The next note is the octave A, the same as the starting note only twice the frequency, and the seven letter sequence repeats. He then carried on naming the seven notes of the major scale in alphabetic order, as B, C, D and so on, ending on the seventh as G just below the top line. He used the letters of the Roman alphabet to name the notes and he chose to start with A in the gap between the bottom line of the bass clef and the next line up. The overall pitch of a five line staff is indicated by a clef sign (clef from the French, meaning key) at the beginning and Guido started with two pitch ranges of bass and treble. Guido based his system on the pitch range of the male human voice. Each staff is separated by at least a single ledger line which isn’t drawn as a continuous line, leaving space between staves for the purpose of legibility. To cover wider ranges of pitch, further sets of five staff lines can be used and short extension ledger lines can be drawn above or below the five line staff. The eighth note in the sequence is of course the octave, so a five line staff can comfortably cover one octave. Notes are written either between, or on the lines, and by placing the bottom note in a sequence just above the bottom line, then counting all the spaces and lines and ending immediately above the fourth line, you get seven notes. Five lines are a small, easily drawn and read number. He took the neumatic notation and extended it into a five line staff or stave. There was always the possibility for mistakes to creep in, or for music to be lost altogether.Ī musical theorist, a monk known as Guido of Arrezo or sometime just Guido Monaco (the monk), solved the church’s problem by inventing the basis of western musical notation. Chants had to be memorized and could only be taught directly from one person to another. This did little more than indicate that the next note went up or down in pitch and provided some idea of the articulation. All they had was a series of marks or neumes above the written words of the chant. The problem was there was no accurate system of writing music. In the 10 th century, plainsong or plain chant – unaccompanied singing performed by monks and boys – was a part of religious services. The church leaders were concerned about heresy, they wanted to be sure that wherever Christianity was practised, everyone followed the same dogma they believed the same things and all worshipped in the same way. The existence of western musical notation and consequently middle C, is due to the Catholic Church seeking uniformity in church worship. Most people will have heard of middle C, but apart from knowing it is a musical note somewhere around the middle of the piano keyboard, won’t know it’s significance. By Terry Relph-Knight, copyright retained 03/06/18
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