Musical notation
Music notation is a system of writing for music. In music for
ensembles, a
score shows music for all players together, while
parts contain only the music played by an individual musician. A score can be constructed (laboriously) from a complete set of parts and vice versa.
Present day standard music notation is based on a five-line
staff. Pitch is shown by placement of notes on the staff (modified by additional symbols called
sharps and
flats), and duration is shown with different note shapes and additional symbols such as ties.
There is some evidence that a kind of musical notation was practiced by the Egyptians from the
3rd millennium BC and by others in
Asia since ancient times.
India in particular has had a long history of sophisticated musical notation. Musical treatises have appeared throughout Indian history, going all the way back to the
Vedas composed from around
1500 BC to
500 BC. Indian musical notation known as
sawr lipi has existed in India from the ancient
Vedic era upto the modern era.
The Indian scholar and musical theorist
Pingala (c.
3rd century BC), in his
Chanda Sutra, devised the first scientific form of musical notation by using a
binary numeral system to represent long and short syllables to classify 16 different meters of four syllables. He also used the
meru-prastara (
Pascal's triangle) to represent the different combinations and variations of sounds, and used the
binomial theorem to detect the quality of the
metres. He used this
binary code as a form of musical notation in the same way that
Morse code was later used as a form of alphabetic notation over 2000 years later.
Ancient Greece also had a sophisticated form of musical notation, which was in use from at least the
6th century BC until approximately the
4th century AD; many fragments of compositions using this notation survive. The notation consists of symbols placed above text syllables. An example of a complete composition â€" indeed the
only surviving complete composition using this notation â€" is the
Seikilos epitaph, which has been variously dated between the
2nd century BC to the
1st century AD. The
Delphic Hymns, dated to the 2nd century BC, also use this notation, but they are not completely preserved (see photograph). Knowledge of the ancient Greek notation was lost around the time of the
fall of the Roman Empire.
|
Photograph of the original stone at Delphi containing the second of the two hymns to Apollo. The music notation is the line of occasional symbols above the main, uninterrupted line of Greek lettering. |
Scholar and music theorist
Isidore of Seville, writing in the early
7th century, famously remarked that it was impossible to notate music. By the middle of the
9th century, however, a form of notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe for
Gregorian chant, using symbols known as
neumes; the earliest surviving musical notation of this type is in the
Musica disciplina of
Aurelian of Réôme, from about
850. There are scattered survivals from the
Iberian peninsula before this time of a type of notation known as
Visigothic neumes, but its few surviving fragments have not yet been deciphered.
Other types of notation date from the
10th century in
China and
Japan. In
East Asia, and elsewhere in Asia, music was notated with the use of characters for sounds. Rhythmic motifs could also be prescribed in a similar way. In Europe on the other hand, the foundations were laid for a purely symbolic notation of music, which does not seem to have existed anywhere else except India.
The founder of what is now considered the standard music stave was
Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from 995-1050 A.D. His revolutionary method, combining a 4 line stave with the first form of notes known as 'neumes', eventually paved the way to the five line stave which was introduced in the 14th century. Guido D'Arezzo's achievements paved the way for the modern form of written music, music books and the modern concept of a
composer.
Elements of the staff
A staff is generally presented with a
clef, which indicates the particular range of pitches encompassed by the staff. A
treble clef placed at the beginning of a line of music indicates that the lowest line of the staff represents the note E above
middle C, while the highest line represents the note F one
octave higher. Other common clefs include the
bass clef (second G below middle C up to A below middle C),
alto clef (F below middle C to G above middle C) and
tenor clef (D below middle C to E above middle C). These last two clefs are examples of
C clefs, in which the line pointed to by the clef should beinterpreted as a middle C. In a similar fashion, the treble clef points to a G and the bass clef points to an F.
In early music, the clef was written as a letter and its location on the staff was chosen by the writer. The treble clef and bass clef used today are stylized versions of the letters G and F, respectively. Their locations are now standardized. Unusual clefs are used for certain requirements, such as tenor parts in choral music.
Following the clef, the
key signature on a staff indicates the
key of the piece by specifying certain notes to be held flat or sharp throughout the piece, unless otherwise indicated. The key signature is presented in the order of the
circle of fifths, with flats B-E-A-D-G-C-F and sharps in the opposite order, F-C-G-D-A-E-B.
Following the key signature is the
time signature. Measures mark off sections of the piece of equal duration (with measure lines), and time signatures specify what that duration is. A time signature of 4/4, for example, specifies that each measure will have four
quarter notes worth of time per measure, the top numeral functioning as a cardinal number and the bottom numeral functioning as a code for quarter note. The same music could theoretically be marked off in measures of any duration without affecting the sound, but we will generally choose a duration that reflects the prevailing grouping. Thus a time signature of 4/4 also implies (but only implies) groupings of four beats or pulses. A time signature of 2/2 specifies that each measure will last two half notes worth of time and implies groupings of two.
Notes representing a pitch outside of the scope of the five line staff can be represented using
leger lines, which provide a single note with additional lines and spaces. Octave (8va) notation is used, particularly for keyboard music, where notes are substantially above or below the staff.
Multiple staves can be grouped together to form a
staff system. A system is used where two staves are required to cover the range of the instrument (as with a keyboard instrument), or where multiple related instruments are played (as with three violin parts on a score). A score for ensemble music includes multiple systems, as does most organ music (where the pedals are written as a separate system).
Various directions to the player regarding matters such as
tempo and
dynamics are added above or below the staff, often in
Italian (sometimes abbreviated). For vocal music, lyrics are written.
Here is a sample illustrating some common musical notation.
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Sample of common musical notation (J.S. Bach's Fuga a 3 Voci, typeset in LilyPond. |
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Audiobutton.png |
Listen to this pieceDevelopment of music notation
The earliest known music notation was encoded in
cuneiform script in the region of
Mesopotamia, with surviving examples dating as far back as the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. Later civilizations, most notably that of Ancient Greece, developed their own forms of notation, which were often written on sheets or scrolls of
papyrus.
The ancestors of modern symbolic music notation originated in the
Catholic church, as
monks developed methods to put
plainchant (sacred songs) to paper. The earliest of these ancestral systems, from the
8th century, did not originally utilise a staff, and used
neum (or
neuma or
pneuma), a system of dots and strokes that were placed above the text. Although capable of expressing considerable musical complexity, they could not exactly express pitch or time and served mainly as a reminder to one who already knew the tune, rather than a means by which one who had never heard the tune could sing it exactly at sight.
To address the issue of exact pitch, a staff was introduced consisting originally of a single horizontal line, but this wasprogressively extended until a system of four parallel, horizontal lines was standardised on. The vertical positions of each markon the staff indicated which pitch or pitches it represented (pitches were derived from a
musical mode, or
key).Although the 4-line staff has remained in use until the present day for plainchant, for other types of music, staffs with differingnumbers of lines have been used at various times and places for various instruments. The modern system of a universal standard5-line staff was first adopted in
France, and became widely used by the 16th century (although the use of staffs with othernumbers of lines was still widespread well into the
17th century).
Because the
neum system arose from the need to notate songs, exact timing was initially not a particular issue as the music wouldgenerally follow the natural rhythms of the
Latin language. However, by the
10th century a system of representing up to fournote lengths had been developed. These lengths were relative rather than absolute, and depended on the duration of theneighboring notes. It was not until the
14th century that something like the present system of fixed note lengths arose. Startingin the
15th century, vertical
bar lines were used to divide the staff into sections. These did not initially divide the musicinto measures of equal length (as most music then featured far fewer regular rhythmic patterns than in later periods), but appear to have been introducedas an aid to the eye for "lining up" notes on different staves that were to be played or sung at the same time. The use of regularmeasures became commonplace by the end of the
17th century.
It is worth noting that standard notation was originally developed for use with voice. Proponents of other systems claim thatstandard notation is less than ideally suited to instrumental music.
Symbols used in modern musical notation
Notes (in decreasing length)> | Notes |
| | Rests (in decreasing length) |  | Rests |
|
| Clefs |  | Clefs |
|
In Britain, the note lengths are considered in a different way.
Semibreve: 4,
Minim: 2,
Crochet: 1,
Quaver: 1/2,
Semiquaver: 1/4.
This means, that in a 4/4 bar, there is 1 Semibreve in a bar, or 4 Crochets, 8 Quavers etc.
See also:
Da capo,
Dal Segno,
Coda,
Fermata,
Accent.
Terms for note durations in American and British English:
In U.S. parlance,
semibreve and
minimare used only in discussions of early music;
whole note and
half note are used in other contexts.The
breve is rarely used in baroque and later eras. When it appears, it is written as oo or |O|.
Effects
According to
Richard Middleton (1990, p.104-6), and also Philip Tagg (1979, p.28-32), musicology and to a degree European-influenced musical practice suffer from a 'notational centricity', "a methodology slanted by the characteristics of notation."
"Musicological methods tend to foreground those musical parameters which can be easily notated...they tend to neglect or have difficulty with parameters which are not easily notated", such as happens in
Fred Lerdahl's work. "Notation-centric training induces particular forms of
listening, and these then tend to be applied to
all sorts of music, appropriately or not."
Notational centricity also encourages "reification: the score comes to be seen as 'the music', or perhaps the music in an ideal form."
Figured bass
Figured bass notation originated in
baroque basso continuo parts. It is also used extensively in
accordion notation, and for jazz. For continuo and jazz parts, it implies improvisation by the performer; for accordion, it is used to notate the bass button to be used.
Shape note
The shape note system is found in some church hymnals, sheet music, and song books, especially in the
American south. Instead of the customary elliptical note head, note heads of various shapes are used to show the position of the note on the major scale.
Sacred Harp is one of the most popular tune books using shape notes.
Popular music
Fake books (and the
Real Books) utilize standard notation, but with key signatures only on the beginning stave, for the melodic line with letter notation for chord names,
chord symbols, written above.
Improvisation is implied and this system is used for
jazz and
popular music. See
Berklee College of Music.
Letter notation
The notes of the 12-tone scale can be written by their letter names A-G, possibly with a trailing sharp or flat symbol, such as A♯ or B♭. This is the most common way of specifying a note in speech or in written text.
Letter notation is the most common way of indicating chords for accompaniment, such as
guitar chords, for example B♭7. The bass note may be specified after a /, for example C/G is a C major chord with a G bass.
Where a
capo is indicated, there is little standardisation. For example, after
capot 3, most music sheets will write A to indicate a C chord, that is, they give the chord
shape rather than its pitch, but some specify it as C, others give two lines, either the C on top and the A on the bottom or vice versa. A few even use the /, writing C/A or A/C, but this notation is more commonly used for specifying a bass note and will confuse most guitarists.
Note names can also be used for indicating keys and even writing out tunes. In all of these uses notes must be named for their
diatonic functionality. For example, in the key of D major, it is not generally correct to specify G♭ as a melodic note, although its pitch may be the same as F♯.
Note names are also used for specifying the natural scale of a
transposing instrument such as a
clarinet,
trumpet or
saxophone. The note names used are conventional, for example a clarinet is said to be in B♭ or A♭ (the two most common registers), never in A♯ and G♯, while an
alto flute is in G.
Note names can also be qualified to indicate the octave in which they are sounded. There are several schemes for this, the most common being
scientific pitch notation. Scientific pitch notation is often used to specify the range of an instrument. Again, the names used are arbitrary or conventional.
Tonic Sol-fa is a type of notation using the initial letters of solfege.
ABC Notation
The
abc notation is closely related to letter notation, but is intended for representing music in on-line computerdatabases. Music is entered as formatted ASCII text with an ordinary text editor. In addition to letters, additional characters are used toindicate key signature, durations, slurring, repeats, parts, chords, etc. A variety of programs exist to render this notation as graphical scores on different computer platforms and in different graphics file formats. ABC notation is an international standard, is easy to type, compact in size and can be stored and emailed easily. Many on-line databases of music in ABC format exist on the web.
Solfege
Solfege is a way of assigning syllables to names of the musical scale. In order, they are today:
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do (for the octave). Another common variation is:
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do.These functional names of the musical notes were introduced by
Guido of Arezzo (c.
991 – after
1033) using the beginning syllables of the six lines of the Latin hymn
Ut queant laxis. The original sequence was
Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. "Ut" became later "Do". See also:
solfege,
sargamNumbered notation
The numbered musical notation system, better known as
jianpu, meaning "
simplified notation" in Chinese, is widely used among the Chinese people and probably some other Asian communities. Numbers 1 to 7 represent the seven notes of the diatonic major scale, and number 0 represents the musical rest. Dots above a note indicate octaves higher, and dots below indicate octaves lower. Underlines of a note or a rest shorten it, while dots and dashes after lengthen it. The system also makes use of many symbols from the standard notation, such as bar lines, time signatures, accidentals, tie and slur, and the expression markings.
Cipher notation
In many cultures, including
Chinese (
jianpu or
gongche),
Indonesian (
kepatihan), and
Indian (
sargam), the "sheet music" consists primarily of the numbers, letters or native characters representing notes in order. Those different systems are collectively know as cipher notations. The numbered notation is an example, so are letter notation and solfege if written in musical sequence.
Braille music
Braille music is a complete, well developed, and internationally accepted musical notation system that has symbols and notational conventions quite independent of print music notation. It is linear in nature, similar to a printed language and different from the two-dimensional nature of standard printed music notation. To a degree Braille music resembles
musical markup languages such as
XML for Music or
NIFF. See
Braille music.
Integer notation
In
integer notation, or the
integer model of pitch, all
pitch classes and
intervals between pitch classes are designated using the numbers 0 through 11. It is not used to notate music for performance, but is a common
analytical and
compositional tool when working with chromatic music, including
twelve tone,
serial, or otherwise
atonal music. Pitch classes can be notated in this way by assigning the number 0 to some note - C natural by convention - and assigning consecutive integers to consecutive
semitones; so if 0 is C natural, 1 is C sharp, 2 is D natural and so on up to 11 which is B natural. (See
pitch class.) The C above this is not 12, but 0 again (12-12=0). Thus arithmetic
modulo 12 is used to represent
octave equivalence. One advantage of this system is that it ignores the "spelling" of notes (B sharp, C natural and D double-flat are all 0) according to their
diatonic functionality.
There are a few drawbacks with integer notation. First, theorists have traditionally used the same integers to indicate elements of different tuning systems. Thus, the numbers 0, 1, 2, ... 5, are used to notate pitch classes in 6-tone equal temperament. This means that the meaning of a given integer changes with the underlying tuning system: "1" can refer to C♯ in 12-tone equal temperament, but D in 6-tone equal temperament. Second, integer notation does not seem to allow for the notation of microtones, or notes not belonging to the underlying equal division of the octave. For these reasons, some theorists have recently advocated using
rational numbers to represent pitches and pitch classes, in a way that is not dependent on any underlying division of the octave. See the articles on
pitch and
pitch class for more information.
Another drawback with integer notation is that the same numbers are used to represent both
pitches and
intervals. For example, the number
4 serves both as a label for the pitch class E (if C=0) and as a label for the
distance between the pitch classes D and F♯. (In much the same way, the term "10 degrees" can function as a label both for a temperature, and for the distance between two temperature.) Only one of these labelings is sensitive to the (arbitrary) choice of pitch class 0. For example, if one makes a different choice about which pitch class is labeled 0, then the pitch class E will no longer be labelled "4." However, the distance between D and F♯ will still be assigned the number 4. The late music theorist
David Lewin was particularly sensitive to the confusions that this can cause.
Tablature
Tablature was first used in the
Renaissance for
lute music. A staff is used, but instead of pitch values, the
fret or frets to be fingered are written instead. Rhythm is written separately and durations are relative and indicated by horizontal space between notes. In later periods, lute and guitar music was written with standard notation. Tablature caught interest again in the late
20th century for popular
guitar music and other fretted instruments, being easy to transcribe and share over the internet in
ASCII format. Websites like
OLGA.net have archives of text-based popular music tablature.
In
China, the tablature of the
guqin is unique and complex; the older form composed of written words describing how to play a melody step-by-step using the plain language of the time; the newer form composed of bits of Chinese characters put together to indicate the method of play. Rhythm is not indicated. Tablatures for the qin are collected in what is called
qinpu.
Klavar notation
Klavar notation (or "klavarskribo") is a chromatic system of notation geared mainly towards keyboard instruments, which inverts the usual "graph" of music. The pitches are indicated horizontally, with "staff" lines in twos and threes like the keyboard and the time goes from top to bottom. A considerable body of repertoire has been transcribed into Klavar notation.
Notation of percussion instruments
Percussion notation conventions are varied because of the wide range of percussion instruments. Percussion instruments are generally grouped into two categories: pitched and non-pitched. The notation of non-pitched percussion instruments is the more problematic. Non-pitched percussion notation once commonly employed the
bass clef, but a neutral staff of two parallel vertical lines is usually preferred now. It is usual to label each instrument and technique the first time it is introduced, or to add an explanatory footnote, to clarify this. Below is an example of a common notation convention for the
drum kit.
Drums
|
Bass drum: low A. Snare: E. Floor tom: C. Middle tom: high F. High tom: high G. |
Cymbals
|
Hi-hat with foot: low F with X. Hi-hat with stick, mallet, brush, or hand: high G with X. Ride cymbal: high A with X. Bell of ride: circle high-A X. Crash cymbal: high B with unfilled-in diamond. China cymbal and splash cymbal: high B with filled-in diamond. |
Other
Mounted triangle: leger-line high C with "X" replacing notehead. Maraca: high-B with "+" replacing notehead. Mounted tambourine: high-B with "X" through conventional notehead.
Techniques
Rolls: three diagonal lines across stem (or above whole note). Open hi-hat: o above high-G X. Closed hi-hat: + above high-G X. Rim click: X in E snare space. Stick shot: diagonal slash through note head. Brush sweep: horizontal line (replacing note head) in E snare space with slur to show brush is not lifted. (With stem this looks rather like a long "T" or a long inverted "T", depending which way the stem is going.)
Dynamic accents
|
Light: -- (tenuto). Medium: >. Heavy: ^ (marcato). |
Anti-accents or "Ghost" notes
# slightly softer than surrounding notes: u (breve above or belownotehead)# significantly softer than surrounding notes: ( ) (note head in parentheses)# much softer than surrounding notes: [ ] (note head in brackets)
Graphic notation
The term 'graphic notation' refers to the contemporary use of non-traditional symbols and text to convey information about the performance of a piece of music. It is used for
experimental music, which in many cases is difficult to transcribe in standard notation. Practitioners include
Christian Wolff,
Earle Brown,
John Cage,
Morton Feldman,
Krzysztof Penderecki,
Cornelius Cardew, and
Roger Reynolds. See
Notations, edited by John Cage and Alison Knowles, ISBN 0685148645.
Parsons code
Parsons code is used to encode music so that it can be easily searched. This style is designed to be used by individuals without any musical background.
Systems not based on the standard 12-tone scale
Other systems exist for non twelve tone
equal temperament and non-Western music, such as the Indian
svar lippi. Some cultures use their own cipher notations for those music. In ancient
Byzantium and
Russia sacred music was notated with special 'hooks and banners' (see
znamennoe singing).Sometimes the pitches of music written in
just intonation are notated with the frequency ratios, while
Ben Johnston has devised a system for representing just intonation with traditional western notation and the addition of
accidentals which indicate the
cents a pitch is to be lowered or raised.
Alternative music notations using chromatic staves
Over the past three centuries, hundreds of music notation systems have been proposed as alternatives to traditional western music notation. Many of these notations seek to improve upon traditional notation by using a "chromatic staff" in which each of the 12 pitch classes has its own unique place on the staff. Examples are the
Ailler-Brennink notation and John Keller's
Express Stave. These notations do not require key signatures, or sharp, flat and natural signs. They also represent interval relationships more consistently and accurately than traditional notation. The Music Notation Modernization Association has a
website with information on many of these alternative notations.
In
ethnomusicology different notations have been developed for the notation of the music of different musical cultures. Since the music of non-western cultures is often based on completely different principles, the standard notation developed for western music is not allway cappable of transcribing such music appropriately. For example, special notation systems have been developed for the description of
African music. Reasons for this include that important aspects of the rythmical structures of such music cultures often cannot be represented in standard notation, that the notation would lead to misinterpretations or that the musical scales used in these cultures are somtimes completely different from the scales used in european music.
*
Guido of Arezzo*
Znamennoe singing*
List of musical topics*
Music theory*
Time unit box system*
Scorewriters (computer software tools for publishing sheet music).
*
Tongan music notation*Middleton, Richard (1990/2002).
Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
*Tagg, Philip (1979). Cited in Middleton, Richard (1990/2002).
Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
*Hall, Rachael (2005).
Math for Poets and Drummers.
Saint Joseph's University.
*
Tonalsoft Encyclopaedia of Tuning*
On-line activity that counts musical notes!*
Musical notation links*
Glossary of US and British English musical terms*
A collection of interactive lessons and trainers that can be downloaded for offline use*
Extremes in Conventional Musical Notation
