Musical notation

Music notation is a system of writing for music. The term sheet music is used for written music to distinguish from audio recordings. In sheet 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.

Standard notation described

Elements of the staff

A staff (in British English, also stave) 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 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 be

Related Topics:
British English - Clef - Middle C - Octave

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interpreted as a middle C. In a similar fashion, the treble clef points to a G and the bass clef points to an F.

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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 the low G clef used for classical guitar music and tenor parts in choral music.

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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.

Related Topics:
Key signature - Key - Circle of fifths

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Another common element of a staff is the time signature, which indicates the rhythmic characteristics of the piece. Time signatures generally consist of two numbers; the upper number indicates the number of beats per measure (or "bar"), while the lower indicates what sort of note constitutes a "beat". A time signature of 4/4 (also known as "common time" and sometimes indicated with a large "C" symbol) implies that there will be four beats per measure, with each beat constituting a quarter note. A signature of 2/2 (or "cut time", a "C" with a vertical slash) allows 2 beats per measure, with each half note lasting a beat. This is important, because the first beat of each bar is generally stressed. Less commonly, music that lacks rigid rhythmic organization is written without a time signature.

Related Topics:
Time signature - Measure - Common time - Quarter note - Cut time - Half note

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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.

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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).

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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.

Related Topics:
Tempo - Dynamics - Italian

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Here is a sample illustrating some common musical notation.

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Development 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.

Related Topics:
Cuneiform - Mesopotamia - Papyrus

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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.

Related Topics:
Catholic church - Monk - Plainchant - 8th century - Neum

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To address the issue of exact pitch, a staff was introduced consisting originally of a single horizontal line, but this was

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progressively extended until a system of four parallel, horizontal lines was standardised on. The vertical positions of each mark

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on the staff indicated which pitch or pitches it represented (pitches were derived from a musical mode, or key).

Related Topics:
Musical mode - Key

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Although the 4-line staff has remained in use until the present day for plainchant, for other types of music, staffs with differing

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numbers of lines have been used at various times and places for various instruments. The modern system of a universal standard

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5-line staff was first adopted in France, and became widely used by the 16th century (although the use of staffs with other

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numbers of lines was still widespread well into the 17th century).

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Because the neum system arose from the need to notate songs, exact timing was initially not a particular issue as the music would

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generally follow the natural rhythms of the Latin language. However, by the 10th century a system of representing up to four

Related Topics:
Latin - 10th century

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note lengths had been developed. These lengths were relative rather than absolute, and depended on the duration of the

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neighboring notes. It was not until the 14th century that something like the present system of fixed note lengths arose. Starting

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in the 15th century, vertical bar lines were used to divide the staff into sections. These did not initially divide the music

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into measures of equal length (as most music then featured far fewer regular rhythmic patterns than in later periods), but appear to have been introduced

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as 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 regular

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measures became commonplace by the end of the 17th century.

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It is worth noting that standard notation was originally developed for use with voice. Proponents of other systems claim that

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standard notation is less than ideally suited to instrumental music.

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Symbols used in modern musical notation

The following table shows some of the symbols used in Modern musical notation.

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See also: Da capo, Dal Segno, Coda, Fermata, Accent.

Related Topics:
Da capo - Dal Segno - Coda - Fermata - Accent

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Terms for note durations in American and British English:

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In U.S. parlance, semibreve and minim

Related Topics:
Semibreve - Minim

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are used only in discussions of early music; whole note and half note are used in other contexts.

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The breve is rarely used in baroque and later eras. When it appears, it is written as oo or |O|.

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Effects

According to Philip Tagg (1979, p.28-32) and Richard Middleton (1990, p.104-6) musicology and to a degree European-influenced musical practice suffer from a 'notational centricity', "a methodology slanted by the characteristics of notation."

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"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 Fred Lerdahl. "Notation-centric training induces particular forms of listening, and these then tend to be applied to all sorts of music, appropriately or not."

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Notational centricity also encourages "reification: the score comes to be seen as 'the music', or perhaps the music in an ideal form."

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