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 existed 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. It was very rare
and expensive.
Great, but how did we get to writing down music?
Around the 5th century, Rome was invaded many times by an army of cruel and vicious barbarians, whose leader was “Attila The Hun”.
In fact Rome paid many pounds of Gold for Rome 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 their
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.
Often he would stay for many months, sometimes a
year. The people inside would not be able to leave to
replenish their food and water.
The next few centuries are referred to as the Dark Ages
and the Medieval Era. This is a time in human history where
people did not advance forward and, in some respects, moved
backwards.
Some experts
believe the weather
turned cold and there was a mini
ice age, which
caused a famine.
A famine is where food is scarce.
There was also many episodes of disease running rampant like the Black Plague
Other theories blame Attila for making castles and fortresses necessary for protection.
So what! What does this have to do with
music?Well, during this time the Church became the center
of society. It was a time where people were
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.
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 sang were called plainchant.
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 cheat sheets scribbled 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.
•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 do.
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?
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.
Assignment
• Draw a picture of you hands palm down.• Label each hand with illuminated letters
on the fingers and illuminated numbers above the fingers.
• Place a Bass Clef on the Left Hand.• Place a Treble Clef on the Right Hand.• Put an LH and a RH below each wrist.• Color your work and pass it in by the end
of class.• See the link for an example.• Basic finished product