Notation

Modern musical notation began in the Roman Catholic Church, because monks sought to transcribe holy songs on to parchment. The series of dots and strokes could not express pitch or time, nevertheless was an aide-mémoire for those who currently knew the tune.

A method for naming musical notes has been introduced circa 1000 AD by the wise monk Guido d'Arezzo. This method has survived the passage of time and is referred to as tonic sol-fa right up until today. The most essential factor relating to this musical development is the fact that in those days it used six musical notes which are utilized in the major scale even today. Italy and France and other like Countries in Europe are now using these tonic sol-fa names as names for musical notes, rather than the alphabetical characters, however I think that this particular change only has taken place within the last two hundred years approximately.

To deal with the issue of exact pitch, a staff was introduced composed initially of a single horizontal line, but this became progressively extended till a system of four similar, horizontal lines was standardised. The up and down positions of every mark on the staff indicated which pitch or pitches this symbolized (pitches have been based on a musical mode . Although the four-line staff has remained available right up until the present day regarding plainchant, for other forms of music, staffs with differing numbers of lines have been used at various periods and places for various instruments. The modern five-line staff was first implemented in France and became almost universal by the 16th century (although the utilization of staffs along with other quantities of lines was still widespread well to the 17th century).

There are two basic approaches to notating music. Tablature (such as guitar chord diagrams) represents the actions a musician is to take (particularly, showing exactly where to put the fingers to make a given sound). Symbolic notation describes the sounds by themselves and consists of methods that vary from assigning pitches various letters of the alphabet in order to representing a given combination of notes by a graphic sign. The Western notation system brings together rhythmic notation (the appearance of a note indicates its duration) along with pitch notation (the line or space on a staff in which a note is positioned indicates its pitch). Therefore, just one symbol displays equally pitch and duration, and a string of these symbols notates both melody and rhythm.

The Book of Psalms contains musical notations that, though not really comprehended today, were used to chant the Psalms. In historical Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Phoenicia and elsewhere musical instruments as well as engravings of the identical with musicians and cantors, appear on decorationed walls and ancient monuments of temples, palaces and tombs.

How to write the modulations of the voice had been quite an additional issue. And here we find that ancient musical notation appears obviously to have developed into two branches, the difference between them depending on the taste or skills of different nations with regard to integrating into their music sounds of fixed pitch, or ornaments and graces which may be used in any kind of pitch based on the reciter's wish or requirements. At once the fact suggests itself to us that flutes or wind instruments would have a tendency to fix distinct pitch, whilst harps and guitars, owing to the convenience with which their accordatura or system of tuning could be modified, would be available for a constantly changing normal pitch,?or diapason, as we some-what improperly term it.