Musical notation

“ Definite musical tones cannot be recognized in these primitive cries, hence they cannot be accurately written down in the musical notation of civilization. In such simple and elemental cries as these, although no definite musical intervals are to be recognized, it is not long before they appear. In fact, it is easily to be seen in the most primitive music that the production of definite tones, and more or less of a [Pg 8] definite melodic design, is the object toward which the savage mind unconsciously gropes. ”

“ As music grew more and more complex, and especially as writing in several parts came into use (cf. rise of organum, descant, and counterpoint) , it became increasingly difficult to express musical ideas on the basis of the old notation, and numerous attempts were made to invent a more accurate and usable system. Among these one of the most interesting was that in which the words of the text were written in the spaces between long, parallel lines, placing the initial letters of the words tone and semi-tone at the beginning of the line to indicate the scale interval. ”

“ The exclamation and interrogation point, are in language, what Neumes were at first in music, they roughly sketched out the inflection of the voice. The connection between them, and our modern notation is very evident; in our musical notation the requirements of the eye, have been well attended to; not entirely perhaps, as regards the length of notes, but certainly in the matter of ascending and descending passages, etc.; [261] the old Greek notation, with its upturned and fragmentary letters, meant nothing to the untutored eye ”

“ Again, the very imperfect forms of musical notation must have always proved a stumbling-block to those early musicians. Even to-day, with its advanced methods, the act of putting on paper a modern orchestral composition is a work of enormous labour. The reader will understand this, when I say that music which takes but merely a few minutes in performance may easily take the composer as many hours to translate on to the pages of his score. ”

“ The following musical notation presents accurately the range of notes employed by the preceptor. The peculiarity of Midē ́ songs lies in the fact that each person has his own individual series of notes which correspond to the number of syllables in the phrase and add thereto meaningless words to prolong the effect. When a song is taught, the words are the chief and most important part, the musical rendering of a second person may be so different from that of the person from whom he learns it as to be unrecognizable without 274 the words. ”

“ The presence of a system of musical notation is no proof of the coincidence of an harmonic system, but it is prima facie evidence of a stage of artistic development which included a sense of something more than primitive and haphazard concords. Such a stage of development we may probably credit with safety to the ancient Egyptians, and, whatever their music may have been, we can surely conclude that it had acquired at least the elementary proportions of an art. ”

“ This progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of our music are exactly recorded—the pitch and the rhythm. The exact relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the larger rhythms. ”

“ Rests, accidentals, and every other sign used in music can be readily and clearly expressed without having recourse to the staff of five lines which forms the basis of ordinary musical notation, and which, though it has been reproduced for the blind, can only be considered as serving to give them an idea of the method employed by the seeing, and cannot, of course, be written. ”

“ One needs, of course, a far less complicated notation than a singer, and one is even permitted slight modifications of the fixed note when dramatic expression demands it and the instrument is not sounding. The notation which regulates the general form of the sound leaves it free to add a complexity of dramatic expression from its own incommunicable genius which compensates the lover of speech for the lack of complex musical expression. ”

“ Although this lack of clearness in our system of musical notation is to be regretted, one cannot help but think that this very general way of expressing the whole variety of detached staccato bowing, is really a gain to the artist. ”

“ The music of every nation has certain characteristics of its own. The progressions of intervals, the modulations, embellishments, rhythmical effects, etc., occurring in the music of extra-European nations, are not unfrequently too peculiar to be accurately indicated by means of our musical notation. Some additional explanation is, therefore, required with the notation. In writing down the popular tunes of foreign countries, on hearing them sung or played by the natives, no attempt should be made to rectify anything which may appear incorrect to the European ear. ”

“ Practically every musical tone really consists of a combination of several tones sounding simultaneously, the combined effect upon the ear giving the impression of a single tone. The most important tone of the series is the fundamental, which dominates the combination and gives the pitch, [Pg 136] but this fundamental is practically always combined with a greater or less number of faint and elusive attending tones called overtones or harmonics. The first of these overtones is the octave above the fundamental ”

“ Three different systems of Notation have been accepted as sufficient for all practical purposes, at different periods. In very early times, when Melody was simple, and Harmony unknown, musical sounds were represented by the Letters of the Alphabet. Many centuries later, these were superseded by a species of Hieratic Character, the components of which were known to the Monks of the Middle Ages under the name of Neumæ. The final stage of perfection was reached, when these last were developed into the characters now called Notes, and written upon the Lines and Spaces of the Stave. ”

“ If perfect adaptation of the means used to the end proposed be accepted as a fair standard of excellence, our present system of Notation leaves little to be desired; for it is difficult to conceive any combination of sounds, consistent with what we believe to be the true principles of Musical Science, which it is incapable of expressing. ”

“ By virtue of the tie across the bar the third space continues to represent C sharp thru the first beat of the second measure, but for the remainder of the measure the third space will represent C unless the sharp is repeated as in Fig. 17.
[Listen]
26. The following rules for making staff degrees represent pitches different from those of the diatonic scale will be found useful by the beginner in the study of music notation. These [Pg 10] rules are quoted from "The Worcester Musical Manual," by Charles I. Rice.
1. To sharp a natural degree, use a sharp. Fig. 18. ”

“ In the long evolution from the simple to the complex which music shares with everything else we know we may observe two different methods of tone-combination which, working together, have given us the elaborate texture of the modern art. That especially suited to melodic instruments, like those used in the orchestra or the chorus, puts melodies together as an engraver puts together lines, each remaining distinct, standing off clearly from the others, representing a different musical thought, and yet all agreeing, or, as we say, harmonizing. ”

“ Thus if a final chord appears as that in Fig. 12 the composition is clearly in G major, while if it appears as in Fig. 13, it is just as surely in E minor.
[Listen]
24. Sharps, flats, naturals, double-sharps and double-flats, occurring in the course of the composition (i.e., after the key signature) are called accidentals, whether they actually cause a staff degree to represent a different pitch as in Fig. 14 or simply make clear a notation about which there might otherwise be some doubt as in Fig. 15, measure two. The effect of such accidentals terminates at the bar.
[Listen]
25. ”

“ Thus from the definite number of twenty-four notes, varied in different degrees, by sharps, flats, semi-tones, &c., are produced all that is so magical, enthusiastic, and transporting in the empire of omnipotent music. Like as the alphabetic characters may be varied into myriads of forms suitable to every multifarious species of conversation or composition; in a word, a few musical notes in the hands of a master may be made by his skill to produce, from agreeable interchanges of time, harmony, &c., every variety of musical sentiment which can affect the human soul. ”

“ Modern harmonies are made theoretically much more difficult than they need be by our system of notation, which grew up in the Middle Ages. The old modes knew no modulation in our sense, and in the seventeenth century, when the tempered system came into vogue, making every kind of modulation possible, the old notation was retained. How unsuited it is for modern music appears from the drastic contradictions which it involves. ”

“ In those cases where one syllable was extended through several notes, another form of notation was employed. The several notes so sung were bound together in one complex sign called a ligature. The ligatures, like the longs and the breves, were adaptations of old neumatic signs. In the old plain-song the flourishes or melismas on single syllables were sung in a free rhythm; but the mensuralists were determined to reduce every phrase of music to exact rhythmical proportions, and these easy, graceful, soaring ornaments were crushed with the rest in the iron grip of their system. ”

“ Contrasts of timbre and tone are at least as various as contrasts of colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is virtually unique in human experience. ”

“ Symmetry in music is much more exactly observed than in literary composition, even in verse, since music itself is a matter of time and vibration, and the proportionate and mathematical relation of parts belongs to the very essence of the art. Every musical form, therefore, whether large or small, consists essentially of one leading idea and of two or more subordinate ideas, brought in with whatever cleverness of treatment the composer may find convenient, and the whole turned over and diversified according to his fancy. ”

“ What we must remember, therefore, is that every sound that is musically available yields, besides its fundamental note, its octave, its twelfth, its double octave, etc., as overtones or harmonics, and that these are important for the agreeable combination of several musical sounds. ”

“ The chromatic scale utilizes all the tones of a key within the octave.
4. Natural: Not a suitable compound to use in naming pitches. Pitch names are either simple: B, or compound: B sharp, B double-sharp, B flat or B double-flat, and there is no pitch named "B natural." Example: Pitch B, not "B natural."
Note:—L.R.L. thinks that B natural should be the name when the notation suggests it.
5. Step, Half-step: Terms of interval measurement. Avoid tone, semi-tone or half-tone. Major second and minor second are interval names. Example: How large are the following intervals? ”

“ The extensive and involved nomenclature of music, added to the complicated and inconsistent system of notation, is a continual and exhausting strain upon the memory. Teachers commence their drill in vocalization, as a rule, with the scale of the key of C, and the pupils, fired with a noble ambition to become musicians, make a strenuous effort to remember where do, ré, mi and the other notes are placed on the lines and spaces of the staff. ”

“ The common musical scale is derived from a tone and its overtones, by making, on separate strings, full tones corresponding to the overtones of some fundamental string-tone. That which produces a "chord" in music, where the harmony is made by full tones, would produce a vowel if the main tone only were full, and the "chording" tones overtones. When, then, a vowel is sung, high or low, it is still the same vowel at a different pitch—that is, the same "chord" in another key. But "chords" are music, and music means air-waves, so that vowels are musical air-waves. ”

“ A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously) , or are latent in the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively) . Melody is Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized. ”

“ HARMONICS, tones of higher pitch which accompany every perfect musical sound in a regular series. As they ascend they diminish in intensity, and approximate in pitch. If the piano be opened and a note—say D in the bass—be struck smartly and kept down, on listening attentively a succession of faint sounds will be heard, apparently rising out of the principal sound and floating round it. These are the harmonics. They are really constituents of the main musical tone, and are produced by the concurrent vibration of the aliquot parts of the string. ”

“ The fact that these pieces invariably close on the tonic or keynote proves that all the modulations are referred to the fundamental tone of the chord, and gives evidence of a musical feeling and sense of harmony such as only human beings are usually supposed to possess. ”