Editing Musical notation (section)

==History==
===Ancient Near East===
{{further|Music of Mesopotamia|Hurrian songs}}
[[File:Hurritische hymne.gif|thumb|upright=1.5|A tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal inscribed<ref>Giorgio Buccellati, "[http://128.97.6.202/urkeshpublic/music.htm Hurrian Music]", associate editor and webmaster Federico A. Buccellati Urkesh website (n.p.: IIMAS, 2003).</ref>]]
The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a [[cuneiform script|cuneiform]] tablet that was created at [[Nippur]], in [[Babylonia]] (today's [[Iraq]]), in about 1400 BCE. The [[Clay tablet|tablet]] represents fragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in [[Harmony|harmonies]] of [[Interval (music)|thirds]], and that it was written using a [[diatonic scale]].{{sfnp|Kilmer|Civil|1986|p={{Page needed|date=June 2009}}}}

A tablet from about 1250 BCE shows a more developed form of notation.{{sfnp|Kilmer|1965|p={{Page needed|date=June 2009}}}} Although the interpretation of the notation system is still controversial, it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a [[lyre]], the [[Musical tuning|tuning]] of which is described in other tablets.{{sfnp|West|1994|pp=161–163}} Research indicates these notations had dual purposes for liturgical and secular musical pieces since music was essential in both religious ceremonies and courtly activities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=L |first=West, M |date=1992-10-01 |title=Ancient Greek Music |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/47041 |journal=OUP Academic |language=en |doi=10.1093/o|doi-broken-date=24 February 2025 }}</ref> Although they are fragmentary, these tablets represent the earliest notated [[melody|melodies]] found anywhere in the world.{{sfnp|West|1994|p=161}}

[[File:Delphichymn.jpg|thumb|A photograph of the original stone at Delphi containing the second of the two [[Delphic Hymns]] to [[Apollo]]. The music notation is the line of occasional symbols ''above'' the main, uninterrupted line of Greek lettering.]]

===Ancient Greece===
{{further|Musical system of ancient Greece}}

[[Music of ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] musical notation was in use from at least the 6th century BCE until approximately the 4th century CE; only one complete composition ([[Seikilos epitaph]]) and a number of fragments using this notation survive.

The notation for sung music consists of letter symbols for the [[Pitch (music)|pitches]], placed above text syllables. Rhythm is indicated in a rudimentary way only, with long and short symbols. The [[Seikilos epitaph]] has been variously dated between the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.

Three hymns by [[Mesomedes]] of [[Crete]] exist in [[manuscript]]. The [[Delphic Hymns]], dated to the 2nd century BCE also use this notation, but they are not completely preserved.

Ancient Greek notation appears to have fallen out of use around the time of the [[decline of the Western Roman Empire]].

===Byzantine Empire===
{{further|Byzantine music}}
[[File:Stavropoleos-anastasimatar-macarie-viena-1823-p11.png|thumb|right|Byzantine music notation in the first edition (1823) of Macarie Ieromonahul's ''anastasimatarion'', a hymnal with daily chant (including resurrection troparia called ''apolytikia anastasima'') in [[Octoechos (liturgy)#Types of octoechos books|oktoechos]] order, each section began with the evening psalm 140 (here section of echos protos with Romanian written in Cyrillic script)]]

[[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] music once included music for court ceremonies, but has only survived as vocal [[church music]] within various [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox]] traditions of monodic ([[Monophony|monophonic]]) chant written down in Byzantine round notation (see Macarie's ''[[Octoechos (liturgy)|anastasimatarion]]'' with the Greek text translated into [[Romanian language|Romanian]] and transliterated into its corresponding [[Romanian Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic script]]).<ref>Printed chant books with a modern simplified version of round notation were published since the 1820s and also used in Greece and Constantinople and in Old Church Slavonic translation within the slavophone Balkans and later on the territory of the autocephalous foundation of [[National awakening of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]].</ref>

Since the 6th century, Greek theoretical categories (''melos'', ''genos'', ''[[harmonia]]'', ''systema'') played a key role to understand and transmit Byzantine music, especially the tradition of [[Damascus]] had a strong impact on the pre-Islamic [[Near East]] comparable to the impact coming from [[Persian traditional music|Persian music]]. The earliest evidence are [[papyrus]] fragments of Greek tropologia. These fragments just present the hymn text following a modal signature or key (like "{{lang|el|ΠΛ Α}}" for ''echos plagios protos'' or "{{lang|el|Β}}" for ''echos devteros'').

Unlike Western notation, Byzantine [[neume]]s used since the 10th century were always related to [[Mode (music)|modal]] steps (same modal degree, one degree lower, two degrees higher, etc.) in relation to such a clef or modal key ([[Enechema|modal signatures]]). Originally this key or the incipit of a common melody was enough to indicate a certain [[Melodic pattern|melodic model]] given within the [[echos]]. Next to [[ekphonetic notation]], only used in [[Lectionary|lectionaries]] to indicate formulas used during scriptural lessons, melodic notation developed not earlier than between the 9th and the 10th century, when a ''theta'' ({{lang|el|θ}}), ''oxeia'' ({{lang|el|/}}) or ''diple'' ({{lang|el|//}}) were written under a certain syllable of the text, whenever a longer [[melisma]] was expected. This primitive form was called "theta" or "diple notation".

Today, one can study the evolution of this notation in Greek monastic chant books like those of the [[Sticheron|sticherarion]] and the [[Irmologion|heirmologion]] (Chartres notation was rather used on [[Mount Athos]] and Constantinople, Coislin notation within the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria), while there was another gestic notation originally used for the ''asmatikon'' (choir book) and kontakarion (book of the soloist or monophonaris) of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite. The earliest books which have survived, are "kondakars" in Slavonic translation which already show a notation system known as [[Byzantine music#The Kievan Rus' and the earliest manuscripts of the cathedral rite|Kondakarian notation]].<ref>Only one Greek asmatikon written during the 14th century (Kastoria, Metropolitan Library, Ms. 8) preserved this gestic notation based on the practice of cheironomia, and transcribed the gestic signs into sticherarion notation in a second row. For more about kondakar, see {{harvp|Floros| Moran| 2009}} and {{harvp| Myers|1998}}.</ref> Like the [[Greek alphabet]] notational signs are ordered left to right (though the direction could be adapted like in certain [[Syriac alphabet|Syriac]] manuscripts). The question of rhythm was entirely based on ''cheironomia'' (the interpretation of so-called great signs which derived from different chant books). These great signs ({{lang|el|μεγάλα σῃμάδια}}) indicated well-known melodic phrases given by gestures of the [[Cantor (Christianity)|choirleaders]] of the cathedral rite. They existed once as part of an oral tradition, developed Kondakarian notation and became, during the 13th century, integrated into Byzantine round notation as a kind of universal notation system.<ref>After the decline of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite during the fourth crusade (1201), its books ''kontakarion'' and ''asmatikon'' had been written in monastic scriptoria using Byzantine round notation. For more, see [[Byzantine music#The end of the cathedral rite in Constantinople|Byzantine music]].</ref>

Today the main difference between Western and Eastern neumes is that Eastern notation symbols are "differential" rather than absolute, i.e., they indicate pitch steps (rising, falling or at the same step), and the musicians know to deduce correctly, from the score and the note they are singing presently, which correct interval is meant. These step symbols themselves, or better "phonic neumes", resemble brush strokes and are colloquially called ''gántzoi'' ('hooks') in [[modern Greek]].

Notes as pitch classes or modal keys (usually memorised by modal signatures) are represented in written form only between these neumes (in manuscripts usually written in red ink). In modern notation they simply serve as an optional reminder and modal and tempo directions have been added, if necessary. In Papadic notation medial signatures usually meant a temporary change into another echos.

The so-called "great signs" were once related to cheironomic signs; according to modern interpretations they are understood as embellishments and microtonal attractions (pitch changes smaller than a [[semitone]]), both essential in Byzantine chant.<ref>See {{harvp|Alexandru|2000}} for a historical discussion of the great signs and their modern interpretations.</ref>

[[File:ChrysanthosTable.png|thumb|upright=1.8|center|Chrysanthos's ''Kanonion'' with a comparison between Ancient Greek tetraphonia (column 1), Western [[Solfeggio]], the ''Papadic Parallage'' (ascending: column 3 and 4; descending: column 5 and 6) according to the ''trochos system'', and his heptaphonic ''parallage'' according to the New Method (syllables in the fore-last and ''martyriai'' in the last column){{sfnp|Chrysanthos|1832|p=33}})]]

Since [[Chrysanthos of Madytos]] there are seven standard note names used for "solfège" (''parallagē'') ''pá, vú, g<sup>h</sup>á, d<sup>h</sup>i, ké, zō, nē'', while the older practice still used the four enechemata or intonation formulas of the four echoi given by the modal signatures, the authentic or ''kyrioi'' in ascending direction, and the plagal or ''plagioi'' in descending direction ([[Papadic Octoechos]]).<ref>{{harvp|Chrysanthos|1832}} made a difference between his monosyllabic and the traditional polysyllabic ''parallage.''</ref> With exception of ''vú and zō'' they do roughly correspond to Western solmization syllables as ''re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do''. Byzantine music uses the eight natural, non-tempered scales whose elements were identified by ''Ēkhoi'', "sounds", exclusively, and therefore the absolute pitch of each note may slightly vary each time, depending on the particular ''Ēkhos'' used. Byzantine notation is still used in many Orthodox Churches. Sometimes cantors also use transcriptions into Western or Kievan staff notation while adding non-notatable embellishment material from memory and "sliding" into the natural scales from experience, but even concerning modern neume editions since the reform of Chrysanthos a lot of details are only known from an oral tradition related to traditional masters and their experience.

===13th-century Near East===
In 1252, [[Safi al-Din al-Urmawi]] developed a form of musical notation, where [[rhythm]]s were represented by [[Geometry|geometric]] representation. Many subsequent scholars of rhythm have sought to develop graphical geometrical notations. For example, a similar geometric system was published in 1987 by Kjell Gustafson, whose method represents a rhythm as a two-dimensional graph.{{sfnp|Toussaint|2004|loc=3}} Rhythmic notation during its early stages developed Eastern musical traditions while simultaneously establishing concepts that Western music used to build its notation systems later on.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoppin |first=Richard H. |title=Medieval music |date=1978 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-09090-1 |edition=1st |series=The Norton introduction to music history |location=New York}}</ref>

===Early Europe===
{{Main|Neume}}

[[File:Head of Christ1.jpg|thumb|Music notation from an early 14th-century English [[Missal]]]]
The scholar and music theorist [[Isidore of Seville]], while writing in the early 7th century, considered that "unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down."{{sfnp|Isidore of Seville|2006|p=95}} By the middle of the 9th century, however, a form of neumatic notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe as a [[mnemonic]] device for [[Gregorian chant]], using symbols known as [[neume]]s; 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 [[Neume|Visigothic neumes]], but its few surviving fragments have not yet been deciphered.{{sfnp|Zapke|2007|p={{Page needed|date=May 2010|reason=A complex issue, to be sure, but this book has 480 pages. Surely it does not take that long to demonstrate that nothing at all has been deciphered.}}}} The problem with this notation was that it only showed melodic contours and consequently the music could not be read by someone who did not know the music already.

[[File:EarlyMusicNotation.JPG|thumb|Early music notation]]

Notation had developed far enough to notate melody, but there was still no system for notating rhythm. A mid-13th-century treatise, ''[[De Mensurabili Musica]]'', explains a set of six [[rhythmic modes]] that were in use at the time,{{sfnp|Christensen|2002|p=628}} although it is not clear how they were formed. These rhythmic modes were all in triple time and rather limited rhythm in chant to six different repeating patterns. This was a flaw seen by German music theorist [[Franco of Cologne]] and summarised as part of his treatise ''Ars Cantus Mensurabilis'' (the art of measured chant, or [[mensural notation]]). He suggested that individual notes could have their own rhythms represented by the shape of the note. Not until the 14th century did something like the present system of fixed note lengths arise.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} The use of regular measures (bars) became commonplace by the end of the 17th century.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}

The founder of what is now considered the standard music staff was [[Guido of Arezzo|Guido d'Arezzo]],{{sfnp|Otten|1910}} an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after 1033. He taught the use of [[solmization]] syllables based on a hymn to [[Saint John the Baptist]], which begins [[Ut Queant Laxis]] and was written by the [[Lombards|Lombard]] historian [[Paul the Deacon]]. The first stanza is:

# '''Ut''' queant laxis
# '''re'''sonare fibris,
# '''Mi'''ra gestorum
# '''fa'''muli tuorum,
# '''Sol'''ve polluti
# '''la'''bii reatum,
# '''S'''ancte '''I'''ohannes.

Guido used the first syllable of each line, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si, to read notated music in terms of [[Guidonian hand#Hexachord in Middle Ages|hexachords]]; they were not note names, and each could, depending on context, be applied to any note. In the 17th century, Ut was changed in most countries except France to the easily singable, open syllable Do, believed to have been taken either from the name of the Italian theorist [[Giovanni Battista Doni|Giovanni Battista '''Do'''ni]], or from the Latin word '''''Do'''minus'', meaning ''Lord''.{{sfnp|McNaught|1893|p=43}}

Christian monks developed the first forms of modern European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church,{{sfnp|Hall|Neitz|Battani|2003|p=100}} and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music, and its many derivatives. The [[Baroque]] style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.{{sfnp|Murray|1994|page=45}}