Transcript ppt325.tmp

Music Notation
How was music notation invented?
Before we get to how people
started writing music, We need to
visit what it was like before
written music.
Roman Empire
The roman Empire was at a time in history
where a ruling government was centered
around Italy and a city named Rome.
Here music was very common.
You would have many different
instruments such as the lyre, or a
small flute, made out of wood or
bone.
But what is interesting is how they
passed music from one person to
another. If you wanted to learn a
song, you would have to learn it
aurally. That is where you would
hear the music, copy it, and commit
it to memory.
Why not just write it down?
Even though paper was invented, it was
hard to make, and so very rare and
expensive.
Great, but how did we get
to writing down music?
Around the 5th century, Rome was
invaded many times by cruel and
visous barbarians, whose leader was
“Attila The Hun”.
In fact Rome paid many pounds
of Gold for Attila not to be
attacked by Attila’s army, but in
the end he attacked and burned
Rome as well as many other
cities.
One way for people to stay safe
from attack, was to build walls
around your town, or even build a
castle.
Attila’s favorite way to attack a
city, would be to arrive with his
army, and wait outside the walls.
No one came in and no one came
out.
Many times he would stay for
many months, sometimes a year.
The people inside would not be
able to leave to replenish their
food and water.
Sometimes people had stored
enough food, they could “out
wait” the Barbarians, sometimes
not
So what does this have to do with
music?
The next few centuries is the
medieval era, or otherwise
referred to as the dark ages. This
is a time in human history where
we did not advance forward, but
in some respects, backwards.
Much knowledge was lost
during this era.
How can you loose
information?
There are many theories for why
this happened. Some experts say
the weather turned cold and there
was a mini ice age, which
brought forth much famine.
A famine is where food is scarce.
There was also many episodes of
disease running rampant. Other
theories attribute this time all
they way back to Attila and
making castles and fortresses
necessary for protection.
This made all strangers
dangerous and unwelcome.
Trade between regions stopped.
So what! What does this
have to do with music?
Well, during this time the Church
becomes the center of society. It was
a time where people where attending
mass every day, sometimes mass was
held every hour of the day.
The church was doing so well,
that it started to build massive
buildings to hold all the people.
These were called Cathedrals.
One famous example is the
Cathedral of Notre Dame.
CATHEDRAL PICTURES
With all the people and
masses, came the need
for music. To be heard
in the large buildings,
several voices needed
to sing together to fill
the building.
These voices singing in unison
acted as a natural microphone
and filled the building.
The songs they
sung were called
“plainchant” or
“chant”.
Sometimes they
are referred to as
Gregorian chant
after Pope
Gregory I.
Even with several voices together, there
was a need for new chants and hymns. At
this time all music was still memorized,
but with all the new music, it was to
difficult to keep adding new material.
In the twelfth
century a monk
named “Guido
D’azarro came
up with a
method for
keeping the
choir together.
He would point
to a spot on his
hand, which
would indicate a
pitch, and it
became known
as the “Guido
hand method”.
This worked for the slow, simple
tunes, but his abbey was so
astounded that they thought it was
witchcraft and threw him out.
Guido was soon
taken in by another
abbey, and he also
soon dropped the
method of pointing
to his hand, as the
music became
more complex.
Guido was aware that musicians
used so me manuscripts with neums.
Neums were square notes that
generally indicated what direction
the pitch was directed. Since the
singer already knew the piece and
just needed to be reminded of where
in the chant he was.
Guido began to write a red line
through the neums to indicate
where a specific voice range was
to centered (i.e. alto voice).
Above is an actual picture of
Guido’s writing.
Next Guido added more lines to
control more voices.
This is a
medieval
manuscript
with the red
line present.
The Red
lines are
very faint.
Can you
see them?
For the bass and tenor vocal part,
he added more lines and marked
the tenor line in yellow with the
starting pitch of “f”.
One problem with
this system, was
Guido had not fixed
a clef to a specific
line. Guido had
pitches starting
anywhere and on
any line. This made
reading music hard
to read.
So in the next
century the
successors to
Guido still
experimented with
adding lines to the
staff.
Can you tell where
one staff ends and
another begins?
It will take another couple of
centuries for our current grand
staff to be adopted.
If you look closely, you may be
able to tell that the treble clef that
we use today resembles a fancy
looking G, and the bass clef
resembles a fancy looking F.
So What happened to
Guido?
Guido showed his work to his abbot,
but this time instead of being thrown
out, he was commended for his work.
His abbot liked it so much that he
sent him to Rome to meet with
the Pope. The Pope liked his
work so much that he sent Guido
all around the country to teach as
many priest and monks this new
system of reading notes.
Eventually, Guido ended back
with his original abbey, who
welcomed him in, and said they
were sorry for ever doubting him.
The End.
PowerPoint by Val Iven – North Marion Intermediate School
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761552863
http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b3atilla_p1dz.htm
http://www.realm-of-shade.com/zarathustra/attila.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02061b.htm
http://www.boglewood.com/timeline/attila.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/HistoryEcon.html
http://www.propheticwitness.org/gregory_the_great.htm
http://guidoshandrocks.com/historyofname/
http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa092700c.htm