cases much later (as in fig.76, from an edition of Brahms’s organ music, where the alto clef
appears occasionally so that leger lines may be avoided).

20th-century keyboard notation in which the C clef is still occasionally used (Brahms, ‘Sämtliche Werke’, xvi; Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Härtel, 1927)

Page 151 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Diversity of clefs has seemed increasingly arbitrary since the 17th century, and notational reform, whether
formulated theoretically or not, has generally tended to reduce the number of clefs and in consequence to
be increasingly tolerant of leger lines. A single clef with octave transpositions was advocated by Juan
Caramuel (Ars nova musicae, 1645–6) and Thomas Salmon (Essay to the Advancement of Musick, 1672), but
these proposals did not come from the musical profession, and Salmon’s were ridiculed by Matthew Locke
(fig. 111, from The Present Practice of Musick Vindicated, 1673; see Baldwin and Wilson, 1970). Other
unsuccessful proposals for clef reform were made by Montéclair (Principes de musique, 1736) and
Lacassagne (‘Réflexions sur l’usage des clefs’ in Traité général des élémens du chant, 1766; L’uni-cléfier
musical, 1768). In anticipation of modern practice, Grétry sought to eliminate all but the G and F clefs,
transposing where necessary (Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique, 1789).

In practice, notational reform has tended to abolish the C clefs, substituting G clefs with octave
transpositions where necessary (mainly for the tenor voice and some wind instruments) but retaining the
F clef, as in keyboard music. In the 20th century several modified forms of the G clef were introduced in
order to specify transposition unambiguously where appropriate. Examples are a doubled G clef (used
already by Grétry for a similar purpose), a G clef with a vestigial tenor (C) clef added to it, and a G clef with
a figure 8 attached underneath. The latter version seems now to have become standard, and the 8 has been
analogously added above or below both G and F clefs to signify transposition up or down an octave. (The
addition of other figures for transposing instruments has been proposed, e.g. a 5 below the G clef for an
english horn.) Traditional C clefs remain standard for music for the viola and trombone, and for the high
registers of the cello and bassoon.

Page 152 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Accidentals notated with dots under the notes (bar 1), or ordinary accidental signs next to the notes (bar 5), fairly close to them (end
of bar 1, bass line) or above them (final bar) (‘Intabolatura nova di … balli’; Venice: Antonio Gardane, 1551)

Reproduced by permission of Stainer & Bell Ltd, London. England

Five-line staves, used in the Middle Ages except in Italy for vocal polyphony, were used for keyboard music
with C clefs by Attaingnant (1529–30), but did not become standard until the 17th century. In 16th- and
17th-century English keyboard music, pairs of six-line staves (expanded to seven or eight if the range
required) remained normal; the six-line staff was not replaced by the five-line one in English keyboard
music until around 1700. In The Second Book of the Harpsicord Master, 1700, six-line staves are used; in The
Third Book, 1702, the pieces are ‘now plac’d on five lines, it being now the Generall way of Practice’.
Modern practice generally adheres to the use of the treble and bass clefs on the upper and lower of a pair of
staves; with this standardization, and with the extension during the 19th century of the range of the piano,
leger lines have become increasingly common; they appear as early as 1523 in Cavazzoni’s Recerchari,
motetti, canzoni. (For examples of 16th-century leger lines, see fig.82, and Leger line.) In practice more
than five leger lines are seldom found, notators preferring to transpose very high or very low passages one
or two octaves towards the central range and to use abbreviations such as ‘8va’ or ‘8va bassa’, except in
orchestral parts. Some keyboard music since the 18th century has, however, occasionally been written on
three or more staves (see §(viii) below).

The standardization of clefs since the 19th century, and their consequent predictability, has allowed
notators unusual licence. Some 20th-century notation, for example, includes the simultaneous use of
treble and bass clefs on a single five-line staff for notating widely-spaced strands of the texture, when
there is no possibility of misunderstanding (see fig.77, from Debussy’s Voiles, from Préludes, i, 1910).
Simple horizontal wedge-shapes represent the treble clef when next to the second line and the bass when
next to the fourth (for further details of these and other notational licence, see Read, 1964, 2/1969, pp.
59ff).

A number of notational reforms proposed since the 19th century have concerned the staff. Of these the
most radical is the Klavarskribo system, in which the staves run vertically rather than horizontally in order
that the appearance of the music may more closely resemble the layout of the piano keyboard, on which
the system is based; accordingly, bar-lines are horizontal. Another staff reform based on the keyboard is
that of W. Steffens (1961). Other reforms have often necessitated a change in the number of lines in the
staff; Equitone uses two lines to the octave, with notes in five possible positions relative to them: with the
lines running through the notes, or tangential to them, or with the notes (touching neither of the lines)
closer to one or other of the lines, or midway between them. The use of full and void notes in these
positions yields 12 different possibilities to the octave, for the 12 semitones of the equal-tempered system.
The Notagraph system of Constance Virtue uses a seven-line staff, with the space between staves divided
proportionately to permit further representation of intervals for the most part without leger lines; the staff
covers an octave, the step from a line to the adjacent space representing a semitone, and different octaves
are distinguished with special clefs (V, O and inverted V, variously placed).

For the use of curved staves and other devices for representing tempo fluctuations, see §(iii) above.

Page 153 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(vi) Accidentals, key signatures.

The sharp and flat signs, inherited from medieval notation, were supplemented from the late 15th century
by the natural sign; this had at an earlier period been an alternative form of b quadratum and like the sharp
and flat was derived from a version of the letter ‘b’. In medieval notation, as still during and perhaps after
the 16th century (particularly in vocal music), these signs signified that the notes to which they applied
were to be solmized using the syllable fa (for the flat) or mi (for the sharp). Some of these accidentals are
‘cautionary signs’, warnings that a rule of musica ficta was for the occasion to be suspended. When a
distinction was drawn between sharp and natural and three signs were used, however, there may have
been a change in the significance of the accidental: it then came to signify the raising or lowering of pitch
(see Musica ficta, §2, (iv)). The use of all three signs did not become general until the 18th century. Any
lowering of pitch was generally indicated by a flat and any raising by a sharp; the notator’s intention was
usually clear (at least to contemporaries) until remote chromatic chords became part of the normal
musical language and until ‘orthography’ in accidentals became a concern (see below). The older notation
lacking the natural may be found until the end of the Baroque period and, in isolated cases (e.g. fig.78,
dating from c1841) even later; it survives strongly in a modified form (the sharp and flat being replaced by
‘+’ and ‘−’ signs respectively) in 20th-century jazz and popular music notation (see §(viii) below).

A sharp used for a natural in an English manuscript of about 1841, written by an inexpert hand (private collection)

For a similar reason, and because bar-lines were not used in the modern way until a late date, absolute
consistency in the notation of accidentals – with a rule that accidentals are required only as shown, and
that they hold good until the end of the bar – is not generally found before the 18th century or even the
19th. An accidental before the late 18th century generally applies only to the note next to which it is written
or to notes in its immediate vicinity (see Donington, Interpretation, 3/1974, pp.131ff). Even as late as the
early 19th century, for example in keyboard music printed in London, accidentals may be provided for only
one note of an octave, with the performer expected to supply the second. Here as in other aspects of the
notation simplicity was thought more desirable than precision.

Page 154 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Initial flat signatures (indicating transposition down a 5th once with one flat and twice with two) had been
usual in the Middle Ages; signatures with sharps appeared (apart from isolated examples as early as the
Middle Ages) in the 17th century, and like flat signatures at this date are to be regarded as key signatures in
the strict sense. Nevertheless, Baroque composers often wrote the accidentals of key signatures in more
than one octave, contrary to modern practice: this may represent an archaism (medieval signatures may be
presumed to refer only to notes at the pitch specified, with octave transpositions remaining unaffected in
the absence of any indication to the contrary). Baroque key signatures often contain one flat or (more
rarely) sharp fewer than would be included in modern practice, particularly in minor keys, perhaps (as
Donington suggested) because G minor, for example, was thought of as the Dorian mode in which the E
was theoretically natural, or perhaps because a piece in G minor might have E naturals at least as often as E
flats.

The double sharp and double flat, like sharp key signatures, were mainly products of the tonal system in
the 17th century. Donington provides tables showing different forms used for writing the natural, sharp,
flat, double sharp and double flat in the 17th and 18th centuries (3/1974, p.127). Since that time, there has
never been total consistency about the method of cancelling double accidentals: a natural alone, a sharp or
flat alone, or (most commonly) a natural with a sharp or flat have all been used.

From the Middle Ages various signs were invented for representing intervals supposed to be those of the
enharmonic and chromatic genera of the ancient Greeks. Besides those of Marchetto da Padova, the use by
Nicola Vicentino (L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica, 1555) of dots over notes to raise them by a
diesis (see Diesis) and the special signs of Lusitano (Introdutione facilissima, 1553, 2/1558) may be
mentioned. Microtonal intervals have also been represented with special signs (see below).

Until the 19th century accidentals were often notated without theoretical accuracy, for the sake of
convenience: for example, in the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, where E♭ is notated as the form for Dis (D♯), A♭
analogously as G♯ etc., regardless of the incongruity of the notation from a theoretical point of view.
Similar considerations, no doubt, led some 17th- and 18th-century notators to write enharmonic
equivalents of double sharps or double flats (e.g. G for F double sharp), and sharps for ascending chromatic
semitones and flats for descending, as a rule of thumb not based on theoretical considerations. With the
appearance in the 19th century of theories of harmony supposedly based scientifically on acoustical laws,
‘orthography’ – the notation of accidentals according to harmonic grammar – seemed important enough
to some to outweigh considerations of practical convenience. According to Lussy, for example, ‘every
chromatic note, or note foreign to the key or mode in which a melody is constructed, is accented’ in certain
circumstances (Eng. trans., p.142), and thus the presence of an accidental has rhythmic and accentual
implications. Accordingly, the traditional lax notation was misleading for expressive purposes; Lussy (p.
151) criticized Beethoven’s notation in op.26 (fig.79), submitting that B♮ should be substituted for C♭ in the
first chord of the example. (For a more detailed investigation of Beethoven’s ‘unorthographic’ notation in
his piano sonatas and string quartets, see Van der Linde, ‘Die unorthographische Notation in Beethovens
Klaviersonaten und Streichquartetten’, Beethoven-Studien: Festgabe, ed. E. Schenk, Vienna, 1970, pp.271–
325.)

Page 155 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Example from Beethoven, Piano Sonata op.26, cited by Lussy as an example of notation incorrect both theoretically and for
expressive purposes (M. Lussy, ‘Traité de l’expression musicale’; Eng. trans., London, 1885)

For a similar reason Lussy called for ‘correctness’ of notation in key signatures, since an incorrect key
signature would misrepresent the accentuation:

In the overture to ‘Zampa’, which starts in D with two sharps, the Prayer is introduced in the key
of B♭. The composer, by retaining the signature of D for these sixteen bars, is forced to use about a
hundred flats and naturals … In such cases as this the chords preceded by accidentals do not
require forcing.

Despite the general avoidance since the late 19th century of gross incongruity in the notation of
accidentals, ‘convenience’ notation of accidentals, primarily according to the manner of playing the notes,
is still required in special notations (such as that of harp music, because the instrument, with a natural
scale in C♭, is easier to play in flat keys: in fig.80 the harp and piano parts largely correspond, but the
notation of accidentals is different).

Since the late 19th century notational practice with accidentals has changed chiefly in music where
conventional major-minor tonality has been weakened or jettisoned. The simultaneous use of different
key signatures is occasionally found, as in Bartók’s Mikrokosmos or Britten’s Peter Grimes. Sharps and flats
in signatures may be placed at unconventional pitches, indicating a return to the medieval conception of
the signature affecting only one pitch, not octave transpositions (for example in Mikrokosmos). In works
not in the major-minor or any other diatonic system, where key signatures have naturally been
abandoned, it has often been found convenient to return to the convention that an accidental applies only
to the note to which it is joined; this renders the natural sign redundant, as is stipulated in Busoni’s
Sonatina seconda, 1912: ‘die Versetzungszeichen gelten nur für die Note, vor der sie stehen, sodass
Auflösungszeichen nicht zur Anwendung kommen’. In some music of the 1960s and 70s, every note is
preceded by a sharp, flat or natural sign.

Microtonal intervals have been the subject of speculation in European music for centuries (see Microtone).
For much of the 20th century, composers concentrated on divisions of the equal-tempered semitone, with
such intervals as the quarter-tone and the sixth-tone being notated by various altered forms of the sharp
and flat signs (see Read, 1964, 2/1969, p.145, and Risatti, 1975, pp.16–17). Fig.81, an example from Hába,
one of the earliest 20th-century experimenters, illustrates one such system. With later work on divisions
of the octave in which the notes do not always coincide with the 12-note scale (the 20- and 31-note scales,

Page 156 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

which fall into this category, are both in use, as are many others), this type of notation is not always
convenient. Some composers have used up- and down-arrows and/or ‘+’ and ‘−’ in conjunction with signs
based on the sharp and flat; such symbols are also found in transcriptions by ethnomusicologists. An
alternative is to use a numerical system, in which fractions or cent values make obvious series within the
octave; and some composers have used a mixture of numerical and symbolic signs, the latter still based on
the sharp and flat (see Darreg, 1975, and 1979; Blackwood, 1991).

Notation of accidentals with signs other than the traditional medieval ones still in normal use is
occasionally encountered in keyboard mensural notation, or the mensurally notated sections of Old
German organ tablature. In the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, for example, downward stems from notes are to be
understood as accidentals rather than indications that notes are lengthened. In some early 16th-century
keyboard sources, dots above or below notes are also used for this purpose: examples are Cavazzoni,
Recerchari, motetti, canzoni (1523), the volumes of keyboard music printed by Attaingnant, and the
anonymous Intabolatura nova di varie sorte de balli da sonare (1551; fig.82; this volume uses both this
notation and conventional accidentals).

(vii) Dynamics.
Indications of dynamics are rare before 1600. The rubric ‘tocca pian piano’ occurs in Vincenzo Capirola’s
lutebook (c1517), but seems to be an isolated example until the polychoral and echo effects of the late 16th
and early 17th centuries suggested the exploitation of dynamics; specific indications occur in the Sonata
pian e forte (1597) by Giovanni Gabrieli and other works of the period. Mazzocchi (Madrigali, 1638) used
abbreviations for forte, piano and so on and for crescendo and diminuendo effects; otherwise diminuendo
effects in the 17th and early 18th centuries are generally indicated by a series of dynamic markings (e.g.
‘lowd–soft–softer’ in Matthew Locke’s music for The Tempest, 1674; and ‘forte–piano–pianissimo’ in the
pastorale from Corelli’s Christmas Concerto op.6 no.8, posthumously published in 1714). Later in the 18th
century these were supplemented with the modern ‘hairpin’ symbols for crescendos and diminuendos
(Geminiani, Prime sonate, 1739, a revision of his op.1, 1716). These ‘hairpins’ are in early 19th-century
music often combined into a characteristic lozenge shape (fig.83), indicating a crescendo immediately
followed by a diminuendo, but this sign is invariably divided into two separate signs in modern editions. (It
should also be noted that it is frequently difficult to distinguish between diminuendo signs and wedge-
shaped accents in the notation of such composers as Berlioz and Schubert.)

Page 157 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Characteristic lozenge-shaped sign combining crescendo and diminuendo in early 19th-century notation (below bottom staff)
(Beethoven, Piano Sonata op.111; London: Clementi, 1823)

In 19th-century practice the superlatives of loudness and softness (fff, ppp) were extended, with
composers prescribing down to pppppp and up to ffff (Verdi, Tchaikovsky), and a scale of 12 or more
imprecise degrees of loudness was constructed. These degrees were specified with great care in some early
20th-century works, where almost every note has its own dynamic marking; in some later 20th-century
practice, dynamic markings were graded numerically for greater precision. Other 20th-century devices to
make dynamic indications more precise or to give them greater visual impact include the use of
progressively fuller note heads on a scale where a void note is inaudible and a full note fff (Schäffer), the
use of signs (unfortunately resembling accents) to represent various increases in loudness (Stockhausen,
Klavierstück XI), and the relative size of note heads (see Risatti, 1975, pp.29ff); the last device was proposed
in 1903 by Abdy Williams (p.212).

(viii) Scores; harmonic and descriptive notations.

Although score notation had been abandoned in polyphony with the adoption of Franconian notation in
the 13th century, it lingered in certain peripheral areas of medieval notation until the 15th and 16th
centuries (see §3 above). Instrumental notation may be considered a particular case of score notation, in
both its tablature form and its purely mensural score form, such as the Faenza Codex (see Sources of
keyboard music to 1660, §2, (i)). Instrumental notation of the late Middle Ages, like later scores,
frequently includes the visual separation of ‘bars’ or other metric units by bar-lines or spaces.

Early 16th-century score notation, apart from that in tablatures, some keyboard music (e.g. Cavazzoni,
Attaingnant) and surviving medieval repertories in Bohemia, is mostly didactic and intended for
inexperienced musicians, as in Agricola’s Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529), which illustrates how to put
music into tablature. From this period to the second half of the 18th century at least, there is evidence of
the use of the tabula compositoria, a device with staff-lines and vertical bar-lines, on which polyphony
could be written in score to facilitate copying or composition and then erased to permit re-use. Bermudo
(1555) claimed that organists played, according to their ability, in descending order of competence, from
choirbooks, tablatures and scores.

Page 158 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The first complete surviving scores proper are the Musica de diversi autori … partite in caselle (2/1577¹¹) and
Tutti i madrigali di Cipriano di Rore a 4 voci (1577); printed scores are attested not much later outside Italy
(M. Gomołka, Melodie na psalterz polski uczynione, Kraków, 1580, in score without bar-lines, fig.84; Balet
comique de la Royne, Paris, 1582). Some of these were intended for keyboard and other instrumental
performance, and were compiled after the parts had been completed. The same is true of less
comprehensive organ parts, supporting the lowest-sounding voice throughout vocal and instrumental
pieces, which are attested from 1587, in a 40-part motet by Alessandro Striggio (i). Such an organ part was
often termed a Partitura (or spartitura), another respect in which it resembles a score.

In the early 17th century Thoroughbass notation developed from these organ parts and it too was early
associated with the score. It became almost universal in every type of polyphony except that for solo
instruments in the 17th and early 18th centuries, whether in score or parts, after which time it declined in
secular polyphony. In essence it represents an abbreviated notation for chords, associated with a single
bass line in ordinary mensural notation. The symbols used, as with those of musica ficta, are often
warnings against adopting a particular course of action. The abbreviations are in the form of numerals
representing the intervals to be played above the bass line, often supplemented with accidentals. Such
accidentals are occasionally found in a partitura comprising the outer voices, as in Banchieri’s Concerti
ecclesiastici (1595) where, as in later practice, they distinguish major and minor chords; numerals as well as
accidentals appeared around 1600 in the thoroughbasses of the earliest operas, which were printed in score
(Peri, Caccini). Unlike later thoroughbass notation, the early operas often contain numerals in excess of 9,
and they thus specify the octave for the elaboration of the bass (in Caccini the numerals extend to 15 and in
Cavalieri even beyond that. Not all early thoroughbass sources include numerals and accidentals, partly
because of the difficulties of setting them in type.

The placing of the accidentals in early thoroughbass notation is not always consistent; they may appear in
almost any position fairly near to the numerals they qualify. As in the ordinary staff notation of the period,
sharps and flats refer respectively to any raising or lowering of a note. A stroke through the numeral 6
instead of a sharp next to it, signifying that it is to be raised a semitone, was introduced by Scheidt (1622)
but not generally adopted until the second half of the 17th century (e.g. by Rosenmüller, 1652), when it was
supplemented by a 6 with a flat sign through it as a direction to lower the 6th by a semitone. This practice
was extended to other numerals (4, 5 etc.) in some of Roger’s editions of Corelli, and became general in
Italian and Italian-derived practice of the 18th century (fig.85). In the second half of the 18th century a
diagonal stroke was introduced (Kirnberger, 1781, p.74, referring to Graun’s practice; this sign is also cited
by C.P.E. Bach, together with alternatives, Versuch, ii, 1762, Eng. trans., 1949, p.196) to be placed under
appoggiaturas in the bass to signify that the following bass note was to be harmonized in advance; but this
practice is not often attested. For tasto solo (i.e. a direction to leave the bass line unharmonized), practice
varied in 18th-century thoroughbass notation: some notators used a verbal direction, some staccato
dashes (perhaps equivalent to the figure 1), some the figure 0 and so on.

Page 159 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Thoroughbass notation with special signs through numerals, including strokes for sharps (bar 10), and simplified flat signs (bar 1;
also used in the key signatures) (Corelli, Sonatas op.5; Amsterdam: Roger, c1708)

Aberdeen University Library

Thoroughbass was popularized in Germany especially through the diffusion of Viadana’s Centum concerti
ecclesiastici (first published 1602); in England the practice appeared in publications from the 1630s and in
France from the 1650s. French thoroughbass used horizontal lines at an early date to indicate the retention
of previous harmony, a device used internationally in the 18th century. By the end of the 17th century
French thoroughbass notation had developed a good number of distinctive and inconsistent traits, such as
inconsistent notation of sharps or the use of strokes through numerals to signify, variously, both
diminished and augmented intervals. Many of these traits were tabulated by Rameau (Dissertation sur les
différentes méthodes d’accompagnement pour le clavecin, ou pour l’orgue, 1732). Some French notational
characteristics are occasionally found in German figured basses from about 1750.

While thoroughbass was still mainly a practical, rather than a didactic or theoretical, device, occasional
abortive attempts were made to reform its notation. Rameau (1732) proposed a system based on his
harmonic theories (see Wolf, ii, 327) but later dropped it; Telemann (preface to Musicalisches Lob Gottes,
1744) proposed a system of numerals supplemented with horizontal, diagonal and curved strokes, in order
to achieve a ‘happy mean’ between basses with too few figures and those ‘resembling an arithmetic book’.

During the 17th century, score notation was used in other areas of the polyphonic repertory, such as solo
songs and cantatas. Some of these scores were intended to facilitate conducting, though until the 19th
century (and in some areas later) conducting scores might contain little more than a first violin part, or a
figured bass supplemented with cues, recitatives in full and so on; the latter type, when intended for a
conductor, might be labelled ‘M[aestro] D[i] C[appella]’. The keyboard score also spread beyond Italy in
the 17th century (M. Rodrigues Coelho, Flores de musica, 1620; Scheidt, Tabulatura nova, 1624). In 17th-
century scores, bar-lines became usual, though not always consistent, at a relatively early date. In early
scores they extend only through a single staff; they were extended throughout each system by Bach and
others in the 18th century, but the practice was not standardized until the 19th. Similarly, the order in
which the parts are set out varies until well into the 19th century (see Score). For clef reform in score
notation, see §(v) above.

Keyboard score notation developed characteristics of its own, some deriving from tablature, from the 17th
century onwards. As early as the 17th century some notators avoided pedantic accuracy in the notation of
polyphonic textures, omitting rests and simplifying note lengths especially in inner parts, but Bach
sometimes maintained the older practice of using precise note lengths even within a complex polyphonic
texture. A thorough-going adoption of the simpler practice is found in Liszt’s notation, with the

Page 160 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

abandonment of rests or precise note values where these were unnecessary to the performer. Other devices
used by Liszt to clarify complex textures include the broken subsidiary beaming of short note values (see
§(iv) above), and the use of the direction of note stems to distinguish strands of the texture or the notes to
be played by the right or left hands (see fig.86, from his Rhapsodie espagnole). Other composers used
comparable devices such as the extensive use of small notes (see §(ii) above).

The use of more than two staves in keyboard scores other than partituras, again in the interests of clarity
in complex textures, is occasional before the 19th century, usually to distinguish lines for separate
manuals, separate instruments or (for the organ) pedals. One of the earliest examples of modern keyboard
notation in which three staves are intended to be played by a single performer on a single manual of a
keyboard instrument is found in G.J. Vogler’s ‘Marlborough’ variations (fig.87: the clef forms are typical of
Austrian and south German usage at this period). This practice too was adopted and extended by Liszt,
with piano music written on three or four staves, and appears in the piano notation of Debussy and
Rachmaninoff.

Notation of single-manual keyboard music on three staves (G.J. Vogler, ‘Variations sur l’air de Marlborough’: Speyer: Bossler, 1791);
the two upper staves are to be played by the right hand

The specialization of keyboard score notation is reflected also in the adoption of fingering indications,
found regularly from the 19th century but quite often before that, especially in tablatures; it is also
occasionally found from the 16th century in other instrumental music. 19th-century piano music had two
distinct fingering conventions: the ‘continental’, with numerals from 1 to 5 for the thumb and fingers; and
the ‘English’, with a ‘+’ sign for the thumb and numerals from 1 to 4 for the fingers. The latter system, now
superseded by the former, was still used well into the 20th century. Pedalling has been shown in piano
music since the early 19th century by a number of special signs. Comparable instructions for physical
actions, to produce special effects of many kinds, have multiplied since the 19th century in instrumental
music: these include signs for playing harmonics and for special methods of attack in string and harp
music, bowing in string music and percussive key-clicks in woodwind music (see Karkoschka, Schriftbild,
1966; Read, 1964, 2/1969; and Risatti, 1975).

Specialist notations of other kinds have been used in scores to assist the abstract study of music.
Descriptive notation for analytical purposes had been part of the European tradition since the Renaissance
but had not required material modifications to normal notation: thus Kircher presented a (spurious)
‘Pindaric’ melody in normal notation and Hebrew melodies, in which he had been preceded by Johannes
Reuchlin (De accentibus et orthographia linguae hebraicae, 1518) among others. The great increase from the
second half of the 18th century in historical and analytical musicology, and the broadening interests of

Page 161 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

scholars, prompted notational modifications. Early examples of specialized descriptive notations and
formats include the miniature score (an early example is a 19th-century edition of Haydn quartets by
Pleyel). Both performing and study scores came to be provided with bar numbers or letters for easy
reference, though the numbering of bars, every 50, is found as early as 1688 (William Nott, A Collection of
Simphonies).

Specialist score notations for presenting the results of analysis were also developed from the early years of
the 19th century (e.g. Momigny, 1803–6). In the 20th century, analytical notation was developed into
systems of great subtlety, for example by Schenker (see Analysis, §II, 4). Non-Western music was
presented for European readers in a kind of score comprising the original notation in parallel with a
transcription by F.J. Sulzer; this represents one of the earliest ethnomusicological notations. The
preparation in the 19th and 20th centuries of the great historical editions of early music (see Editions,
historical) has made standard many novel practices, such as the use of a squared slur to link notes joined in
ligatures in the original, or the use of small notes or parentheses to distinguish editorial additions.
Ethnomusicological notation has adopted many novel signs to express, for example, intervals outside the
European system. For attempts to devise machines to notate melodies, and the notations adapted to them,
see §6(i) below.

In the 19th century thoroughbass notation lent itself to adaptation for analytical and other didactic
purposes: by this time it was no longer extensively used in practical music-making. The modifications
made to it in the 19th century tended mainly to improve it as a theoretical harmonic notation; Honoré
Langlé, for instance, proposed a system of nomenclature that would be primarily chordal rather than
intervallic; major, minor, diminished and augmented chords, and the various 7th chords, were
consistently distinguished, and the relationships between inversions and root positions were shown, with
a modified thoroughbass notation including symbols such as ‘+’, ‘−’, ‘=’, circumflexes, inverted
circumflexes and dots (Nouvelle méthode pour chiffrer les accords, 1801). The figured bass survived in its
older traditional form well into the 20th century, however, both as a shorthand harmonic notation and (as
in Prout, Harmony: its Theory and Practice, 1889 and later editions) as a device for teaching harmony by the
advance identification of chords in harmony exercises.

Other types of chordal notation, using letters or numerals for the chords and supplementary symbols to
distinguish different types of chord, developed from the early 19th century. The degrees of the scale and
the chords based on them were denoted by Roman numerals as early as 1800 (G.J. Vogler, Choral-System);
H.C. Koch (Musikalisches Lexikon, 1802, ‘Klangstufe’) wrote of indicating ‘each note of those of a key,
arranged in a scale, by means of a number associated with it’. In Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der
Tonsetzkunst (1817, 3/1830–32), Gottfried Weber distinguished major and minor chords and keys by the use
of upper- and lower-case letters (i.e. as in modern German practice) with superscript numerals to denote
diminished chords, 7ths and so on. His proposals were widely adopted and extended (e.g. with the symbol
‘+’ to distinguish an augmented triad, and with distinctions drawn between the inversions of chords, by
E.F.E. Richter, Lehrbuch der Harmonie, 1853, and Otto Tiersch, Kurze praktische Generalbass-, Harmonie- und
Modulationslehre, 1876). In accordance with Moritz Hauptmann’s view of minor chords as inversions of
major chords (see Harmony, §4), Arthur von Oettingen used letters of the alphabet with a superscript ‘+’
sign for major chords and a superscript zero for minor chords; in minor chords the ‘root’ is reckoned as

Page 162 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

the top note of the triad (e.g. G in a C minor triad) (Harmoniesystem in dualer Entwickelung, 1866).
Hauptmann and Oettingen also distinguished between notes (for acoustical reasons, depending on the way
they were theoretically generated) by using upper- and lower-case letters.

Later in the century Hugo Riemann invented a system of chordal notation which he termed
‘Klangschlüssel’ (Skizze einer neuen Methode der Harmonielehre, 1880; Musik-Lexikon, 1882,
‘Klangschlüssel’). Intervals were shown by numerals, those of major chords by Arabic ones, as in
thoroughbass but always reckoned from the root of the chord upwards, and those of minor chords by
Roman, reckoned from the root (in Hauptmann’s and Oettingen’s sense) downwards. The roots of the
chords were identified alphabetically. Intervals shown by simple numerals were perfect or major, except
for the minor 7th; major and minor triads were distinguished, when necessary, with Oettingen’s symbols.
Horizontal strokes above and below the numerals denoted that the note in question was in the bass or in an
upper part; the notation, unlike thoroughbass, was in principle independent of a mensurally notated bass
line. The sharpening or flattening of notes was shown by wedge shapes, resembling accents in ordinary
mensural notation, either in normal form or reversed. In later works Riemann went on to develop a system
of ‘functional notation’ or ‘Funktionsbezeichnung’ (Vereinfachte Harmonielehre, 1893), where he
abandoned letters representing pitches in favour of the letters T, D and S, representing tonic, dominant
and subdominant functions, qualified as Tp, Dp or Sp as necessary, the p (Parallelklang) indicating that the
5th above or below the root of the chord had been replaced by a 6th.

Similar systems have been the stock-in-trade of most harmony textbooks since the late 19th century;
some of the more influential ones were those of Sechter, Grabner, Prout, Macpherson and Schoenberg.
Possibly through their influence some popular music of the 20th century also adopted chordal notations
for guitar, keyboard and other ‘continuo’ instruments, which generally resemble Gottfried Weber’s
system. This notation has yet to be studied historically. Chords are commonly identified by a letter for the
root, qualified with ‘mi’ for a minor chord or a superscript zero or ‘+’ sign for a diminished or augmented
chord; the letter alone represents a major chord. Superscript numerals and accidentals are used as in
thoroughbass notation (i.e. the numerals are reckoned as diatonic intervals from the note named, and
qualified by accidentals) and, also as in thoroughbass notation, the rhythmic realization is left to the
performer to supply from his knowledge of the appropriate style. Common alternatives for accidentals are
‘+’ and ‘−’ signs, used in the same way as sharp and flat signs in the 17th century – to signify any raising or
lowering. A tabulation of various types of sign, made in an attempt to introduce uniformity of practice
among professional copyists, may be found in Roemer (1973, p.137; see also Read, 1964, 2/1969, pp.410–11,
and Brandt and Roemer, 1975). For an example of simple chordal notation of this type, see fig.88. For the
notation of pitch (including distinctions between different octave repetitions of the same pitch) seePitch
nomenclature.

5. Alphabetical, numerical and solmization notations.

Geoffrey Chew, revised by Richard Rastall

Page 163 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The most important type of notation to be considered here is Tablature, which is fully discussed in its
practical aspects under its own heading. For more detailed information the reader is referred to Wolf’s
Handbuch der Notationskunde (1913–19), Apel’s Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (1942, rev. 5/1961)
and Rastall’s Notation of Western Music (1983 rev. 2/1998).

(i) Keyboard tablatures.

Wolf suggested that a passage in the treatise of Anonymus 4 (c1275) implies the existence of instrumental
notation in the 13th century (Wolf, 1919, 5, referring to the passage in Reckow’s edition, Der Musiktraktat
des Anonymus 4, 1967, i, 40, ll.24ff). No known example survives from that date, but the earliest known
keyboard sources are nearly all in tablature, which is a distinctive instrumental notation. The term
‘tablature’ generally signifies a notational system using letters of the alphabet or other symbols not found
in ordinary staff notation, and which generally specifies the physical action required to produce the music
from a specific instrument, rather than an abstract representation of the music itself. The latter
qualification, though perhaps the primary one, does not apply to the German organ tablatures of the late
Middle Ages and later: in these, letters are used to identify pitches rather than finger positions.

Most surviving keyboard sources up to the early 16th century are notated in the so-called old German
organ tablature. This term is used even though the earliest source of all, the 14th-century Robertsbridge
Codex (GB-Lbl Add.28550), is of unknown origin and has features of 14th-century Italian mensural
notation. 15th-century German tablatures include those of Adam Ileborgh (1448, in a private collection)
and Conrad Paumann (1452, Fürstliche Stolberg’sche Bibliothek, Wernigerode, Zb 14), and the Buxheimer
Orgelbuch (D-Mbs Cim.352b). Virdung’s Musica getutscht (1511) and Schlick’s Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang
und lidlein (1512) are the earliest known printed keyboard music and there are several early 16th-century
manuscript tablatures from the regions of Switzerland and Germany near the Rhine (e.g. fig.89) and from
Poland (the tablature of Jan z Lublina): for further details see Sources of keyboard music to 1660. Each of
these early sources generally displays notational idiosyncrasies, but in all of them the top voice is notated
in a void or full mensural staff notation and the other voices in alphabetical notation, the letters
corresponding with the names of the notes. In both parts of the notation accidentals are specified; in the
mensurally notated voice, this may be with unusual signs such as downward stems with slashes. As in most
later tablatures special rhythm signs above the letters specify the durations of the notes; they were
sometimes joined with beams, as in the 15th-century Buxheimer Orgelbuch.

Page 164 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Old German organ tablature: both the staff notation for the upper voice and the rhythm signs for the lower voices use beams (early
16th-century fragments, GB-A)

Aberdeen University Library

The number and variety of keyboard sources increase rapidly for the period after 1500. In Italy and France
there are printed keyboard sources, using mensural notation throughout, as in the earlier Faenza Codex.
Examples are Cavazzoni’s Recerchari, motetti, canzoni (1523) and the series of keyboard collections
published in France by Attaingnant from the 1530s. This keyboard mensural notation is closer in a number
of respects to 19th- and 20th-century mensural notation than to contemporary vocal notation, for
example in the use of bar-lines, but complex score notation was not very well suited to movable-type
printing and came into its own only after the introduction of music engraving. Nevertheless score notation
remained normal in French and Italian keyboard music, as it was later in English keyboard sources (see
Sources of keyboard music to 1660, §2, (vi)); it was cultivated either in the modern two-staff form or as
the partitura (see §4(viii) above).

From about 1570 the old German organ tablature was superseded in German-speaking areas by a new
German organ tablature, in which letters were used as in the earlier system but now for the highest voice as
well as the others. This alphabetical notation was supplemented by a uniform system of rhythm signs,
derived from those of Italian lute notation. The change may have been due in part to the difficulty and cost
of printing the mensurally notated top voice. This system became widely diffused in northern Germany in
the 17th century and survived into the 18th, latterly mostly in manuscripts written by organists, including
J.S. Bach, for their own use (see Bach family, §III, (7)). It was used by Buxtehude for vocal and single-line
instrumental as well as keyboard music (for illustration, see Buxtehude, Dieterich, and Winternitz, 1955, ii,
pl.7). A curious mixture of this system, used only for the pedal line, with ordinary mensural notation
occurs in the Tabulatuur-boeck van psalmen en fantasyen of Anthoni van Noordt (1659; facs. in Wolf, ii,
263); fig.90 shows another curious and in several respects anomalous alphabetical (?) keyboard notation
from early 17th-century France.

Page 165 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

French 17th-century keyboard notation, with letters placed on staves but without precise indications of rhythm (GB-A, MS bound
with a copy of Arcadelt’s ‘Primo libro di madregali’, 1561)

Aberdeen University Library

The only other major keyboard tradition to use tablature was that of Spain. In Bermudo’s Declaración de
instrumentos musicales (1555) various systems are mentioned, using numerals to represent the keys of the
keyboard. The latter may be numbered consecutively throughout, or the white keys may be numbered
consecutively and the others provided by supplementary accidentals; or the white keys within each octave
may be numbered from 1 to 7, with accidentals and octaves distinguished by diacritical marks. Rhythm
signs are placed above the music, defining the durations in the fastest-moving part. Such systems are also
found in Italy, in the Spanish-influenced Intavolatura de cimbalo of Antonio Valente (1576), and they
persisted into the 17th century. There is also slight evidence of the use of comparable tablatures with
letters or numerals for psaltery music.

(ii) Tablatures for plucked string instruments.

Petrucci’s early 16th-century publications include four books in so-called Italian lute tablature (1507–8),
of which the second gives rules for playing from the tablature, evidently for the benefit of performers
without knowledge of musical theory or notation. The printing of Italian tablatures continued until 1616;
manuscript Italian lute tablatures are attested until the mid-17th century. The principles on which
Petrucci’s tablatures rest remained fundamental to Italian lute tablature: six lines of a ‘staff’ represent the
six courses of the lute, with the course lowest in pitch at the top. Numerals placed on the lines then
indicate the fret to be stopped on the relevant course, zero being used for open strings, and rhythm signs
placed above the ‘staff’ indicate the durations of the shortest notes within the texture at any point. These
rhythm signs no doubt derive from mensural note shapes but lack the note heads; they were joined with
beams as early as the first half of the 16th century. The rhythm signs appear in Petrucci’s prints above each
note or chord, but even in the early 16th century the notation is sometimes simplified by omitting rhythm
signs unless there is a change in note value. The system of rhythm signs normally precludes the
specification of simultaneous notes of different durations, but some tablatures employ a cross or sharp-
like symbol after numerals to indicate that the note in question is to be prolonged beyond the next note or
chord (e.g. fig.91, from Antonio Rotta, Intabolatura de lauto, 1546); this device also occurs in German
tablature (e.g. Judenkünig, 1523). Normally these Italian tablatures are accommodated on a single ‘staff’; a

Page 166 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

vocal part, if included, is usually but not invariably notated mensurally on a separate staff. Spinacino
occasionally placed even the upper voice of a lute piece on a separate staff for the sake of convenience. (For
another example of Italian lute tablature, see fig.92 ).

Italian lute tablature: double crosses signify that notes are to be prolonged (A. Rotta, ‘Intabolatura de lauto’; Venice: Antonio
Gardane, 1546³²)

A similar tablature notation was used in Spain for the vihuela. In the earliest surviving example, Luis de
Milán’s El maestro (1536), and according to Bermudo in other 16th-century Spanish vihuela music the
sequence of courses is reversed, so that the highest-sounding course is represented by the top line.
Normally, however, Spanish practice and Italian correspond in this respect. Milán and others used
complete note shapes for rhythm signs, in a manner otherwise similar to Italian practice; vocal lines are
occasionally included in the tablature staff and distinguished from the instrumental accompaniment by
being notated in red (fig.93), or (Esteban Daza, 1576, the latest known source) with dots above the
numerals for alignment.

Spanish vihuela tablature, with the vocal line in red (here grey) (E. de Valderrábano, ‘Silva de sirenas’, ii; Valladolid: Fernandez de
Cordova, 1547)

Page 167 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

The series of printed French lute tablatures, like the Italian, has as one of its earliest examples a
publication giving instructions for beginners in playing from tablature: Attaingnant’s Très briefve et
familière introduction (1529, published only a few months after his Dixhuit basses dances, is the earliest
surviving source. The ‘three short rules’ of the Introduction establish the principles found in later French
tablatures. The chief differences from Italian lute tablature lie in the use of five rather than six lines in the
staff, even though there are already six courses, the sixth being given a ‘leger line’ when necessary; the
arrangement of the lines with the highest-sounding course represented by the top rather than the bottom
line; and the use of an alphabetical sequence of letters, rather than numerals, for the frets, with ‘a’ for
open strings. Rhythm signs generally correspond with those of Italian lute tablature; fingering is indicated
by dots, later by numerals. Other later developments in French lute tablature include the adoption of a six-
line staff; this is used in isolation in an Attaingnant publication of 1530, but not generally adopted until
after the publication of the Pratum musicum of Emanuel Adriaenssen in 1584, and then used almost without
exception. Various expedients were adopted to notate up to two extra bass courses before the end of the
century, and further bass courses introduced during the 17th century and played as open strings. For
details of other subsidiary signs in 17th-century French lute tablatures see Lute, §6.

French lute tablature declined in popularity in France from the early 18th century but had spread to
England, the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere, and it persisted especially in Germany, where French
tablatures continued to be printed until 1771 and to be produced in manuscript until the 1790s. Music for
other string instruments such as cittern, bandora, mandore, mandolin, colascione and angélique, was
notated in tablatures of this kind, though sometimes with fewer lines if the instrument had fewer courses
than the lute.

Before the introduction of French lute tablature to Germany, lutenists there had used a German tablature,
said by Agricola to have been invented by the blind 15th-century organist Conrad Paumann. The first
surviving printed sources of this tablature are in Virdung’s Musica getutscht (1511) and Schlick’s Tabulaturen
(1512), and German tablature persisted for about a century, when it was finally superseded by the French
tablature, which had first appeared in German prints during the 1590s. German lute tablature is based on a
five-course lute, but early sources are for six-course instruments: the frets of the top five strings are
designated by letters of the alphabet, supplemented with a few other symbols, reading across the first frets
of all five courses, then across the second frets and so on rather than by a series of symbols repeated for
each course. Thus each fret on the instrument has a unique symbol; the necessity for a staff in the French
or Italian manner is eliminated, at the cost of increased complexity in the notation. The lowest course,
presumably added after the establishment of the notation, is assigned a series of letters independent of the
rest of the notation. Open strings are shown by numerals for each course (fig.94).

Page 168 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

German lute tablature, with regular bar-lines and rhythm signs (H. Gerle, ‘Tablatur auff die Laudten’; Nuremberg: Formschneider,
1533)

Guitar music from around 1550 is notated in either Italian or French lute tablature; as in tablatures for
other instruments, the number of staff-lines varies according to the number of courses. 17th-century
guitar tablatures developed features of their own, no doubt because the constant repetition of chords
prompted an abbreviated notation. Of the two principal methods the Italian, attested from 1606, uses
capital letters to represent single chords, and the Spanish, attested from 1626, uses numerals for the same
purpose (fig.95). These abbreviated systems were used at times in combination with the earlier lute
notation (for further details see Wolf, ii, §I, chap.3). Tablatures for guitar remained in use until the late
18th century, when they yielded to ordinary mensural notation on a single staff, written an octave higher
than sounding (fig.96).

Spanish abbreviated notation for guitar chords: the numerals, letters etc. stand for chords (e.g. ‘5’ for D minor, ‘P’ A major, ‘6’ A
minor) (L. Ruiz de Ribayaz, ‘Luz y norte musical’; Madrid: Alvarez, 1677); the vertical strokes show the direction of attack

Early 19th-century guitar notation, with detailed fingering (F. Sor, ‘Six Divertimentos’; London: Regent’s Harmonic Institution, c1820)

Page 169 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

For much of the 20th century tablatures of a new type were in use for the guitar and ukulele in popular
music, with a grid of six vertical and four horizontal lines (guitar) or four vertical and four horizontal
(ukulele), providing a schematic picture of the fingerboard; dots represent the positions of the fingers (fig.
97). This tablature chord notation, like the abbreviated representation of chords by capital letters (an
alternative to it: see §4(viii) above), lacks any indication of rhythm within the duration of each chord,
which is to be supplied by the performer from his knowledge of the style. Some 20th-century guitar music,
mostly of a popular nature in the so-called ‘finger-picking’ styles, uses another type of tablature notation,
closer to the lute tablatures of the Renaissance. Many publications of the 1960s and 70s reflect this
notation. A six-line staff is used, corresponding to the strings of the instrument; as in French lute
tablature the top line represents the string of highest pitch, and as in Spanish vihuela tablature numerals
are the basis of the notation. Time signatures, bar-lines and so on are as in staff notation; the letters
‘TAB’, written vertically, often replace a clef, presumably for ready identification of the tablature when
both staff and tablature notation appear in the same book. Otherwise there is no standard practice: the
numerals in some tablatures represent the frets, in others the fingering, the notes being identified in some
other way (e.g. by capital letters for chords). Rhythm signs are freely used: a vertical or diagonal dash for a
crotchet, and stems (without note heads) with flags and beams as in staff notation for quavers,
semiquavers and so on. Part-writing may be specified far more precisely in this tablature than in any
Renaissance one. Special signs are used for ornaments and other effects.

Early 20th-century popular song notation, including ukelele tablature and supplementary Tonic Sol-fa notation for the vocal part (M.
Wayne, ‘Ramona’; London: Francis, Day & Hunter, 1927); tablature symbols are provided only at chord changes

Harp tablatures are also attested from the late Middle Ages, and Spanish vihuela tablature was intended
also for the harp. Irish manuscripts have various notational systems, perhaps for harp music; one from the
Elizabethan period has various combinations of acute and grave accents, circumflexes and rhythm signs;

Page 170 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

another has a series of symbols, in part resembling those of Greek notation, representing successive notes
in a diatonic series. 17th-century Welsh manuscripts, including that copied by Robert ap Huw (GB-Lbl Add.
14905), contain another tablature for the harp, which like German organ tablatures uses the letter-names
of the notes. It is closer than the Irish sources to other contemporary notation, being written in score with
bar-lines and rhythm signs like those of other tablatures of the period. Extravagant claims of antiquity
have been made for both the Welsh and Irish tablatures and their repertories, but without firm evidence.

French and German harp music appears to have been notated in various ways: alphabetical tablature
(Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, 1529, f.XXXII); normal mensural notation; with numerals
corresponding to the strings (Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, ii, 1637, bk.3, p.171); or by lute tablature.
These possibilities are not represented by surviving examples.

(iii) Tablatures for other instruments.

Viol music has normally been notated in ordinary mensural notation, but tablature is occasionally
encountered, mostly in didactic works. The earliest sources are German (Virdung, Musica getutscht, 1511;
Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, 1529; Gerle, Musica teusch, 1532) and are notated in German lute
tablature or other alphabetical notation (fig.98, from Agricola). In Italy viol tablature is found first in
Ganassi dal Fontego’s Regola rubertina (1542), corresponding in essence to the Italian lute tablature though
with modification because of the greater number of frets required (in both types of tablature single
symbols, rather than numerals, were used for numbers greater than 9, in order to avoid ambiguity) and for
precision of fingering. In France, in the few instances where mensural notation was not used, French lute
tablature was used for viol music, sometimes with ancillary signs for special effects, and also for music for
other related instruments such as the viola bastarda. French lute tablature was also used for the English
lyra viol repertory.

Page 171 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Tablature notation (here for bass viol) with its equivalent in mensural notation (M. Agricola, ‘Musica instrumentalis deudsch’;
Wittenberg, 1529)

Modified lute tablatures of various national types were occasionally used also for violin music, but with
only four staff-lines, corresponding to the strings of the instrument. In the absence of frets, the series of
numerals or letters used were not bound to correspond to semitone steps: Italian violin tablatures, from
Gasparo Zanetti’s Scolaro … per imparar a suonare di violino, et altri stromenti (1645), use numerals to specify
diatonic steps, with accidentals added for the semitones as in mensural notation. This notation persisted

Page 172 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

for more than a century and is still attested in Pablo Minguet y Yrol’s Academia musical (1752); comparable
modifications of French lute tablature were also made, with the letters representing diatonic steps. The
older lute notation based on semitone steps also continued to be used for violin music.

Wind music has nearly always been notated mensurally, but tablatures are occasionally attested, based on
the positions of the fingers. A recorder tablature is found in Virdung (1511), using numerals and diacritical
marks. Thomas Greeting in his Pleasant Companion (1682 edition) used a six-line staff for the six holes of
the flageolet with vertical lines for covered holes, crosses for half-covered holes and commas for
ornaments (fig.99); Pablo Minguet y Yrol (Academia musical, 1752) used an eight-line staff, with the spaces
representing the seven holes, and full, void and half-void circles representing covered, open and half-
covered holes. Other tablatures were devised for wind instruments such as the musette in 17th-century
France, and tablatures have been attested for brass fanfares; numerical tablatures were used in the 19th
century for the accordion and other popular instruments.

17th-century flageolet tablature in which each line of the ‘staff’ represents a hole in the instrument (T. Greeting, ‘The Pleasant
Companion’; London: J. Playford, 1682 edition)

(iv) Vocal notations.

Since the 16th century, periodic attempts have been made to construct simple systems of vocal notation,
often based on the practice of Solmization, for the benefit of the musically uneducated. Many of these
indicate pitch redundantly in two different ways: by conventional mensural notation supplemented by
some alternative means of identifying the pitches, either with the letter-names of the notes or with
solmization syllables; or with distinctive note shapes or numerals representing the solmization syllables.
These systems multiplied from the 18th century, mainly where rapidly acquired musical literacy was
sought, or in pioneering or mission areas, and are associated mainly with popular music (hymns, psalms,
ballads etc.).

An attempt to develop a simplified solmization notation with numerals was made by Pierre Davantes
(Pseaumes de David, … avec Nouvelle et facile methode pour chanter chacun couplet des pseaumes sans recour au
premier, Geneva, 1560; see fig.100). Numerals from 1 to 9, supplemented by the letters A and B, represent
the notes in an ascending sequence beginning on E, C or B (the latter either B♭ or B♮ depending on the
hexachord); the numbers are reckoned as in the natural hexachord if written without dots, in the hard

Page 173 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

hexachord if followed by a dot and in the soft hexachord if preceded by a dot. Vertical dashes are used for
rhythm signs. A simpler solmization notation was adopted in a number of psalm books published by John
Day in the 1570s, with abbreviations of the solmization syllables joined redundantly to conventional notes
on staves (fig.101; see Krummel, 1975, pp.71ff).

Solmization notation with numerals, with mensural notation above, supplemented by solmization syllables (P. Davantes, ‘Pseaumes
de David, … avec Nouvelle et facile methode’; Geneva, 1560)

from A. H. Littleton, "A Catalogue of One Hundred Works Illustrating the History of Music Printing" (London 1911)

Metrical psalm notation with a solmization letter by each note ‘whereby thou mayst knowe how to call every Note by his right
name’ (Sternhold and Hopkins, ‘The Whole Book of Psalmes’; London: John Day, 1574)

Specific solmization notation was uncommon in England. The Fasola solmization system, later known as
‘Lancashire sol-fa’, used a reduced series of solmization syllables; it was expounded in popular
publications from the early 17th century until the late 19th, as in John Playford’s Breefe Introduction to the
Skill of Musick (1654), and was normally a sight-singing system applied to music in ordinary mensural
notation. In America, however, it gave rise to a number of distinctive notational systems for hymn and

Page 174 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

psalm books, beginning with that of John Tufts (An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes, 1721; earliest
extant edn., 5/1726), in which the letters M, F, S and L (for the solmization syllables Mi, Fa, Sol and La) are
placed on a conventional staff, with dots for rhythm signs (two dots for a breve, one for a semibreve and
none for a minim). Comparable systems multiplied in the 19th century. In the south and mid-west USA, a
number contained distinctive ‘shape-notes’ (i.e. notes of four different shapes, each representing one of
the four fasola syllables); these may have first appeared in Little and Smith’s The Easy Instructor (1801),
whose system eventually prevailed over other early 19th-century systems (fig. 151). Such systems are
known also as ‘patent’, ‘buckwheat’ or ‘figured’ notes, and the shape-notes have survived into the 20th
century. (See Shape-note hymnody; also §4(iii) above.)

From the 17th century many numerical notational systems have been proposed as alternatives to or
replacements for conventional mensural notation. One of the earliest was that of William Braythwaite
(Siren coelestis, 1638; see Krummel, 1975, pp.100ff, including facsimiles), comprising numerals for notes
and various different types of comma for rests; other early numerical systems are those of Kircher
(Musurgia universalis, 1650, ii, 46ff) and Giovanni d’Avella (Regole di musica, 1657). Such systems in the
17th century and later relied mainly on numerals, with or without letters of the alphabet, and some used
conventional rhythm signs to fix the durations of notes; most used the numerals to count diatonic
intervals arithmetically from a given note or notes. An exception is Mersenne’s proposal (Harmonicorum
libri XII, vii, 1648, pp.148ff) to represent notes by inverse intervallic ratio as calculated by the length of
string required to produce the note, rather than by frequency; the basis was c′, taken as an arbitrary 3600.

Rousseau, in his Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique (1742/R) and elsewhere, used the
numerals 1 to 7 for the diatonic scale of C major, placed on, above or below lines to distinguish between
different octaves; this notation was designed for complex pieces. A second system, for simple melodies,
dispensed with lines, using dots over or under numerals to indicate a move to a higher or lower octave
(shown with only the first note in the new register). Simple integers were used for time signatures, rather
than conventional fractional signatures; subdivisions of a bar, if unequal, were indicated by commas and
by horizontal lines over or under groups of notes, functioning like beams in mensural notation. Rhythm
signs in the usual sense were thus dispensed with, as in the most influential 19th-century solmization and
alphabetical notational systems. Rousseau’s notational proposals, though not widely adopted at the time,
were taken up on a relatively large scale in the 19th century in France in the Galin-Paris-Chevé method,
whose influence extended to other European countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Russia).

In the English-speaking world notational systems were developed in the 19th century based on seven-
syllable solmization systems, which had been advocated from the 18th century as theoretically superior to
fasola. The most important of these systems was the Tonic Sol-fa system, perfected by John Curwen from a
method of sight-singing. Like some of the 18th- and 19th-century American notational systems described
in Marrocco (1964), Tonic Sol-fa jettisoned the staff and conventional note shapes, using instead letters as
abbreviations of the syllables representing the degrees of the major scale, with changes of vowels for
accidentals. The necessity for rhythm signs, found in most earlier notational systems in which
conventional note shapes were abandoned, and even for time signatures, was obviated by the expedient of

Page 175 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

making the distance between symbols proportional to the duration of the notes, with dots and colons used
to separate beats. The notation is supplemented in teaching with hand signs and a device known as a
Modulator (see Modulator).

Early 20th-century popular song notation, including ukelele tablature and supplementary Tonic Sol-fa notation for the vocal part (M.
Wayne, ‘Ramona’; London: Francis, Day & Hunter, 1927); tablature symbols are provided only at chord changes

This economical and ingenious system was well suited to relatively uncomplicated vocal music. Associated
in England at first largely with nonconformity, it was adapted for use in Germany and Poland; it was widely
diffused through Christian missionary work and popular ballads (in printed popular ballads it sometimes
supplements ordinary staff notation: see fig.97 above). Tonic Sol-fa has become independent of white
musicians in various parts of the world; it is widely used by African musicians, for example, for vocal
music, often without the precise spacing and distinctions between different octaves of 19th-century Tonic
Sol-fa (fig.102). A derived notation, using the numerals from 1 to 7 (and 0 for rests) instead of the sol-fa
symbols from d to t, was developed in Japan and is widely used in 20th-century printed music in China and
Japan (see L.E.R. Pickens, NOHM, i, 1957, 83–104, esp. 101); bar-lines are used as in sol-fa, but bars and
double bars underneath the numerals, rather than punctuation marks, show the subdivision of the bars
(for a related example see fig.103).

Page 176 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Simplified sol-fa, outside white influence, in an English-speaking Aladura church hymnal (for non-Yoruba-speakers in West Africa); the
words are holy names, governed by special pronunciation rules (‘Hymnbook of the Church of the Lord Aladura’; Ijebu Ode, Nigeria,
c1958)

Notation for toy koto: the notes are represented by numerals, elsewhere equated with Japanese phonetic equivalents of sol-fa
syllables (explanatory leaflet; Ina: Japanese Violin Research Institute, n.d.)

Although Tonic Sol-fa is used by those without musical education, it should not be regarded as a simple
rule-of-thumb notation like some other alphabetical notations. Helmholtz, for example, considered it
superior to staff notation for theoretical reasons, believing that it was a better means of producing correct
intonation from singers (see Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen, Eng. trans., 1875, appx 18). Fig.104 shows
Tonic Sol-fa as applied to a fairly complex tonal piece; most of the notational features are self-
explanatory.

Since the late 19th century the limitations of Tonic Sol-fa have become more apparent because of its
clumsiness when the music modulates rapidly and its inapplicability to non-tonal music. Notators
accordingly have often preferred conventional mensural notation, which has ousted Tonic Sol-fa even
from areas in which it had been well-established, such as English choral music. On the other hand,

Page 177 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

attempts to construct notational systems based on solmization with more than seven syllables to the
octave have had no general success. Such systems include the Eitz method, the systems of J.L. Acheson
(Douzave System of Music Notation, 1936) and of L. Benke (1967).

For the syllabic notation employed by Scottish pipers to record pipe music (‘canntaireachd’) see Scotland,
§II, 6, (i).

6. Non-mensural and specialist notations.

Geoffrey Chew, revised by Richard Rastall

(i) 20th-century non-mensural notation.

Although the mensural notational system proved adaptable to the requirements of 20th-century music,
there are some areas where it proved less effective. This occurred where the music makes relatively little
use of notes of definite pitch or definite duration, or of traditional temperament systems. It occurred also
in prescriptive notation for indeterminate music, when precise specification is at a minimum; and,
perhaps paradoxically, also in descriptive notation at the other end of the spectrum of precision, when
scientific accuracy of notation is required – as, for example, in ethnomusicological notations.

A move away from mensural notation occurred with so-called action notation: expansions of the verbal
directions found in earlier notation, or symbols replacing them (e.g. the abbreviations for pedalling,
fingering etc.) at the expense of the mensural aspects of the notation. From this, perhaps, developed the
graphic notations particularly associated with indeterminacy (graphics, implicative graphics), which were
used at least as early as 1950–51 (Morton Feldman, Projections). This notation is generally designed to
evoke a musical response from the performer by non-specific analogy rather than by direct instruction;
thus any two performances should be quite different. According to Karkoschka (Schriftbild, 1966, Eng.
trans., 1972, p.77), graphic notation strives to ‘stimulate without constricting the imagination’.
Theoretically, any type of visual pattern may be used, though a certain degree of influence of conventional
notation often seems evident, particularly in the choice of shapes associated with articulation and
dynamics, and in the idea that a score represents a graph with a pitch range as its vertical axis and a time-
scale as its horizontal axis. Graphic notation may be combined with conventional notation within a single
score, as in figs.105 and 106 . In some cases, such as in the works of Logothetis and Cardew, particular
emphasis is placed on developing the aesthetic aspects of graphic notation. The use of abstract patterns as
graphics is paralleled by the use of verbal texts not as instructions but as a ‘notation’ intended to evoke a
musical response (as in the Concert for Orchestra by George Brecht, whose score comprises the single word
‘exchanging’). An intermediate position between graphic and conventional notation is occupied by the so-
called ‘frame’ notation, in which relatively free interpretation is permitted within certain prescribed
boundaries; sections of scores in this notation may literally be notated within frames.

Notation has sometimes been used for electronic music, although when such music is composed on tape
the necessity for notation is not always present. Some pieces have been notated in order that the composer
may be protected by copyright; or to provide a study score; or to provide a cue-sheet for performers when
electronic music is combined with live performers. Scores of electronic music may thus be either

Page 178 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

prescriptive or descriptive, and may not always contain representations of every aspect of the music. The
notation used may draw on the resources of conventional mensural notation, in so far as these are usable
for the purpose, and on those of graphic notation. Proposals have been made for notational reform and
notational standardization in electronic music (Fennelly, 1968).

Another area in which mensural notation is clearly inadequate is the precise recording of musical data,
particularly those of non-Western music and folk music. Attempts to record music as it is being performed
have been made since the mid-18th century, for example by attaching recording machines to keyboard
instruments; these were termed ‘melographs’ at least from 1828, and it was hoped to record
improvisations on them. One such instrument, from 1780, survives at the Deutsches Museum, Munich
(inventory no.43872). Shorthand notations for recording music at speed were also devised (see §6(ii)
below). No wholly satisfactory method was available until the invention of machines to record sound, and
even then transcription into visual notation was seldom sufficiently precise for ethnomusicological
material, even though efforts were made from the 1920s to divorce ethnomusicological transcriptions
from Western mensural notation. But in the 1950s an improved Melograph (see illustrations in that article)
was developed by Charles Seeger. This machine now provides immediate transcriptions of music in
threefold graphic form; one section of the ‘melogram’ represents a pitch-time graph, another an
amplitude-time graph and the third a timbre-time graph. The resemblance of this notation to the graphic
notation described above is clear.

Unprecedented precision has also been required of notation adapted to the digital computer. If notation is
to be converted into a computer programme, ambiguity and redundancy must be eliminated; such
programmes have been used for the stylistic analysis, along statistical lines, of various repertories.
Accordingly attempts have been made to construct methods of notation adapted to computers which lend
themselves readily to transcription between mensural or other notation and a computer programme (see
for example Symposium II in Brook, 1970, with details of some of the problems and proposals for solving
them; see also Cole, 1974, pp.117ff).

(ii) Musical shorthand.

Before the invention of sound recording, a musical equivalent of shorthand was required. The first
attempts to devise one were made in France in the early 18th century (e.g. Joseph Sauveur, Principes
d’acoustique, 1701), though the earliest systems are scarcely shorthand in a practical sense since they either
are alphabetical systems or draw heavily on the resources of conventional notation. As late as 1805, P.J. de
La Salette claimed as a shorthand system one that required letters of the alphabet, horizontal and vertical
strokes for rhythm signs and simplified signs for accidentals (Sténographie musicale).

Démotz de la Salle in the 1720s proposed signs more suitable to a shorthand system, which were capable of
being rotated and reversed (Méthode de musique selon un nouveau système); they were derived from
mensural notation, but later systems used simpler geometrical signs (e.g. J.L. Riom’s Sténographie
musicale, 1833), dots, curved lines and so on. All the early systems used separate signs for each note, but
Hippolyte Prévost attempted to overcome this drawback by a system in which complete bars could be
written as single multiple signs; the system required the use of a five-line staff with two auxiliary dotted
lines above and two below. A similar notation was devised to record accompanying harmonies.

Page 179 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

(iii) Notation for the blind.

Like musical shorthand, musical notation for the blind first developed in the 18th century and the first
attempts at it were hampered by too close an adherence to the conventional mensural system. Rameau
(Code de musique pratique, 1760), Tans’ur (Elements of Musick, 1772) and others envisaged, broadly
speaking, a conventional notation placed in relief so that it could be read by touch, with note shapes
somewhat altered to facilitate their recognition by touch. Several other notations for the blind were
devised in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but the most important was that devised by Louis Braille
(Anaglyptographie, 1829), which departed entirely from the conventional signs. Embossed dots were
arranged in two adjacent vertical rows of three each, with the upper four dots referring to pitch and the
lowest two to duration (for further details of this system, see Braille notation). This has superseded all
other notations for the blind; revisions of it have not all been adopted universally, and different forms are
used in different places.

(iv) Cryptography.
From the 17th century at least, musical notation has occasionally been used as a secret code for conveying
messages. Even earlier than that, the association of notes with solmization syllables had occasionally
suggested their use as a pun, as for example in the use of an interpolated B♭ (= fa) replacing the syllable ‘fa’
in Du Fay’s name (GB-Ob Can.misc.213); this too is a type of cryptography, and has many later parallels.
Many musical codes equate single notes and note shapes arbitrarily with individual letters of the alphabet;
there are German examples from the 17th century and later (e.g. Kircher, Gaspar Schott, J.B. Friderici,
Michael Haydn), which are comparable to the system described in John Wilkins’s Mercury, or the Secret and
Swift Messenger (1641; see fig.107 and Krummel, 1975, p.128).

Page 180 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

John Wilkins’s musical cipher (‘Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger’; London, 1641)

Another type of cryptography is represented by the use of motifs comprising notes whose letter-names (or
letters derived from them, e.g. E♭ = Ger. Es = S) spell words (for example Bach’s and other composers’ use
of the motif B–A–C–H, that is B♭–A–C–B♮ in German terminology; Schumann’s ‘Abegg’ Variations, 1830;
Ligeti’s Fragment, 1961). These examples belong to the history of composition, however, rather than to
that of notation.

An ambitious ‘universal’ musical language was essayed by Jean-François Sudre (Langue universelle, 1867),
which was intended to express definite extra-musical ideas in a manner intelligible to all, of whatever
nationality. Motifs were associated with ideas (fig.108) and were communicable through performance,
notation, cheironomy and in other ways. Although the system achieved surprisingly wide acclaim in
France at the time, it soon sank into oblivion.

Page 181 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Combinations of notes available in notation (or otherwise) to express concepts; the resemblances between different combinations
are generally related to the resemblances between the ideas they represent (J.F. Sudre, ‘Langue universelle’; Paris, 1867)

Page 182 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Bibliography

After 1500: Theoretical sources

BurneyH

MersenneHU

WaltherML

A. Schlick: Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten (Speyer, 1511/R; Eng. trans. 1980)

A. Schlick: Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Lidlein uff die Orgeln und Lauten (Mainz, 1512/R)

P. Aaron: Thoscanello de la musica (Venice, 1523/R; rev. with suppl. as Toscanello in musica, 1529/R, 1539/R, 1562;
Eng. trans. collating all edns, 1970)

M. Agricola: Musica instrumentalis deudsch (Wittenberg, 1529/R, enlarged 5/ 1545); Eng. trans. 1994

M. Agricola: Musica figuralis deudsch (Wittenberg, 1532/R)

S. di Ganassi dal Fontego: Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice, 1535/R; Ger. trans., 1956; Eng. trans., 1959); ed. L. de
Paolis (Rome, 1991)

S. di Ganassi dal Fontego: Regola rubertina (Venice, 1542/R); ed. W. Eggers (Kassel, 1974); Eng. trans. in JVdGSA,
18 (1981), 13–66

D. Ortiz: Trattado de glosas sobre clausulas y otros generos de puntos en la musica de violones (Rome, 1553); ed. M.
Schneider (Kassel, 1967)

J. Bermudo: El libro llamado Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna, 1555/R)

H. Finck: Practica musica (Wittenberg, 1556, enlarged 2/1556/R)

L. Venegas de Henestrosa: Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, harpa y vihuela (Alcalá de Henares, 1557); ed. in MME, 2
(1944)

G. Zarlino: Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558/R, rev. 3/1573/R; Eng. trans. of pt.iii, 1968/R as The Art of
Counterpoint; Eng. trans. of pt.iv, 1983, as On the Modes)

T. de Santa María: Arte de tañer fantasia, assi para tecla como para vihuela (Valladolid, 1565/R; Eng. trans., 1991)

T. Morley: A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (London, 1597/R); ed. R.A. Harman (London, 1952,
2/1963/R)

G. Caccini: Le nuove musiche (Florence, 1601/2/R); ed. in RRMBE, 9 (1970)

F. Bianciardi: Breve regola per imparar’ a sonare sopra il basso (Siena, 1607); ed. R. Haas, Musikwissenschaftliche
Beiträge: Festschrift für Johannes Wolf, ed. W. Lott, H. Osthoff and W. Wolffheim (Berlin, 1929/R), 48ff, and V.
Gibelli (Milan, 1965)

P. Cerone: El melopeo y maestro (Naples, 1613/R)

Page 183 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

M. Praetorius: Syntagma musicum, 1 (Wolfenbüttel, 1614–15, 2/1615/R); 2 (Wolfenbüttel, 1618, 2/1619/R; Eng. trans.,
1986, 2/1991); 3 (Wolfenbüttel, 1618, 2/1619/R)

A. Kircher: Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650/R)

J. Playford: A (Breefe) Introduction to the Skill of Musick for Song and Violl (London, 1654, 12/1694/R)

C. Simpson: The Division-violist or, An Introduction to the Playing upon a Ground (London, 1659, rev. enlarged 2/1665/
R as Chelys minuritionum artificio exornata, 3/ 1712)

C. Simpson: The Principles of Practical Musick (London, 1665, rev., enlarged 2/1667 as A Compendium of Practical
Musick, 9/c1769–75); ed. P.J. Lord (Oxford, 1970)

G.M. Bononcini: Musico prattico (Bologna, 1673/R, 2/1677; Ger. trans., 1701)

T. Mace: Musick’s Monument (London, 1676); facs. with commentary and transcr. by A. Souris and J. Jacquot (Paris,
1958/R)

S. de Brossard: Dictionaire des termes grecs, latins et italiens (Paris, 1701; enlarged 2/1703/R, 3/1705 as Dictionaire de
musique, contenant une explication des termes grecs, latins, italiens et françois, ed. and trans. A. Gruber, 1982)

M.P. de Montéclair: Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la musique (Paris, 1709)

M.P. de Montéclair: Méthode facile pour apprendre à jouer du violon (Paris, 1711–12)

F. Couperin: L’art de toucher le clavecin (Paris, 1716, enlarged 2/1717/R); ed. M. Halford with Eng. trans. (New York,
1974)

G.P. Telemann: Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, oder geistliche Cantaten (Hamburg, 1725–6); ed. G. Fock in G.P.
Telemann Musikalische Werke, 2–5 (Kassel, 1953–7)

J.D. Heinichen: Der General-Bass in der Composition, oder: Neue und gründliche Anweisung (Dresden, 1728/R; partial
Eng. trans., 1966)

J.-P. Rameau: Dissertation sur les différentes méthodes d’accompagnement pour le clavecin, ou pour l’orgue (Paris,
1732/R)

M.P. de Montéclair: Principes de musique (Paris, 1736/R); Eng. trans. of section on ornamentation, RRMBE, xxix–xxx
(1978)

J.-J. Rousseau: Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique (Paris, 1742; repr. with Eng. trans. 1982)

J.-J. Rousseau: Dissertation sur la musique moderne (Paris, 1743)

F. Geminiani: Rules for Playing in a True Taste (London, ?1739, ?2/1745)

F. Geminiani: A Treatise of Good Taste in The Art of Musick (London, 1749/R)

F.W. Marpurg: Die Kunst das Clavier zu spielen (Berlin, 1750, rev., enlarged 4/1762/R)

F. Geminiani: The Art of Playing on the Violin (London, 1751/R); facs. ed. D.D. Boyden (London, 1952)

J.J. Quantz: Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752, 3/1789/R; Eng. trans., 1966)

Page 184 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

J. le Rond d’Alembert: Elémens de musique, théorique et pratique (Paris, 1752/R)

C.P.E. Bach: Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (Berlin, 1753–62/R; Eng. trans., 1949)

F.W. Marpurg: Anleitung zum Clavierspielen (Berlin, 1755, 2/1765/R)

F.W. Marpurg: Handbuch bey dem Generalbasse und der Composition (Berlin, 1755–8/R, suppl., 1760/R; 2/1762/R
[vol. i only]; ed. and trans. D.A. Sheldon, 1989)

J.F. Daube: General-Bass in drey Accorden (Leipzig, 1756)

L. Mozart: Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756/R, enlarged 3/1787/R; Eng. trans., 1939 [?1948],
2/1951/R)

F. Geminiani: The Art of Accompaniment (London, 1756–7)

J. Adlung: Anleitung zu der musikalischen Gelahrtheit (Erfurt, 1758/R, 2/1783)

M. Corrette: Le parfait maître à chanter (Paris, 1758, enlarged 2/1782)

N. Pasquali: The Art of Fingering the Harpsichord (Edinburgh, ?1760)

J.-P. Rameau: Code de musique pratique, ou Méthodes pour apprendre la musique (Paris, 1760/R)

J. Lacassagne: Traité général des élémens du chant (Paris, 1766/R)

J. Lacassagne: L’uni-cléfier musical (Paris, 1768)

J.P. Kirnberger: Grundsätze des Generalbasses als erste Linien zur Composition (Berlin, 1781/R)

A.E.M. Grétry: Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique (Paris, 1789, enlarged 2/1797/R; part trans. in StrunkSR1)

D.G. Türk: Clavierschule, oder Anweisung zum Clavierspielen für Lehrer und Lernende (Leipzig and Halle, 1789,
enlarged 2/1802/R; Eng. trans., 1982)

T. Busby: A Complete Dictionary of Music (London, c1801, 6/1827)

M. Clementi: Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Piano Forte (London, 1801/R, rev. 11/ 1826)

H.C. Koch: Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt, 1802/R)

J.-J. de Momigny: Cours complet d’harmonie et de composition (Paris, 1803–6, 2/1808)

J.W. Callcott: A Musical Grammar (London, 1806, ?5/1883)

J.N. Hummel: Ausführlich theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Piano-forte-Spiel, vom ersten Elementar-Unterrichte
an bis zur vollkommensten Ausbildung (Vienna, 1828, 2/1838; Eng. trans. 1829)

C. Czerny: Vollständige theoretisch-praktische Pianoforte-Schule, op.500, (1838–9, Eng. trans., 1839; ed. P. Badura-
Skoda, 1963)

M. Hauptmann: Die Natur der Harmonik und Metrik (Leipzig, 1853; Eng. trans., 1888)

H. von Helmholtz: Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen (Brunswick, 1862; Eng. trans. by A.J. Ellis, 1875, 6/1948 as
On the Sensations of Tone)
Page 185 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

M. Lussy: Traité de l’expression musicale (Paris, 1874, 8/1904; Eng. trans., 1885)

H. Riemann: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik (Hamburg, 1884)

H. Riemann: System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik (Leipzig, 1903)

S. Macpherson: Form in Music (London, 1908; repr. with appx 1912, 2/1915)

S. Macpherson: Studies in Phrasing and Form (London, 1911, 2/1932)

After 1500: Studies

H. Bellermann: Die Mensuralnoten und Taktzeichen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1858, 2/1906, enlarged
4/1963 ed. H. Husmann)

H. Riemann: Studien zur Geschichte der Notenschrift (Leipzig, 1878/R)

H. Riemann: Die Entwickelung unserer Notenschrift (Leipzig, 1881)

H. Riemann: ‘Notenschrift und Notendruck: bibliographisch-typographische Studie’, Festschrift zur 50 jährigen

Jubelfeier des Bestehens der Firma C.G. Röder (Leipzig, 1896), appx, 1–88

C.F.A. Williams: The Story of Notation (London and New York, 1903/R)

E. Praetorius: Die Mensuraltheorie des Franchinus Gafurius und der folgenden Zeit bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts
(Leipzig, 1905/R)

J. Hautstont: Notation musicale autonome (Paris, 1907)

H. Riemann: Kompendium der Notenschriftkunde, Kirchenmusik, iv–v, ed. K. Weinmann (Regensburg, 1910)

IMusSCRIV: London 1911 [incl. several articles relating to notation]

J. Wolf: Handbuch der Notationskunde (Leipzig, 1913–19/R)

K.W. Gehrkeng: Musical Notation and Terminology (New York, 1914)

A.E. Hull: Modern Harmony: its Explanation and Application (London, 1914)

A. Dolmetsch: The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Revealed by Contemporary
Evidence (London, 1915, 2/1944/R)

R. Schwartz: ‘Zur Partitur im 16. Jahrhundert’, AMw, 2 (1920), 73–8

H. Jacoby: ‘Grundlagen einer schöpferischen Musikerziehung’, Die Tat, 13 (Jena, 1921–2), 889–909; pubd separately
(Karlsruhe, 1922)

J. Wolf: Musikalische Schrifttafeln (Leipzig, 1922–3, 2/1927)

J. Wolf: Die Tonschriften (Breslau, 1924)

J. Wörsching: ‘Neunhundert Jahre Notenschrift’, Die Musik, 18 (1925–6), 884–9

L. Schrade: ‘Das Problem der Lautentabulatur-Übertragung’, ZMw, 14 (1931–2), 357–63

Page 186 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

O. Gombosi: ‘Bemerkungen zur Lautentabulatur-Frage’, ZMw, 16 (1934), 497–8

A. Jacob: Musical Handwriting (London, 1937, 2/1947)

J.S. Levitan: ‘Ockeghem’s Clefless Compositions’, MQ, 23 (1937), 440–64

W. Georgii: Klaviermusik (Zurich, 1941, 3/1956) [with numerous remarks on notation]

W. Apel: The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA, 1942, rev. 5/1961; Ger. trans., rev., 1970), pts.i, ii

W. Tappolet: La notation musicale et son influence sur la pratique de la musique du moyen âge à nos jours (Neuchâtel,
1947)

What is Klavarskribo?, ed. Klavarscribo Institute (Slikkerveer, 1947)

J. Chailley: Les notations musicales nouvelles (Paris, 1950)

D.P. Walker: ‘Some Aspects and Problems of Musique Mesurée à l’Antique: the Rhythm and Notation of Musique
Mesurée’, MD, 4 (1950), 163–86

H.A. Chambers: Musical Manuscript (London, 1951) [reviews in MMR, 81 (1951), 273 only, and MT, 92 (1951), 551–2]

‘A Proposed Musical Notation’, Journal of the Franklin Institute, 253 (Feb 1952), 125–43 [with discussions by E.
Ormandy, W. Hinrichsen, E.H. Ezerman, H. Diedrichs, P. Hindemith, J.L. Bawden and P. Moon]

S. Babitz: ‘A Problem of Rhythm in Baroque Music’, MQ, 38 (1952), 533–65

H. Cole: ‘Some Modern Tendencies in Notation’, ML, 33 (1952), 243–9

V. Godjevatz: ‘New Musical Notation’, Musical Courier (1 Nov 1952) 28 only

A.D. Fokker: ‘De behoefte aan grotere nauwkeurigheid in de muzikale notatie der toonhoogte’, Mens en melodie, 8
(1953), 114–16

F. Rothschild: The Lost Tradition in Music, 1: Rhythm and Tempo in J.S. Bach’s Time (London, 1953); 2: Musical
Performance in the Times of Mozart and Beethoven (London and New York, 1961) [see also reviews: W. Emery, ML, 34
(1953), 251–64, and reply, 35 (1954), 80–88; A. Mendel, MQ, 39 (1953), 617–30; P.H. Lang, MQ, 40 (1954), 50–55]

R.T. Dart: The Interpretation of Music (London, 1954, 4/1967)

T. Feige: ‘Das Siebenliniensysteme: eine chromatische Notenschrift’, NZM, 116 (1955), 151–4

F. Noske: ‘Two Problems in Seventeenth Century Notation (Constantijn Huygens’ “Pathodia sacra et profana”, 1647)’,
AcM, 27 (1955), 113–20; 28 (1956), 55 only

E. Winternitz: Musical Autographs from Monteverdi to Hindemith (Princeton, 1955, enlarged 2/1965)

A. Hartmann: ‘Anregungen zu einer Reform der Notenschrift’, NZM, 118 (1956), 50–51, 118–19

H.M. Johnson: How to Write Music Manuscript (New York, 1956)

A.B. Barksdale: The Printed Note (Toledo, OH, 1957)

C. Seeger: ‘Toward a Universal Music Sound-writing for Musicology’, JIFMC, 9 (1957), 63–6

Page 187 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

R. Fawcett: Equiton (Zurich, 1958)

C. Seeger: ‘Prescriptive and Descriptive Music-writing’, MQ, 44 (1958), 184–95

J.M. Barbour: ‘Unusual Brass Notation in the Eighteenth Century’, Brass Quarterly, 2 (1959), 139–46

G.L. Houle: The Musical Measure as Discussed by Theorists from 1650 to 1800 (diss., Stanford U., 1960)

E.E. Lowinsky: ‘Early Scores in Manuscript’, JAMS, 13 (1960), 126–71

G. Noll: Untersuchungen über die musikerzieherische Bedeutung Jean-Jacques Rousseaus und seiner Ideen (diss.,
Humboldt U., Berlin, 1960)

K. Stockhausen: ‘Musik und Graphik’, Darmstädter Beiträge zur neuen Musik, 3 (1960), 5–25

L. Boehm: Modern Music Notation (New York, 1961)

F. Brenn: ‘Equiton’, SMz, 101 (1961), no.2, 78–87; no.3, p.23–7

C. Cardew: ‘Notation – Interpretation’, Tempo, no.58 (1961), 21–33

N. Cazden: ‘Forum’, JMT, 5 (1961), 113–28

C. Dahlhaus: ‘Zur Entstehung des modernen Taktsystems im 17. Jahrhundert’, AMw, 18 (1961), 223–40

S. Hermelink: ‘Die Tabula compositoria’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, ed. E. Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 221–30

K. Jeppesen: ‘Et par notationstekniske problemer i det 16. århundredes musik og nogle dertil knyttede jagttagelser
(taktindelling–partitur)’, STMf, 43 (1961), 171–93

C. Johannis: Notenschrifteform (Stuttgart, 1961)

H. Otte: ‘Neue Notation und ihre Folgen’, Melos, 28 (1961), 76–8

W. Steffens: ‘Entwurf einer abstrakt-temperierten Notenschrift’, NZM, 122 (1961), 351–5

E. Karkoschka: ‘Ich habe mit Equiton komponiert’, Melos, 29 (1962), 232–9

M. Schuler: ‘Punctum, Suspirium und Bindebogen: ein Notationsproblem der deutschen Orgeltabulatur des 15. und
16. Jahrhunderts’, Mf, 15 (1962), 257–60

R.T. Dart, W. Emery and C. Morris: Editing Early Music: Notes on the Preparation of Printer’s Copy (London, 1963)

A. Donato: Preparing Music Manuscript (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1963)

R. Donington: The Interpretation of Early Music (London, 1963, rev. 3/1974) [with much detail about notational
problems]

K. Stone: ‘Problems and Methods of Notation’, PNM, 1/2 (1963), 9–31

A. Tyson: The Authentic English Editions of Beethoven (London, 1963), 30 [with passing comment on early 19th-
century English printed notation]

Notation neuer Musik: Darmstadt 1964 [incl.: C. Dahlhaus: ‘Notenschrift heute’, 9–34; G. Ligeti: ‘Neue Notation:
Kommunikationsmittel oder Selbstzweck’, 35–50; R. Haubenstock-Ramati: ‘Notation: Material und Form’, 51–4; M.
Page 188 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

Kagel: ‘Komposition – Notation – Interpretation’, 55–63; E. Brown: ‘Notation und Ausführung neuer Musik’, 64–84; A.
Kontarsky: ‘Notationen für Klavier’, 92–109; C. Caskel: ‘Notationen für Schlagzeug’, 110–16 (Eng. trans. in Percussionist,
viii (1971), 80–84); see also reviews by W.-E. von Lewinski, Musica, 20 (1966), 197–8, and E. Karkoschka, Melos, 33
(1966), 76–85]

B.S. Brook and M. Gould: ‘Notating Music with Ordinary Typewriter Characters (A Plaine and Easie Code System for
Musicke)’, FAM, 11 (1964), 142–59

G. von Dadelsen: ‘Über das Wechselspiel von Musik und Notation’, Festschrift Walter Gerstenberg, ed. G. von
Dadelsen and A. Holschneider (Wolfenbüttel, 1964), 17–25

E. Lin: ‘The Notation for Continuous Gradual Change of Pitch’, JIFMC, 16 (1964), 107–8

W.T. Marrocco: ‘The Notation in American Sacred Music Collections’, AcM, 36 (1964), 136–42

H. Mayer: ‘Musikale Grafica (Actiescrift)’, Mens en melodie, 18 (1964), 276–80

G. Read: Music Notation (Boston, MA, 1964, 2/1969, rev. 3/1971)

M.D. Hastings: ‘Will “Klavarscribo” Work? New Notation Discussed at I.S.M. Conference’, MO, 88 (1965), 275 only

C.M. Fuller: ‘A Music Notation Based on E and G’, JRME, 14 (1966), 193–6

H. Grüss: ‘Über Notation und Tempo einiger Werke S. Scheidts und M. Praetorius’, DJbM, 11 (1966), 72–83

E. Karkoschka: Das Schriftbild der neuen Musik (Celle, 1966; Eng. trans., 1972) [see also review by K. Stone, PNM, v/2
(1966–7), 146–54]

B.L. Linger: An Experimental Study of Durational Notation (diss., Florida State U., 1966)

J. Mainka: ‘Klangaufnahme und musikalisches Schriftzeichen–Gedanken zu Notation und Tradition in der Moderne’,
GfMKB, Leipzig 1966, 332–9

Standard Music Engraving Practice, ed. Music Publishers Association (New York, 1966)

G.A. O’Conner: ‘Prevailing Trends in Contemporary Percussion Notation’, Percussionist, 3/4 (1966), 61–74

‘Percussive Arts Society: Project on Terminology and Notation of Percussion Instruments’, Percussionist, 3/2–3 (1966),
47–53

L. Benke: ‘Javaslat a tizenkétfokú hangrendszer új írásmódjára’ [Proposal for a new notational system for
dodecaphonic music], Magyar zene, 8 (1967), 401–7

J. Chailley: La musique et le signe (Lausanne and Paris, 1967)

K. Dorfmüller: Studien zur Lautenmusik in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Tutzing, 1967)

E. Ghent: ‘Programmed Signals to Performers’, PNM, 6/1 (1967), 96–106

M. Gould: ‘A Keypunchable Notation for the Liber Usualis’, Elektronische Datenverarbeitung, ed. H. Heckmann
(Regensburg, 1967), 25–40

R. Meylan: ‘Symbolisierung einer Melodie auf Lochkarten’, Elektronische Datenverarbeitung, ed. H. Heckmann
(Regensburg, 1967), 21–4

Page 189 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

W. Reckziegel: ‘Die Notenschrift im Computer dargestellt’, SM, 9 (1967), 395–406

C.A. Rosenthal: Practical Guide to Music Notation for Composers, Arrangers, and Editors (New York, 1967)

K. Roschitz: ‘New Methods of Musical Notation’, Musical Austria, 3/3 (1967)

K. Roschitz: ‘Zur Notation neuer Musik: Anmerkungen über Grundsätze, Methoden, Zeichen’, ÖMz, 20 (1967), 189–
205

W. Tappolet: Notenschrift und Musizieren: das Problem ihrer Beziehungen vom Frühmittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert
(Berlin, 1967)

T.E. Warner: An Annotated Bibliography of Woodwind Instruction Books, 1600–1830 (Detroit, 1967)

G. Dorfles: ‘Interferenze tra musica e pittura e la nuova notazione musicale’, Quaderni della rassegna musicale, 4
(1968), 1–24

J. Evarts: ’The New Musical Notation – a Graphic Art?’, Leonardo, 1 (1968), 405–12

B. Fennelly: A Descriptive Notation for Electronic Music (diss., Yale U., 1968)

M.V. Mathews and L. Rosler: ‘Graphical Language for the Scores of Computer-Generated Sounds’, PNM, 6/2 (1968),
92–118

A. Mendel: ‘Some Ambiguities of the Mensural System’, Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. H.S.
Powers (Princeton, NJ, 1968/R), 137–60

K. Roschitz: ‘Aspekte der Notation neuer Musik’, Wort und Wahrheit, 23 (1968), 131–9

L. Sitsky: ‘Ferruccio Busoni’s Attempt at an Organic Notation for the Pianoforte and a Practical Adaptation of it’, MR,
29 (1968), 27–34

P. Mies: ‘Einige allgemeine und spezielle Beispiele zu Beethovens Notation’, BeJb 1969, 214–24

K. Roschitz: ‘Über neue Formen musikalischer Notation’, Beiträge 1968/69 (Kassel, 1969), 62–6

O. Baldwin and T. Wilson: ‘Musick Advanced and Vindicated’, MT, 111 (1970), 148–50

S. Bauer-Mengelberg: ‘The Ford–Columbia Input Language’, Musicology and the Computer, ed. B.S. Brook (New
York, 1970), 48–52

B.S. Brook, ed.: Musicology and the Computer (New York, 1970) [incl. ‘The Plaine and Easie Code’, 53–6]

K. Haller: Partituranordnung und musikalischer Satz (Tutzing, 1970)

D.S. Prerau: Computer Pattern Recognition of Standard Engraved Music Notation (diss., Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1970)

T. Ross: The Art of Music Engraving and Processing (Miami, 1970)

J. Wenker: ‘A Computer Oriented Music Notation Including Ethnomusicological Symbols’, Musicology and the
Computer, ed. B.S. Brook (New York, 1970), 91–129

Page 190 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

C. Wolff: ‘Arten der Mensuralnotation im 15. Jahrhundert und die Anfänge der Orgeltabulatur’, GfMKB, Bonn 1970,
609–13

D. Cantor: ‘A Computer Program that Accepts Common Musical Notation’, Computers and the Humanities, 6 (1971),
103–9

T.G. Georgiades, ed.: Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins (Kassel, 1971) [incl. articles on
notational problems, facsimiles etc.]

M. Hood: The Ethnomusicologist (Los Angeles, 1971)

E. Karkoschka: ‘Eine Hörpartitur elektronischer Musik’, Melos, 38 (1971), 468–75

E. Karkoschka: ‘Polens isomorphe Notation’, Melos, 38 (1971), 230–34

P. Nitsche: ‘Transponierte Notation bei Wagner: zum Verhältnis von Notation und Instrument’, Richard Wagner: Werk
und Wirkung, ed. C. Dahlhaus (Regensburg, 1971), 221–36

M. Vinquist and N. Zaslaw, eds.: Performance Practice: a Bibliography (New York, 1971) [repr. from CMc (1969), no.
8, pp.5–96; (1970), no.10, p.144]; suppls., CMc (1971), no.12, p.129; (1973), no.15, p.126

R. Kowal: ‘New Jazz and some Problems of its Notation: Exemplified in the Scores of Polish Jazz Composers’,
Jazzforschung, 3–4 (1971–2), 180–93

J.A. Bank: Tactus, Tempo and Notation in Mensural Music from the 13th to the 17th Century (Amsterdam, 1972)

M. Bent: ‘Musica recta and musica ficta’, MD, 26 (1972), 73–100

P. Cooke: ‘Problems of Notating Pibroch: a Study of “Maol Donn”’, Scottish Studies, 16 (1972), 41–59

F. Goebels: ‘Gestalt und Gestaltung musikalischer Grafik’, Melos, 39 (1972), 23–34

A. Hughes: Manuscript Accidentals: Ficta in Focus, 1350–1450, MSD, 27 (1972)

A. Logothetis: ‘Karmadharmadrama in graphischer Notation’, ÖMz, 27 (1972), 541–6

H. Besseler and P. Gülke: Schriftbild der mehrstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, iii/5 (Leipzig, 1973)

Y. Bukspan: Towards a New System of Music Notation (Tel-Aviv, 1973)

E. Kilgore: ‘Time Signatures of the Well-tempered Clavier: their Place in Notational History’, Bach, 4/2 (1973), 3–16

A.M. Locatelli de Pérgamo: La notación de la música contemporánea (Buenos Aires, 1973)

C. Roemer: The Art of Music Copying (Sherman Oaks, CA, 1973)

A. Szentkirályi: ‘An Attempt to Modernize Notation’, MR, 34 (1973), 100–23

H. Cole: Sounds and Signs: Aspects of Musical Notation (London, 1974)

New Musical Notation: Ghent 1974 [Interface, 4/1 (1975)]

C. Brandt and C. Roemer: Standardized Chord Symbol Notation (Sherman Oaks, CA, 1975)

I. Darreg: ‘Xenharmonic Bulletin, No.vi: the Notation Question’, Xenharmonikôn, 4 (1975)

Page 191 of 193
Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

H. Ferguson: Keyboard Interpretation from the 14th to the 19th Century: an Introduction (London,1975)

D.W. Krummel: English Music Printing 1553–1700 (London, 1975)

H. Risatti: New Music Vocabulary: a Guide to Notational Signs for Contemporary Music (Urbana, IL, 1975)

B. Boretz and E.T. Cone, eds.: Perspectives on Notation and Performance (New York, 1976)

I. Darreg: ‘Xenharmonic Bulletin, No.ix: the Calmer Mood’, Xenharmonikôn, 7–8 (1979)

D. Moroney: ‘The Performance of Unmeasured Harpsichord Preludes’, EMc, 4 (1976), 143–51

Musi-graphies (Paris, 1977) [exhibition catalogue]

G. Read: Modern Rhythmic Notation (Bloomington, IN, 1978)

C. Page: ‘French Lute Tablature in the 14th Century’, EMc, 8 (1980), 488–92

K. Stone: Music Notation in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1980)

C. Page: ‘The 15th-Century Lute: New and Neglected Sources’, EMc, 9 (1981), 11–21

R. Rastall: The Notation of Western Music (London, 1983; rev. 2/1998)

R. Black: ‘Contemporary Notation and Performances Practice: Three Difficulties’, PNM, 22 (1983–4), 117–46

M. Bent: ‘Diatonic ficta’, EMH, 4 (1984), 1–48

D.A. Byrd: Music Notation by computer (diss., Indiana U., 1984)

L. Gariépy and J. Décarie: ‘A System of Notation for Electro-acoustic Music’, Interface, 13 (1984), 1–74

H. Davies, J. Lawson and M. Regan: Eye Music: the Graphic Art of New Musical Notation (London, 1986) [exhibition
catalogue]

D. Guaccero: ‘L’aléa: du son au signe graphique’, Cahiers du CIREM, 18–19 (1990–91), 9–24

E. Blackwood and others: ‘How do you Notate your Music?’, PNM, 29 (1991), 189–96

A.M.B. Berger: Mensuration and Proportion Signs: Origins and Evolution (Oxford, 1993)

R. DeFord: ‘Tempo Relationships between Duple and Triple Time in the Sixteenth Century’, EMH, 14 (1995), 1–51

M. Bent: ‘The Early Use of the Sign 𝇉’, EMc, 24 (1996), 199–225

For further bibliography see Articulation and phrasing; Articulation marks; Bow; Chiavette; Computers and music;
Continuo; Cryptography, musical; Dotted rhythms; Editing; Expression; Eye music; Fingering; Improvisation; Musica
ficta; Notes inégales; Ornaments; Performing practice; Printing and publishing of music; Proportional notation; Rhythm;
Score; Tablature; Tempo and expression marks and Theory, theorists.

Page 192 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024

Notation

More on this topic

Notation (jazz) <http://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/
omo-9781561592630-e-2000333500> in Oxford Music Online <http://oxfordmusiconline.com>

Page 193 of 193

Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an
individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy).

Subscriber: Universidad de los Andes Sistema de Bibliotecas; date: 27 March 2024