Music Theory / Time / Sound and silence Total time is calculated by adding the notes and rests. Two quavers equal a crotchet. Four crotchets equal a semibreve. Eight quavers equal a semibreve. This music plays for 16 crotchets. How long is 16 crotchets in seconds? See Tempo later in this book of Time. Picture notes If you are learning to read music for the first time, it might help to see the notes in pictures. Every note begins with a note-head. The notehead is oval shaped. A semibreve is an empty notehead Notes shorter than a semibreve have a stem. A stem is a vertical line jutting up from the right or down from the left of the notehead A minim is a semibreve with a stem. A crotchet is a minim with a coloured notehead A quaver is a crotchet with a tail. A semiquaver is a crotchet with two tails. A demisemiquaver is a crotchet with three tails. A hemidemisemiquaver is a crotchet with four tails. Clap your hands to the beat. Tails are beamed to the beat.

Here are some examples. 2 quavers beamed to a crotchet beat. 4 semiquavers beamed to a crotchet beat. 8 demisemiquavers beamed to a crotchet beat. In a crotchet beat two factors are important. Notes are beamed in multiples of 4. You can slice the beam (beat) in half. 16 hemidemisemiquavers beamed to a crotchet beat. Here are some more complex patterns. In these patterns the beat is equal to a crotchet, so you can count up to the value of a crotchet under every beam. Remember, we beam the beat. Beam (beat) 1. Quaver - Semiquaver - Semiquaver Beam (beat) 2. Semiquaver - Semiquaver - Quaver Beam (beat) 3. Semiquaver - Quaver - Semiquaver Music Theory Note Duration The length of time that a note is played is called its note duration, which is determined by the type of note. The whole note has the longest note duration in modern music. The half note has half the duration of a whole note. Two half notes occupy the same amount of time as one whole note.

The quarter note is a fourth (or a quarter) of a whole note. Four quarter notes occupy the same amount of time as one whole note. Two quarter notes equal the duration of a half note. Notes smaller in duration than a quarter note have flags. Each flag halves the value of a note. An eighth note has one flag. Therefore, two eighth notes occupy the same amount of time as one quarter note. A sixteenth note has two flags, halving the value again. Two sixteenth notes equal the duration of an eighth note. Four sixteenth notes occupy the same amount of time as one quarter note. Although it is possible to have notes with three or more flags, they are seldom used. This chart displays the relationship of all five note types discussed in this lesson. Dotted Note Calculate the value of the dotted whole note and click to find if you are correct But how do I play it? However, understanding how dotted notes work doesn't necessarily help you when you have to play them!

When I was young I understood that a dotted quarter note (or dotted crotchet as I learned) was worth 1½ beats and usually followed by an eighth note (quaver) but that didn't actually help me when I was sitting at the piano trying to 'count' 1½ beats for the dotted quarter note and ½ beat for the eighth note! In the end I figured out that the easiest way to approach this was to just count the beats in the bar (1 2 3 4) and aim to fit the eighth note in the middle of the beats without trying to count 1½. I counted and on the eighth note to help me, but I didn't used to count and on the other beats as I found it too confusing. However, I have shown it both ways here as I know some of my students find this method of counting easier. So my playing/counting went like this... As I mentioned earlier, some people prefer to count all the beats (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &) throughout the whole piece. I always found this method harder, but you should try both and see which you prefer. Double dots Some music even has more than one dot following a note.

Click here for information on how to read and play notes with double dots A Clear Path To Learning Music Theory For more help check out my new theory book Essential Music Theory: Learn To Read And Appreciate Music Vol. 1 available for iPad and Mac OS. A simple step-by-step course that takes you from complete beginner to grade 2 music theory Multi-faceted learning - audio, video, mind maps, clear musical examples Built in quizzes to check your understanding Music Note Values Music Note Values Each music note written on the stave has a duration (length) as well as pitch. It is the design of the note that tells you its duration, in the same way as the position on the staff tells you the pitch. So each music note on a stave gives you two pieces of information, pitch and duration. This page focuses on the duration of each note. The Rhythm Tree In order to fully understand note lengths become familiar with the rhythm tree. Click here to learn more about the rhythm tree before continuing. The rhythm tree shows how the notes are related to each other. Double Whole Note (Breve) Although the whole note is the longest note we generally use today, as is hinted at by the UK name there used be a note called a Breve.

This is known as a Double Whole note in the US. The double whole note (breve) divides into 2 whole notes (semibreves) following the pattern of the other notes in the Rhythm Tree. The Double Whole note (Breve) is therefore worth 8 quarter notes (crotchets). The Double Whole note (Breve) fell out of use as smaller value notes were invented by composers. It can be notated as an open rectangle or a whole note with bars either side. Click here to read more about the double whole note (breve) and how our modern system of music notation developed. Make sure you have a few spare moments though as once you start reading the history of the music note it's difficult to stop! Whole Note (Semibreve) The Whole note is the longest music note in general use today. It is an open note with no stem. I always say to my students it looks like a hole…so it is easy to remember! The duration of the whole note is 4 quarter notes. Half Note (Minim) The Half note duration is 2 quarter notes. It differs from the whole note in that it has a stem, although it is still open.

For students I liken this stem to the line in the middle of the ½. This also helps them remember that 1 half note is worth 2 beats (in 4/4 timing, which is what they are usually working in when learning this). Quarter Note (Crotchet) The quarter note has become the de facto standard 1 beat music note. This has happened as the 4/4 time signature is the most popular (with 3/4 and 2/4 following close behind) and quarter notes have a duration of 1 in these time signatures. It is also roughly in the middle of the most used notes in the Rhythm Tree , making the quarter note the ideal candidate for ensuring whole notes don't become too long to count, and shorter, popular notes such as eighth and sixteenth notes aren't impossible to count in terms of them being fractions of a note. The quarter note changes from the half note as it is filled in, as opposed to empty. Eighth Note (Quaver) The eighth note is worth ½ of a Quarter note.

It may also be considered as a one beat note in 3/8 and similar timings, the 8 on the bottom of the time signature giving the clue that you are counting in eighth notes. This is the first note in the rhythm tree to have a flag. The flag is the name for the 'tail' added to the eighth note. Eighth notes may be a single as shown on the left, or joined together with beams. It is common to see eighth notes joined into sets of 2 to make one beat. Eighth notes may also be grouped in 3s, 4s, 5s, or even 6s depending on the time signature. Remember, however, that no matter how many eighth notes are joined, each one is worth half a quarter note. Sixteenth note (Semiquaver) The Sixteenth note is worth ¼ of a Quarter note. It may be beamed together in the same way as the eighth note. It changes from the eighth note by having an additional flag. Look at the picture and you see a double flag at the top of the stem. This is how you tell a note is a sixteenth note. Sixteenth notes may be beamed together in the same way as Eighth notes.

When you see sixteenth notes beamed together each note has a double flag. Here is an example of 4 Sixteenth notes beamed together, they are also common in groups of 2. Mix and match different music note values Eighth and sixteenth notes (and other music notes with flags) may be joined together. The key to knowing which note you are dealing with is very simple look at the number of beams joined to the stem of the note. By counting the beams joined to the stem of the note you will always know what type of note you are looking at. In the examples below you can clearly see how this works. In this example there are 2 Sixteenth notes (2 beams touching the stem) joined ot an Eighth note (1 beam touching the stem) In this example there is 1 Eighth note (one beam touching the stem) joined to 2 Sixteenth notes (2 beams touching the stem) This is a note grouping that often confuses people, but it needn't!

It is simply 1 Sixteenth note (2 beams on the stem) joined to an Eighth note (1 beam on the stem) joined to another Sixteenth note (2 beams on the stem!) You may also have noticed that the three grouping examples above all add up to 1 Quarter note! Thirty Second Note (Demisemiquaver) This is the point at which it becomes more fun to learn the UK music note terminology! The thirty-second note has 3 flags and may also be beamed together in the same way as the Eighth and Sixteenth notes. Sixty Fourth Note (Hemidemisemiquaver) As a young music student I never tired of the name hemidemisemiquaver, and for this, if nothing else, I am glad I learned the UK version of the note names rather than the US version. Hemidemisemiquaver just sounds so much more fun than Sixty-fourth note! The Sixty-fourth note has 4 flags and is the shortest note in general notational use. It may also be beamed together. The name hemidemisemiquaver actually makes sense if you look at it.

Each part of the name is the word for 'half' in Greek (hem), French (Demi) and Latin (Semi). So a hemidemisemiquaver is half of a half of a half of a quaver (eighth note)... i.e., a Sixty-fourth note! A Clear Path To Learning Music Theory For more help check out my new theory book Essential Music Theory: Learn To Read And Appreciate Music Vol. 1 available for iPad and Mac OS. A simple step-by-step course that takes you from complete beginner to grade 2 music theory Multi-faceted learning - audio, video, mind maps, clear musical examples Built in quizzes to check your understanding Crotchet - definition of crotchet by The Free Dictionary Crotchet - definition of crotchet by The Free Dictionary 2. Music See quarter note . 3. A small hook or hooklike structure. [Middle English crochet, hook, quarter note, from Old French, hook; see crochet.] crotchet (ˈkrɒtʃɪt) n 1. (Music, other) music a note having the time value of a quarter of a semibreve. Usual US and Canadian name: quarter note 2.

a small hook or hooklike device 3. a perverse notion 4. (Zoology) zoology a small notched or hooked process, as in an insect [C14: from Old French crochet, literally: little hook, from croche hook; see crocket] crotch•et 1. an odd fancy or whimsical notion. 2. a small hook. [1350–1400; Middle English crochet hook, staff with hook at end < Middle French] ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: curve , curved shape - the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes uncus - (biology) any hook-shaped process or part 2. musical note , note , tone - a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound; "the singer held the note too long" 3. strangeness , unfamiliarity - unusualness as a consequence of not being well known 4.

crotchet - a small tool or hooklike implement hook - a curved or bent implement for suspending or pulling something Translations [ˈkrɒtʃɪt] N (Brit) (Mus) → negra f crotchet [ˈkrɒtʃɪt] n (MUSIC) → noire f crotchet (Brit Mus) → Viertelnote f; crotchet rest → Viertelpause f (inf: = cross person) → Miesepeter m (inf) crotchet [ˈkrɒtʃɪt] n (Brit) (Mus) → semiminima crotchet (ˈkrotʃit) noun in music, a note equal to half a minim. kwartnoot عَلامَة موسيقيّـة نِصْف سَوداء муз.

четвъртина нота semínima čtvrťová nota die Viertelnote fjerdedelsnode τέταρτο negra veerandnoot یک چهارم نت neljäsosanuotti noire רֶבַע תָּו संगीत में पाद स्वर četvrtinka negyed hangjegy setengah nada fjórðungsnóta semiminima 四分音符 4분 음표 ketvirtinė gaida ceturtdaļnots krocet kwartnoot firedelsnote , kvartnote ćwierćnuta یو ډول اشاره یا نښه ، چنګ semínima четвертная нота štvrťová nota četrtinka četvrt note fjärdedelsnot โน้ตเพลงมีค่า ¼ ของโน้ต dörtlük (音樂) 四分音符 чверть, четвертна нота ربع سُ

ر كى علامت nốt đen （音乐中）四分音符 Want to thank TFD for its existence?

Tell a friend about us , add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content . Link to this page: punctuation References in classic literature ? Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others -- but this of which I speak has come in the shape of a crotchet. View in context She will not remain orbed in a thought, but rushes into persons; and when each person, inflamed to a fury of personality, would conquer all things to his poor crotchet, she raises up against him another person, and by many persons incarnates again a sort of whole. View in context I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets noways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands.

View in context Deane were less stern in their views, but they both of them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his hot-tempered crotchets and ought to put them out of the question when a livelihood was offered him; Wakem showed a right feeling about the matter,-- MASTERMINDS Many were elderly Jewish refugees, happy to earn money doing crotchet for her.

'I hadn't eaten for three weeks by the time we were liberated, but I remember the moment I saw my beloved hero through a filthy window...' YESTERDAY'S SOLUTIONS WEE THINKER ACROSS: 7 At a loss 9 Outdo 10 Stair 11 Orleans 12 Die 13 Crotchet 16 Chop-chop 17 Ass 19 Saracen 21 Litre 22 Edict 23 Strange DOWN: 1Wayside 2 Nazareth 3 Boor 4 Foolscap 5 Etna 6 Poise 8 Show of hands 13 Capacity 14 Elastane 15 Ushered 18 Ashen 20 Ruin 21 Lyre QUICKIE ACROSS: 1 Shipbuilder 8 Ate 9 Lap 11 Peasant 12 Pasty 13 Amp 14 Eel 15 Trouble 17 Tow 19 Vein 21 Area 23 Obey 25 Acre 27 Ewe 29 Faculty 31 Opt 34 Cud 36 Moral 37 Release 38

 Ali 39 Fed 40 Empty nester DOWN: 1 Stem 2 Heap 3 Prairie 4 Untrue 5 Lapel 6 Else 7 Rate 8 Apart 10 Pylon 16 Eve 18War 20 Eye 22 Ref 24 Bottles 25 Aroma 26 Fun run 28 Ended 30 Allot 32 Pole 33 Trim 34 Cafe 35 User PS200 Xword After being tormented through the scales by Crotchet, the singing master, the pregnant Page is released to the tender mercies of Cinquepace.

4. Time Names of Notes Note Shapes To show how long notes should be held for, we draw them with different shapes. Most notes are made up of a note head and a stem (apart from semibreves, which have no stem). Crotchets The most basic and most common length of note is the crotchet, which looks like this: or this It’s a black note head on a basic stem, (or stick). A crotchet usually represents one beat. As musicians, we can decide for ourselves exactly how long a beat should be, but often a crotchet lasts about one second. Here are 4 crotchet Ds. Your browser does not support the audio element. Notes which are twice as fast as crotchets are called quavers. They look like this: or this Notice that although the quaver has a black note head like the crotchet, it also has a small tail on the right side of its stem. Here are 8 quavers, F sharps and Gs. Your browser does not support the audio element. (To find out why there is only one sharp symbol, read Lesson 3 – Accidentals . Listen to the crotchets and quavers together.

The quavers here are joined together in groups called beams - this makes them easier to read. The rules about beaming are explained in Lesson 7 – Beaming . Your browser does not support the audio element. Minims are twice as long as crotchets. Minims look like this: Notice that minims look like crotchets, but their heads are white, not black. Here is a minim B and a minim A, in the bass clef: Your browser does not support the audio element. Listen to the crotchets, quavers and minims together: Your browser does not support the audio element. Semibreves Semibreves are twice as long as minims, or four times as long as crotchets. Semibreves look like this: Here is a semibreve D in the bass clef: Your browser does not support the audio element. Listent to the crotchets, minims, quavers and semibreves together: Your browser does not support the audio element. Semiquavers Semiquavers are twice as fast as quavers, or 4 times faster than crotchets. Four semiquavers take up the same amount of time as 1 crotchet.

So, a semiquaver is equal to a quarter of a crotchet. A semiquaver looks like this: or this We can also join two or more semiquavers together, like this: Semiquavers look like quavers, but they have two tails where quavers have one. Here are some semiquavers in action: Your browser does not support the audio element. And here is the finished product - from semibreves to semiquavers! Your browser does not support the audio element. Why are Semibreves called Semibreves? There is another note, called a breve, which is worth two semibreves. Breves aren't used very much these days, so you don't need to know about them for your grade one music theory exam. A long time ago, breves and semibreves were quite short notes. Over time, they have become longer and longer, and so today we think of semibreves as very long notes, but it wasn't always the case! Dots and Ties Augmentation dots and tenuto ties are two types of markings used to alter a note's duration. A dot increases duration by one half.

Since an eighth note is half the duration of a quarter note, we will substitute it for the 1/2 symbol. As you can see, a dotted quarter note is equal to a quarter note plus an eighth note. A dotted quarter note can also equal three eighth notes. Ties merge multiple notes of the same pitch. They are used to let the duration of a note travel across barriers (such as the measure line in this example). The fourth and fifth notes are now combined. If the measure line were not there, we could have written a half note instead. Use this chart for reference to augmentation dots. Dolmetsch Online - Music Theory Online - Notes & Rests 1 Duration Where the vertical position of a note on a staff or stave determines its pitch, its relative time value or duration is denoted by the particular sign chosen to represent it. This is the essence of proportional or mensural notation, first developed in the eleventh century and about which more information is given in the section below entitled Origin of Music Notation . The coin & paper money you use to pay for goods & services are good examples of relative value.

While in England 100 pence = 1 pound and in the United States the cent and dollar are similarly related (100 cents = 1 dollar) in neither case do you know the 'absolute' value of a currency or of its 'denominations'; for example, how many dollars = 1 pound. So it is with musical 'denominations'. The signs do not give duration in units of time, minutes or seconds. That must be given in ways we discuss in lesson 5 . The Anatomy of a Note Sign :: Key words: 1 The Anatomy of a Note Sign In music the denomination of 'coinage' is the note or note sign. One can use either term. Each note sign is a construct of three distinct parts. The notehead, whose position on the stave actually sets its pitch, can be open (white) or closed (black). For all notes except the breve (double whole note) and semibreve (whole note), each note has a stem or tail and, for the notes of shorter time-value, a hook or flag, one for a quaver (eighth note), two for a semiquaver (sixteenth note), and so on).

The stem can rise from the notehead, in which case it lies on the right-hand side of the notehead, or fall from the notehead, in which case it lies on the left hand side of the notehead (see the two crotchets or quarter notes). In either case, the flag or hook lies on the right-hand side of the stem (see the two quavers (eighth notes)).

English pausa de semiminima (f.) quart de pausa (m.) or pausa de negra (f.) 8 quaver rest eighth rest pausa di croma (f.) demi-soupir (m.) Achtelpause (f.) silencio de corchea (m.) or pausa de corchea (f.) vuitï¿½ de pausa (m.) or pausa de corxera (f.) 16 semiquaver rest sixteenth rest pausa di semicroma (f.) quart de soupir (m.) Sechzehntelpause (f.) silencio de semicorchea (m.) or pausa de semicorchea (f.) setzï¿½ de pausa (m.) or pausa de semicorxera (f.) 32 demisemiquaver rest thirty-second rest pausa di biscroma (f.) huitiï¿½me de soupir (m.) Zweiunddreiï¿½igstelpause (f.) silencio de fusa (m.) or pausa de fusa (f.) trenta-dosï¿½ de pausa

 (m.) or pausa de fusa (f.) 64 hemidemisemiquaver rest sixty-fourth rest pausa di semibiscroma (f.) seiziï¿½me de soupir (m.) Vierundsechzigstelpause (f.) silencio de semifusa (m.) or pausa de semifusa (f.) seixanta-quatrï¿½ de pausa (m.) or pausa de semifusa (f.) 128 semihemidemisemiquaver rest one hundred and twenty-eighth rest pausa di centoventottavo (f.) cent-vingt-huitiï¿½me de soupir (m.) Hundertundachtundzwanzigstelpause (f.) silencio de garrapatea (m.) or pausa de garrapatea (f.) Each line in the example below is a single bar (we meet bars in the next lesson ), with the same total time value of notes as every other line.

Each line in the example below is a single bar (we meet bars in the next lesson ), with the same total time value of rests as every other line. Dotting and Double-Dotting :: 1 Dotting and Double-Dotting A dot, placed to the immediate right of the notehead, increases its time-value by half; thus a minim (half note) (which is equivalent to two crotchets (quarter notes)) followed by a dot (which in this case is equivalent to a further crotchet (quarter note)) is equivalent to three crotchets (quarter notes), while a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) is equivalent to three quavers (eighth notes) and a dotted quaver (dotted eighth note) is equivalent to three semiquavers (sixteenth notes)). If the notehead is located in a space, the dot is placed in that same space. If the notehead is on a line, the dot is placed in the space just above the line. Exceptions sometimes have to be made if several dotted notes share a single stem. A dot placed after a rest or note is called an augmentation dot.

A second dot, placed to the immediate right of the first dot, increases the original undotted time-value by a further quarter. Another way of thinking about the second dot is that it adds the note equivalent to half the note added by the first dot. So, for example, a minim (half note) (equivalent to four quavers (eighth notes)) followed by one dot (equivalent to two quavers (eighth notes)) followed by a second dot (equivalent to one quaver (eighth note)) is equivalent, in total, to seven quavers (eighth notes). A triple-dotted note is a note with three dots written after it; its duration is 1 7/8 times (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8) its basic note value. Use of a triple-dotted note value is not common in the Baroque and Classical periods, but quite common in the music of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner, especially in their brass parts Dots after rests increase their time-value in the same way as dots after notes.

Beams and Beaming :: 1 Beams and Beaming When notes with flags lie together in groups they are often linked by one or more lines called beams. The number of beams reflect the number of flags each would have had when an individual note. The beam that is furthest from the noteheads, and remains unbroken, and connects a group of notes is called a primary beam. Any beam other than than the primary beam is a secondary beam and may be broken, often dividing the grouping into smaller units for easier reading. We illustrate below: a group of four semiquavers (sixteenth notes), first unbeamed and then beamed a group of two quavers (eighth notes), first unbeamed and then beamed a group of one quaver (eighth note) and two semiquavers (sixteenth notes), first unbeamed and then beamed. Notice the use of primary and secondary beams in this example Notice how the beaming reflects the time value of each note. Where a beam does not join a group of notes, for example a beam joining a dotted quaver (eighth note) to a semiquaver (sixteenth note), the secondary beam attached to the semiquaver (sixteenth note) is called a fractional beam.

Ties :: 1 Ties There are occasions when the duration of a note may not be easily notated using one of the note signs given above. If the duration of a note is longer than a breve (double whole note) or when the addition of dots cannot provide the required duration, groups of notes can be linked by one or more ties. Tied notes are treated as a single unbroken note whose duration is given by the duration of the notes under the tie taken successively. This is illustrated in the example given below where a crotchet (quarter note) tied to a quaver (eighth note) is equivalent to the dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) that follows. Note that the tie is always written so as to join the noteheads of two notes. The beginning and end of the tie are on the same horizontal level, and the tie is placed between the noteheads (without touching them). Rests are never tied. Origin of Music Notation :: Origin of Music Notation by the late John Howell When Guido d'Arezzo invented chant notation on a staff in about 1025, the notes were drawn fully black.

I imagine that the scribes cut their pens so as to give a broad stroke in one direction and a very narrow stroke in the other, because that's exactly what the manuscripts look like. (Twentieth-century music pens - both nibs and fountain pens - were designed exactly the same way.) When late twelfth-early thirteenth century musicians at Notre Dame in Paris needed a way to indicate rhythmic values, they came up with the six rhythmic modes. They used existing chant notation (all black notes) with only two note values, short and long (or breve and longa), but in practice also needed a note value equal to a breve plus a longa. The rhythms were indicated not by the appearance of the notes, but by the way they were joined together in multi-note ligatures. When Franco of Cologne, about 50 years later, proposed a system of mensural notation ("measured" notation), his biggest innovation was to assign specific values to specific note shapes. (The notes were still black.) The longa was a square black note with a descending tail on the right. The breve was a square black note with no tail.

He added a new note value, the semibreve, which was a square note turned 45 degrees (which is to say a diamond-shaped note). He also added a new longer note, the double longa, which was a rectangular note about twice the width of a longa with a descending tail on the right. Since notation always seems to lag behind what musicians are actually doing and wanting to write down, what happened in the next 150 years was that shorter and shorter note values were introduced to facilitate notating fast passages. As a result the original breve became slower and slower in practice, and the original longa slower still. The notes were still black (except when they were red, but that's another discussion entirely!). By the early sixteenth century the longa is seldom seen except as the final note of a piece, which is better notated in modern notation as a fermata rather than a note 16 bars long! During the fifteenth century a major technological innovation came into use. Paper was invented. Or if not invented, it became available at reasonable prices. Instead of the painstaking and labor-intensive business of preparing animal skin (vellum) for manuscript use, paper could be made relatively inexpensively or even bought ready made.

Only one problem for the music scribes. Since paper is made of fibers, apparently the ink had a tendency to spread out along those fibers and look like a blob instead of the nice, clean square note shape people were used to. That's when scribes started using outline notes (white notation) instead of solid black notes. Throughout the sixteenth century, when the first methods for printing music were being worked out, the same white notation using the same square note shapes continued in use in the printed music. As a broad generalization I would guess that the rounded note shapes we are used to did not come into use until the seventeenth century, when engraving music on copper plates began to replace printing from movable type. Additional Notes on The History of Music Notation :: Key word: Additional Notes on The History of Music Notation by Dr.

Brian Blood About the alphabet (the discovery of which is attributed to Palamedes, the mythical inventor of the joke, the lighthouse, dice, and a number of other essentials of human civilization), Socrates, in Phaedrus, warned: "this discovery will create forgetfulness in the learnerï¿½s souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory but to recollection, and gives only a semblance of truth; they will hear much and learn nothing; they will appear to know much and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, for they will seem wise without being wise." Of course, the same reservations may be directed at musical notation - that traditions become immutable, that the musicians read but neither do they think nor do they understand, that their memories weaken, that improvisation is discouraged. However, at the time when our modern notational system was developing, there were pressing practical reasons for wanting to record certain aspects of a musical line accurately.

These included the systemisation of the performance of religious music in a centrally organised Roman Catholic church, and, later, a desire to fix an intrinsically plastic medium, the better to apply to it the reflections of philosophers and critics. Richard Rastall writes, in his The Notation of Western Music (2nd ed. 1998, Leeds University Press), "the story of musical notation in Western Europe is one of innovations, changes and disappearances." It appears that the Egyptians from the 3rd millennium BC practiced some kind of musical notation and that various systems were in use in the Orient in ancient times. A Hittite (or Hurrian) love-song, from about 1800 BC is the earliest example of musical notation we have. In the ancient Greek, Oriental and Jewish traditions, ekphonetic notation, a system of grammatical accents indicating inflections in language or liturgical texts, was in use as early as c. 200 BC. The invention of the Greek system of prosodic signs, from which both ekphonetic and neumatic notation are derived, is generally attributed to the grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium (257-180 BC).

Although many fragments have survived from this period, the Greek Seikilos epitaph, a find that has been dated variously from around 200 BC to around AD 100, is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the Western world. Greek instrumental and vocal music was notated using two different systems of letters, but, by the time Boethius (c. 470-525) was writing his five books on music theory, the Romans were using a single system based on the first 15 letters of the alphabet. Neumes, themselves derived from Greek ekphonetic notation, were introduced into Gregorian chant probably as early as the sixth century. Although the scholar and music theorist Isidore of Seville, writing in the early seventh century, famously remarked that it was impossible to notate music, fragmentary evidence indicates that staffless neumes were certainly in use by the eighth century where they appear to have been used primarily to jog the memories of singers who would have learned the chants by ear. In their earliest form, neumes were purely adiastematic, that is, they only told the singer whether the pitch went up or down. Louis W.

G. Barton, in his essay entitled The Neume Notation Project explains that neumes are 'symbolic characters'. Each character is a literal (not pictorial) representation of a note or group of notes, in an analogous way to letters of the alphabet standing for sounds of speech. There is nothing inherent in the shape of the letter 'A' that would lead one to think that it stands for the sound 'ah', and so 'A' is symbolic, not iconic. For this reason the exact form that neumes could take varied from region to region. Reference: Neumatic Notation part of Medieval Liturgy in the Low Countries Black letter styles were a feature of most late Mediaeval hand-scribed manuscripts. Thick nibs scratching away on parchment could not produce light airy forms; rather, and to avoid raising the pen too often from the page, the hand was crowded, filled with numerous ligatures, often close to illegible and very black. This sense of overcrowding persisted even after a further refinement, heightened neumes arranged above and below a line (which appeared sometime towards the end of the tenth century), made the intervals of the melody somewhat clearer.

Neumatic Notation through History podatus subpunctis (group of four notes) quilisma - it occurs invariably as the middle note in an ascending group and seems to indicate a glide of the voice, being accompanied by a sustaining of the note or group of notes preceding it strophicus - one group of hook form signs shaped like a comma - singly it is called apostropha, when doubled, distropha; when trebled, tristropha. The apostropha is generally found at the end of another neum, or followed by a distropha at a higher pitch; it is never used as a single note over a syllable oriscus - apostropha and oriscus are sometimes interchanged in different manuscripts.

In a few instances the oriscus, however, is found as the single sign over a syllable Latin Glossary: virga, virgula (from the Latin virga, rod) - punctus or punctum (Latin, point, dot) - tractulus (Latin, little stroke) - pes, podatus (from the Latin, pes, foot) - torculus (Latin, twisted - from torquere, to twist, from its broken form) - clivis (more properly clinis) (Latin, bend) - porrectus (Latin, extended - from porrigere, to extend, from the extended form of its lines) - climacus (from the Latin climax, stair, ladder) - scandicus (Latin, climber - from scandere, to rise) - salicus (from the Latin, salire, to jump) - flexus (Latin, 'bent' - the addition of a lower note to a group ending with a higher note) - resupinus (Latin, 'bent back' - the addition of a higher note to a group ending with a lower note) - prï¿½punctis (the placing of several puncta before a sign) - compunct

is (addition of puncta before and after a group of notes) - subpunctis (the placing of several puncta after a sign) Ashenafi Kebede, in Music in Black Jewish and Christian Communities , describes the 'dual' system introduced in the sixteenth century that featured in Ethiopic chant notation.

It employed both milikitoch (neumatic signs: curves, dots, dashes, etc.) and siraye (letter notation taken from the Ethiopian Ge'ez alphabet). To keep the two systems apart, the siraye was often placed above, while the milikit was placed below the text of the manuscripts. The siraye consisted of small letters usually written in red ink; the milikitoch were easily recognizable by their distinct shapes, and they were often written in black ink. Although neither the signs nor the letters indicated individual pitches, they clearly reminded the knowledgeable cantor of melodic passages, each with its own relative pitches, each passage being both melodically and textually meaningful. The duration of each pitch, silence, and volume was also measured according to their importance within each passage and the entire chant as a whole. We would recommend the reference below for further information about the development of neumatic notation. Reference: Gregorian Notation - examples showing the development of the notation In modern printing of medieval chant usually four line staffs are employed. In medieval manuscripts, however, there might be no staff line, or anything from one to six lines per staff, where each line signified a different voice.

Odo, abbot of the great abbey of Cluny from 927 to 942, actively fostered choral music both in his own abbey, where a hundred or more psalms were being sung daily, and in his travels to other monasteries, inspecting their music and instructing their choirs. From documents of the period, we know both of his teaching methods and of the importance attached to music at Cluny. His great innovation was to arrange the notes of the scale into an orderly progression from A to G, in this way developing the earliest effective system of Western musical notation. To aid the pitching the notes in the various Gregorian modes he associated them with string lengths on the monochord. Reproducibility replaced unreliable 'learning by rote'. The failure of the neume system to maintain consistency in the performance of religious chant, inspired Guido d'Arezzo, in about 1025, to extend Odo's methods, and perfect his new staff-based system of music notation. Reference: Graduale [ref: Fol. 236. St. Gall, 1512. Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod.

mus. I.] - an example of early sixteenth-century notation. Sometime during the tenth century, a red line, traced horizontally above the text, gave the singer a fixed note (F=fa), and so helped him to approximate the intervals. A second line in yellow (for C=ut) was added later. The staff arose from the addition of further black lines. It should be emphasised that these developments varied from place to place and that a remarkable range of notations coexisted at any one period. These experiments would result in the assignment of a four-lined staff to sacred music and of a five-lined staff to secular music. The yellow and red colours were later replaced by Guido who indicated the pitch of certain lines on the stave using letters. From one assigned pitch, the pitch of the remaining lines and spaces followed. By the time Petrucci's 1501 Harmonice musices odhecaton appeared, the first book of music printed from moveable type, bass and alto clefs identifying the note F and the note C respectively, symbols virtually identical to those found in earlier manuscript, had become standard.

Only in the case where the cantus line was preceded by a C clef marking the bottom line of the stave, would we use today a treble clef marking G on the second line from the bottom of the stave. We illustrate the C and F clef signs below: An example of the Petrucci 'style' may be found on page 160 of A History of Western Music by Grout and Palisca (published by W.W. Norton). As we have noted above, Guido also named the degrees of the scale using the initial syllables of the lines of a Latin hymn (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la). Originally used for teaching sight singing, these or their derivatives are also used in some languages for naming absolute pitches. However, the term 'absolute pitch' when referring to medieval music should be handled with care. Reference: Pitch, Temperament & Timbre While a staff of five lines was adopted in France for vocal music, one of six lines was used in Italy and, as the example illustrates, in the Reading Abbey manuscript in which the Reading rota (entitled Sumer Is Icumen In) appears.

Instrumental music employed staves of varying numbers of lines until the sixteenth century when the five-line staff became the standard. Accidental notation derives from variations of the letter B, particularly, the sharp and natural from the square B quadratum, and the flat from the B rotundum. In the earliest European music notation, 4-line staff Gregorian chant manuscripts, only B needed to be altered. It could be flattened, so altering from its position in the hexachordum durum ('hard hexachord' - hard because of the 'hard b': G-A-B-C-D-E) where it is natural, to that in the hexachordum molle ('soft hexachord' - soft because of the 'soft b': F-G-A-Bb-C-D) where it is flat. B is absent from the third hexachord, hexachordum naturale ('natural hexachord' - natural because it is neither hard nor soft: C-D-E-F-G-A). This use of B as the only altered note explains some modern notational peculiarities.

The flat sign actually derives from a round B (b), to signify the B of the soft hexachord, that is B flat (hence the name of the flat sign in French bï¿½mol from medieval French bï¿½ mol ï¿½ modern French bï¿½ mou ï¿½ or 'soft b') and originally meant only the altered B, Bb. The natural sign derives from a square B ( ), to indicate the B of the 'hard hexachord', that is, B natural (hence the name of the natural sign in French bï¿½carre from medieval French bï¿½ carre, earlier bï¿½ quarre ï¿½ modern French bï¿½ carrï¿½ ï¿½ or 'square b') and originally meant only the unaltered B, B natural. For the same reason, in the German notation the letter B only designates the B flat while the letter H, which is actually a deformation of a square B designates the B natural. As polyphonic harmony developed more alterations were required. The first sharp in use was F#, then came the second flat Eb, then C#, as so on.

By the sixteenth century Bb, Eb, Db, Ab, Gb and F#, C#, G#, D# and A# were all in use. The opposition of the 'soft b' (B flat) and the 'hard b' (B natural) went beyond the fact that they are present in different hexachords: the rules of polyphony stated that they could not be sung together or even consecutively either in the same part or in different parts. The segregation of the 'hard b' (which in the medieval hexachordal system bore the name 'b mi') from the 'soft b' (which in the medieval hexachordal system bore the name 'b fa') was extended in polyphonic music to the rule of 'mi contra fa', whereby the tritone, the medieval 'diabolo in musica' was a forbidden melodic and vertical interval and had to be corrected to a perfect fourth or fifth. References: Tritone After a period during which printers sought to replicate features of handwritten manuscript in their choice of print face, a process of standardisation took place and when new ideas in letter form design were adopted in one country, they became commonplace elsewhere.

Those interested in the history of design and form in early printing, much of it unrelated to notation of music, may like to read The Alphabet Abecedarium by Richard A. Firmage published in 2000 by Bloomsbury (ISBN 0 7475 4757 2) - an earlier edition appeared in 1993 published by David R. Godine, Boston, MA, USA. The evolution of rhythmic notation took much longer than that for pitch. It would appear that prior to mensural notation the length of notes would be determined by the ancient rules of proportional rhythm applied to the words accompanying the melody (prosodic feet and proportions). By the tenth century, notation was beginning to develop its own rules. We find, in the anonymous Commemoratio brevis, some striking observations on the relative lengths of different notes. "Breves must not be slower than is fitting for Breves; nor may Longs be distorted in erratic haste and be faster than is appropriate for Longs .... All notes which are long must correspond rhythmically with those which are not long through their proper inherent durations ...

for the longer values consist of the shorter, and the shorter subsist in the longer, and in such a fashion that one has always twice the duration of the other, neither more nor less ... for without question all music should be strictly measured in the manner of prosody" Even so, it remains a problem when classifying and analysing the music of the troubadour, associated with Southern France between 1100 and 1300, as to whether the lyrics or the melody form the foundation for interpretation and performance. There is a complete absence of any mensural notation. Mensural or 'measured-time' notation would emerge only slowly and the golden era of the troubadours was a time of evolution. Mensural notation became a necessity as polyphony and, in particular, the motet developed. Time could no longer be elastic. A single invariable time-unit became essential. At first, rhythmic modes were represented by certain patternings of neumes; later, in his Ars cantus mensurabilis (c.1280), Franco of Cologne clearly indicated, for each note, its exact rhythmic length and represented notes of long and short duration by particular specific neumes.

In his system, the longer value was in principle equal to three of the shorter values. Indeed, the essence of mensuration was the relationships between two sets of note durations specifically, the ratio of breves to semibreves (called tempus), and of semibreves to minims (called prolatio). In the fourteenth century, Philippe de Vitry, author of Ars nova, expanded Franco's 3:1 system to allow duple divisions of the long and short notes, i.e. a 2:1 system. At the various rhythmic levels of a given piece, either relationship was implied, and a system of signs and coloured notes was used to identify which relationship was currently being used or being temporarily set aside. Mensural notation had become, then, a system of rhythmic notation where distinct note-shapes (from about 1260, maxima, longa, brevis and semibrevis - from the fourteenth century, minima - from the fifteenth century, semiminima, fusa and semifusa) indicated the relative lengths of different notes. Groups of notes could be 'bound' together to form ligatures.

This notational system was distinct both from that of rhythmic modes in which the context of the musical line limited any rhythmic flexibity, and unmeasured music which was entirely free from any set rhythmic values. The ternary ratio (3:1) applied to the tempus (ratio of breves to semibreves), was called perfect, and was represented by a complete circle; applied to the prolatio (ratio of semibreves to minims), it was called major and was represented by a dot in the middle of the sign. The binary ratio (2:1) applied to the tempus was called imperfect, and was represented by an incomplete circle; applied to prolatio, it was called minor and was represented by the lack of an internal dot. This system was extended to the ratio of longer note values, in particular, of maxima to longa (called modus maximorum, modus major or maximodus) and of longa to breve (called modus longarum, modus minor or simply modus). The mensural notation system remained in use until about 1600. We thank Ken Moore for his help in clarifying this section on mensuration.

Pre-Mensural Notation Symbols Reading Early Notation by David Read We thank Christian Mondrup for recommending and providing information about two of these links By the fifteenth century, numbers appeared in the form of fractions, which in time developed into our time signatures, to mark when one proportionality of rhythmic values was temporarily being substituted for by another. Bar lines, expression signs, and, by the seventeenth century, Italian became the standard language for indicating the tempo (e.g. allegro, andante, largo). It should be mentioned that indications of the character of a piece had been used as far back as the Musica Enchiriadis (ninth century) employing the Latin words morosus (sadly) and cum celeritate (fast). Nicola Vicentino (1511-1575/76) was one of the first theorists to mention volume as an expressive parameter.

In his treatise L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555) he mentioned that the strength of singing must respect carefully the text and passage being sung and Giovanni Gabrieli's Sacrae Symphoniae (1597) is an early example where we find dynamic markings (i.e. piano, forte, pianissimo, fortissimo) used in their abbreviated form. German, French and English composers sometimes indicated, at the top of the page, the mood or speed of a piece in their own language while employing titles drawn from a wide range of languages. With the adoption of equal temperament and the major and minor modes, key signatures indicating a major key or its relative minor became conventional and assumed their present form during the baroque period. Even so there could be the odd example where composers modified standard notation to meet specific needs.

This is a portion of the first movement of Partita VII from Biber's collection of scordatura trios, Harmonia artificiosa-ariosa diversimode accordata, a work in 7 movements for two violas d'amore and basso continuo, originally published in 1696; this is a facsimile from the 1712 reprint. The tuning given is for 6 strings. The 9 line stave is Biber's way of extending the fingerings of the ordinary 4 string viola to the viola d'amore. There is one other example of this 9 line stave notation surviving. To those interested in hearing this Partitia by Biber we recommend the superb recording of the complete Harmonia Artificioso Ariosa by The Rare Fruits Council on Auvidis France E 8572. The Auvidis label is now part of Naive Classique.

Naive Classique 148 rue du Faubourg Poissonniï¿½re 75010 Paris Tel: +33 (0)1 44 91 64 00 Fax: +33 (0)1 44 91 64 02 Email: info@naive.fr In the example below, taken from the Lilypond music processor web site, the arrangement of stems in the second half of the first bar, the whole of the second bar and the first half of the third bar, reflects the fact that the left hand melody line has been written on both staves for clarity. In order to make readable multiple voices on an individual staff, the engraver combines notes and rests so that the player can follow easily the disposition of the individual voices from beat to beat, bar to bar. The advent of aleatory music has produced new notational systems, varying from piece to piece, indicating only approximate pitch, duration, and dynamic relations. Notation for electronic music is still not standardized but generally uses traditional reference symbols (staff and clef signs) in conjunction with specially adapted pitch and rhythm notation.

Proportionate (proportional) Notation, a graphic method of indicating durations, where instead of traditional notation, the horizontal spacing of symbols represents the intended length of durations has been introduced to handle pulseless music and music in which different and often complicated rhythms progress simultaneously at different speeds. Sagittal is a microtonal notation system by George D. Secor and David C. Keenan. George Secor began development of the Sagittal (pronounced ï¿½SAJ-i-tlï¿½) notation system in August 2001. In January 2002 he presented what he had developed to the Yahoo group tuning and offered to consider suggestions for improvements. At that stage the system could notate the equal temperaments with 17, 19, 22, 29, 31, 41, and 72 divisions per octave. Little did he know that he had provided a unifying symbolic principle which would ultimately be developed into a system capable of notating almost any conceivable microtonal tuning. References:

Question: In music what note is equal to a quarter of a minim?
Answer: QUAVER