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The First Written Music - An Evolving Process

Guest post by: Teresa Rose

Article Overview: Today's written music may appear to be difficult to read at first glance, but it is nothing compared to the first written music. Music has evolved and changed over time leaving us with an easy way to read and understand it. You may not think so right now, but the earliest written music is truly the most difficult to read, understand and master.

The First Written Music - An Evolving Process

Today's written music may appear to be difficult to read at first glance, but it is nothing compared to the first written music. Music has evolved and changed over time leaving us with an easy way to read and understand it. You may not think so right now, but the earliest written music is truly the most difficult to read, understand and master.

To give you a better understanding and appreciation of reading music, here is a little history of the very first written music.

Written music dates back to 200 B.C. with the earliest surviving manuscripts dating from the 9th and 10th centuries. Small dots or neumes were used to represent notes in plainsong or Gregorian chant as early as the 9th century.

In the 11th century, the neumes were carefully arranged above and below an imaginary line to specify pitch. The imaginary line was scratched into manuscripts without using any ink giving it the name "dry-point line". The higher the appearance of the neume above the line, the higher the pitch. The lower the neume was placed below the line, the lower the pitch.

Eventually, one or more lines and clefs were drawn with ink on the page leading to the practice of using C or F clefs with a four-line staff. Again, how high or low the neume was placed on the staff indicated how high or low the pitch would sound.

Today, the rhythm of Gregorian chant remains a topic of controversy. The neumes did not indicate the duration of notes in the earliest music. A short horizontal line appeared later in music with some scholars saying that it represents the neume's length of sound. Meanwhile, other sources claim the use of Romanian letters refers to rhythm and tempo in early music. With everything considered, the interpretation and representation of rhythm in the first written music remains open to debate.

Around the 15th and 16th centuries, written music was becoming standardized. Music began to look like it does today with the creation of a 5-line staff, clef signs, the placement of notes signifying pitch, and a standardized representation of rhythm.

Although the first written music has gone through many changes since 200 B.C., much of the same basic information that was present then is also present now. The symbols used is the only difference. Fortunately for us, we have standardized a system of reading music notes that anyone can learn to read easily around the world today.

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