I like music — but I’m not a musician. That’s one regret I have — I never learned to play a musical instrument. I was pretty much forced to take piano lessons when I was little, but after a couple of lessons I still couldn’t play “Tiger Rag,” or any song for that matter. I figured I wasn’t cut out for it and quit. Big mistake, but that’s another story.
I think it’s amazing that the musical notation on a sheet of music looks as confusing as a calculus formula. But if you’re a musician, it’s a clear and concise road map that shows the way — most any competent musician can play a piece he’s never heard before, and it comes out more or less as the composer intended.
Well, anyhow, that got me to wondering about how this musical “language” came about…..
It appears that a lot of the details of the current musical notation evolved over the centuries, but from what I’ve read, the fundamentals can be traced back to one person — Guido of Arezzo, an Italian monk that lived between 990 and 1050. Here’s a bit of what I found out about Guido…..
There had been some rudimentary forms of musical notation known to the Western world for centuries. In Guido’s time, a system of notation known as “neumes” were used as guides to Gregorian chants. Neumes were squiggly, and kind of vague, little notations that told the singers to “sing high here” or “sing low there.” They worked pretty good for people who already knew the piece of music, but they were pretty useless if the singer or musician didn’t. Musicians really had to learn musical pieces by ear — from other musicians.
Guido’s idea was to refine the stage — the parallel lines that are used to denote a particular pitch. The version that was being used had only two lines for the C and F notes. Guido added two more lines — one below the C and one between the C and F. His new staff clearly showed the relationship that each each musical note had with the others surrounding it.
As might be expected, Guido’s new-fangled musical ideas weren’t readily accepted — the older generation didn’t think much of it. In fact he was kicked out of two monasteries because the other monks didn’t like his style — I guess the nice way to put it is they had “creative differences.”
But despite all that, Guido was becoming well known. Pope John XIX heard about Guido’s new ideas and invited him to Rome. Guido taught the Pope how t read music. The Pope was so impressed with him that he urged Guido to stay in rome. But the climate in Rome wasn’t good for Guido’s health, so he went back to one of his old monasteries. When he returned, he was welcomed back with open arms — maybe because he Pope had become one of Guido’s biggest fans.
After Guido had basically defined the basics of musical notation, other innovations followed. The five line staff became standard in the 16th century, the current shape of musical notes were standardized in the 17th, and many of the words and signs that describe tempo and dynamics were standard by the 18th century.
So — today, when you see a song book or listen to music — think about that Italian monk of a thousand years ago.
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