I like music \u2014 but I\u2019m not a musician. That\u2019s one regret I have \u2014 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\u2019t play \u201cTiger Rag,\u201d or any song for that matter. I figured I wasn\u2019t cut out for it and quit. Big mistake, but that\u2019s another story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think it\u2019s amazing that the musical notation on a sheet of music looks as confusing as a calculus formula. But if you\u2019re a musician, it\u2019s a clear and concise road map that shows the way \u2014 most any competent musician can play a piece he\u2019s never heard before, and it comes out more or less as the composer intended.\u00a0
Well, anyhow, that got me to wondering about how this musical \u201clanguage\u201d came about\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It appears that a lot of the details of the current musical notation evolved over the centuries, but from what I\u2019ve read, the fundamentals can be traced back to one person \u2014 Guido of Arezzo, an Italian monk that lived between 990 and 1050. Here\u2019s a bit of what I found out about Guido\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There had been some rudimentary forms of musical notation known to the Western world for centuries. In Guido\u2019s time, a system of notation known as \u201cneumes\u201d were used as guides to Gregorian chants. Neumes were squiggly, and kind of vague, little notations that told the singers to \u201csing high here\u201d or \u201csing low there.\u201d They worked pretty good for people who already knew the piece of music, but they were pretty useless if the singer or musician didn\u2019t. Musicians really had to learn musical pieces by ear \u2014 from other musicians.
Guido\u2019s idea was to refine the stage \u2014 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 \u2014 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As might be expected, Guido\u2019s new-fangled musical ideas weren\u2019t readily accepted \u2014 the older generation didn\u2019t think much of it. In fact he was kicked out of two monasteries because the other monks didn\u2019t like his style \u2014 I guess the nice way to put it is they had \u201ccreative differences.\u201d
But despite all that, Guido was becoming well known. Pope John XIX heard about Guido\u2019s 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\u2019t good for Guido\u2019s health, so he went back to one of his old monasteries. When he returned, he was welcomed back with open arms \u2014 maybe because he Pope had become one of Guido\u2019s biggest fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u2014 today, when you see a song book or listen to music \u2014 think about that Italian monk of a thousand years ago.
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I like music \u2014 but I\u2019m not a musician. That\u2019s one regret I have \u2014 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 … Continue reading