The Origins of Music Notation

It’s easy to take a musical staff with five lines and four spaces for granted in today’s world. Everyone recognizes music notation when they see it – whether they can read it or not. But where did music notation come from? Let’s dig into this a little bit.

The history of music corresponds somewhat with the history of the Christian church. The reason for this is that the church was always known to use music in its services. Music notation was actually invented for use in the church. The music seen in early church history consisted of the chanting of scripture and the singing of psalms. These early chants had various dialects depending on the region or the division of the church. During the first millennium, the Roman Empire had split into the Western Empire (this became the Roman Catholic Church) and the Byzantine Empire (the became the Orthodox Church).

During the mid-8th century, Pope Steven II needed military alliance and Pepin the Short, King of the Franks in the North, wished to use the church in order to unify the lands. This is when we see the standardization of chant. By eliminating the various dialects and coming up with a standard chant and means of notating it, people from different regions would more likely feel unified. When Charlemagne took over as Holy Roman Emperor in 800, he declared that every church had to sing the same thing in order to help with this standardization process.

But how did this lead to music notation? And what did music notation look like? We’ll continue looking at this next time.

An Introduction of Medieval Music

This month, Clef Notes is geared to the true music nerd. We are stepping way back in time to look at how Western music is actually rooted in antiquity. We will then walk through the development of chant, notation, and the importance of music in the church during the Middle Ages.

Did you know that ancient Greek writings provide influence for Western views on music? More writings about music survive from ancient Greece than from any other civilization. Some of these writings focus on how music affects the listener. Others talk about music theory. You’ve probably heard of Plato and Aristotle, right? They wrote about how music can affect mood. Plato believed that music should only be used to educate while Aristotle’s views said that it is perfectly alright to listen to music to bring pleasure.

We don’t really have much in the way of notated music dating from ancient times. Most of what we know comes from writings such as these. It is believed that musicians of that time tended to rely more on their memory and formulas when passing along musical ideas orally rather than on notation.

The church played a large role in Medieval culture. In fact, it is what helped music traditions develop, eventually leading to the system of notation we know today. We’ll talk about this more next time.

Edvard Grieg and Nina Hagerup

This month, Clef Notes has been looking at composer love stories throughout history. Let’s wrap things up by mentioning Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, who fell in love with his first cousin while working in Copenhagen.

Nina Hagerup was a talented singer who grew up with Grieg in Norway but later moved with her family to Denmark. The couple fell in love and married in 1867. Nina became Grieg’s preferred interpreter of his songs, and the inspiration behind some of his music. The pair often performed together and the public loved them! Listen here to a song cycle, Grieg’s Haugtussa, op.67, written for his wife.

What other famous love stories can you think of from music history?