Neume
Encyclopedia
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
prior to the invention of five-line staff
Staff (music)
In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
notation. The word is a Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
corruption of the ultimately Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
word for breath .
The earliest neumes were inflective marks which indicated the general shape but not necessarily the exact note
Note
In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....
s or rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s to be sung. Later developments included the use of heightened neumes which showed the relative pitches
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
between neumes, and the creation of a four-line musical staff that identified particular pitches. Neumes do not generally indicate rhythm, but additional symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
s were sometimes juxtaposed with neumes to indicate changes in articulation
Articulation (music)
In music, articulation refers to the musical direction performance technique which affects the transition or continuity on a single note or between multiple notes or sounds.- Types of articulations :...
, duration, or tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
. Neumatic notation was later used in medieval music
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
to indicate certain patterns of rhythm called rhythmic mode
Rhythmic mode
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations . The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note , but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a "ligature", and by the position of the ligature...
s, and eventually evolved into modern musical notation
Modern musical symbols
Modern musical symbols are the marks and symbols that are widely used in musical scores of all styles and instruments today. This is intended to be a comprehensive guide to the various symbols encountered in modern musical notation.- Lines :- Clefs :...
. Neumatic notation remains standard in modern editions of plainchant.
Early history
Although chantChant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
was probably sung since the earliest days of the church, for centuries they were only transmitted orally
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
.
The earliest known systems involving neumes are of Aramaic origin and were used to notate inflections in the quasi-emmelic (melodic) recitation
Recitation
A recitation is a presentation made by a student to demonstrate knowledge of a subject or to provide instruction to others. In some academic institutions the term is used for a presentation by a teaching assistant or instructor, under the guidance of a senior faculty member, that supplements...
of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
holy scriptures. As such they resemble functionally a similar system used for the notation of recitation of the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
, the holy book of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. This early system was called ekphonetic notation, from the Greek ekphonesis - ἐκφώνησις meaning quasi-melodic recitation of text.
Around the 9th century neumes began to become shorthand mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
aids for the proper melodic
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
recitation of chant
Chant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
. A prevalent view is that neumatic notation was first developed in the Eastern Roman Empire. This seems plausible given the well-documented peak of musical composition and cultural activity in major cities of the empire (now regions of southern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
) at that time. The corpus of extant Byzantine music
Byzantine music
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
in manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
and printed form is far larger than that of the Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
, due in part to the fact that neumes fell in disuse in the west after the rise of modern staff notation and with it the new techniques of polyphonic music, while the Eastern tradition of Greek orthodox church
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...
music and the reformed neume notation remains alive until today.
Slavic neume notations ("Znamenny Chant") are on the whole even more difficult to decipher and transcribe
Transcription (music)
In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...
than Byzantine or Gregorian neume notations.
Use in Western plainchant
Cheironomy
Cheironomy is the use of hand signals to direct vocal music performance. Whereas in modern conductingthe notes are already specified in a written score, in cheironomy the hand signs indicate melodic curves and ornaments.-History:...
hand-gestures, from the ekphonetic notation of Byzantine chant, or from punctuation
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...
or accent marks. A single neume could represent a single pitch, or a series of pitches all sung on the same syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
. Cheironomic neumes indicated changes in pitch and duration within each syllable, but did not attempt to specify the pitches of individual notes, the intervals
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
between pitches within a neume, nor the relative starting pitches of different syllables' neumes.
There is evidence that the earliest Western musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
, in the form of neumes in camp aperto (without staff
Staff (music)
In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
-lines), was created at Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
around 800, as a result of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
's desire for Frank
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
ish church musicians to retain the performance nuances used by the Roman singers.
Presumably these were intended only as mnemonics for melodies learned by ear. The earliest extant manuscripts (9th-10th centuries) of such neumes include:
- the abbey of St. GallAbbey of St. GallThe Abbey of Saint Gall is a religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in present-day Switzerland. The Carolingian-era Abbey has existed since 719 and became an independent principality during the 13th century, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. It was...
, in modern-day Switzerland - Messine neumes (from the monastery of MetzMetzMetz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
in northeast France) - AquitanianAquitaineAquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
neumes (southern France, also used in Spain) - LaonNotre-Dame of LaonLaon Cathedral is one of the most important examples of the Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, earlier than the cathedrals of Sens and Notre Dame of Paris and ranking with them in importance. It is located in Laon, Picardy, France, and is the seat of the Bishop of Laon...
, ChartresCathedral of ChartresThe French medieval Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres is a Latin Rite Catholic cathedral located in Chartres, about southwest of Paris, is considered one of the finest examples of the French High Gothic style...
, MontpellierMontpellier-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
Benevento
Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and Sabato...
in southern Italy) were written at varying distances from the text to indicate the overall shape of the melody; such neumes are called heightened or diastematic neumes, which showed the relative pitches between neumes. Shortly after this, one to four staff
Staff (music)
In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
lines — an innovation traditionally ascribed to Guido d'Arezzo — clarified the exact relationship between pitches. One line was marked as representing a particular pitch, usually C or F. These neumes resembled the same thin, scripty style of the chironomic notation. In 13th-century England, Sarum
Sarum Rite
The Sarum Rite was a variant of the Roman Rite widely used for the ordering of Christian public worship, including the Mass and the Divine Office...
chant was notated using square noteheads, a practice which subsequently spread throughout Europe; in Germany, a variant called Gothic neumes continued to be used until the 16th century.
By the 13th century, the neumes of Gregorian chant were usually written in square notation on a staff with four lines and three spaces and a clef
Clef
A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes. Placed on one of the lines at the beginning of the staff, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on that line. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the staff...
marker, as in the 14th-15th century Graduale Aboense shown here. In square notation, small groups of ascending notes on a syllable are shown as stacked squares, read from bottom to top, while descending notes are written with diamonds read from left to right. In melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
tic chants, in which a syllable may be sung to a large number of notes, a series of smaller such groups of neumes are written in succession, read from left to right. A special symbol called the custos, placed at the end of a system, showed which pitch came next at the start of the following system. Special neumes such as the oriscus, quilisma, and liquescent neumes, indicate particular vocal treatments for these notes. This system of square notation is standard in modern chantbooks.
Solesmes notation
Various manuscripts and printed editions of Gregorian chant, using varying styles of square-note neumes, circulated throughout the Catholic Church for centuries. Some editions added rhythmic patterns, or meterMetre (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
, to the chants. In the 19th century the monks of the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes, particularly Dom Joseph Pothier (1835–1923) and Dom André Mocquereau (1849–1930) collected facsimile
Facsimile
A facsimile is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of reproduction by attempting to replicate the source as accurately as possible in terms of scale,...
s of the earliest manuscripts and published them in a series of 12 publications called Paléographie musicale. They also assembled definitive versions of many of the chants, and developed a standardized form of the square-note notation which was adopted by the Catholic Church and is still in use in publications such as the Liber Usualis
Liber Usualis
The Liber Usualis is a book of commonly used Gregorian chants in the Catholic tradition, compiled by the monks of the Abbey of Solesmes in France....
(although there are also published editions of this book in modern notation).
As a general rule, the notes of a single neume are never sung to more than one syllable; all three pitches of a three-note neume, for example, must all be sung on the same syllable. (This is not universally accepted; Richard Crocker has argued that in the special case of the early Aquitanian polyphony of the St. Martial school
St. Martial School
The Saint Martial School was a medieval school of composition centered in the Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges, France. It is known for the composition of tropes, sequences, and early organum. In this respect, it was an important precursor to the Notre Dame School.Most of the manuscripts that are...
, neumes must have been "broken" between syllables to facilitate the coordination of parts.) However, a single syllable may be sung to so many notes that several neumes in succession are used to notate it. The single-note neumes indicate that only a single note corresponds to that syllable. Chants which primarily use single-note neumes are called syllabic; chants with typically one multi-note neume per syllable are called neumatic, and those with many neumes per syllable are called melismatic.
Rhythmic interpretation
The Solesmes monks also determined, based on their research, performance practice for Gregorian chant. Because of the ambiguity of medieval musical notation, the question of rhythm in Gregorian chant is contested by scholars. Some neumes, such as the pressus, do indicate the lengthening of notes. Common modern practice, following the Solesmes interpretation, is to perform Gregorian chant with no beat or regular metric accent, in which time is free, allowing the text to determine the accent and the melodic contour to determine phrasing. By the 13th century, with the widespread use of square notation, it is believed that most chant was sung with each note getting approximately an equal value, although Jerome of MoraviaJerome of Moravia
Jerome of Moravia was a medieval music theorist. He was a Dominican friar. His origin is unknown, but he is believed to have worked in Paris at the Dominican convent on the Rue Saint-Jacques...
cites exceptions in which certain notes, such as the final notes of a chant, are lengthened. The Solesmes school, represented by Dom Pothier and Dom Mocquereau, supports a rhythm of equal values per note, allowing for lengthening and shortening of note values for musical purposes. A second school of thought, including Wagner, Jammers, and Lipphardt, supports different rhythmic realizations of chant by imposing musical meter on the chant in various ways. Musicologist Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications Music in the Middle Ages and Music in the Renaissance ; these two books remain the standard reference works for these two eras,...
said that the second group, called mensuralists, "have an impressive amount of historical evidence on their side," (Music in the Middle Ages, p. 146), but the equal-note Solesmes interpretation has permeated the musical world, apparently due to its ease of learning and resonance with modern musical taste.
Illustrations
Examples of neumes may be seen here: http://opera.maldura.unipd.it/ritmi/neume_table.jsp,http://icking-music-archive.org/software/musixtex/add-ons/hld2mtex/neumes.html, http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/appendix/notation/Neumes.html.Clefs
Neumes are written on a four-line staffStaff (music)
In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
on the lines and spaces, unlike modern music notation, which uses five lines. Chant does not rely on any absolute pitch
Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch , widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.-Definition:...
or key; the clefs are only to establish the half and whole steps of the solfage or hexachord scale: "do", "re", "mi", "fa", "sol", "la","ti", "do" The clef bracketing a line indicates the location "do" in the case of the C clef, or "fa" in the case of the F clef as shown:
| C clef | |
| F clef |
Neumes representing single notes
 |
Punctum ("point") |
| Virga | |
| Bipunctum ("two points") |
The virga and punctum are sung identically. Scholars disagree on whether the bipunctum indicates a note twice as long, or whether the same note should be re-articulated. When this latter interpretation is favoured, it may be called a repercussive neume.
Neumes representing two notes
| Clivis ("by slope") | Two notes descending | |
| Podatus or Pes ("foot") | Two notes ascending |
When two notes are one above the other, as in the podatus, the lower note is always sung first.
Three-note neumes
| Scandicus | Three notes ascending | |
| Climacus | Three notes descending | |
| Torculus | down-up-down | |
| Porrectus | up-down-up |
The fact that the first two notes of the porrectus are connected as a diagonal rather than as individual notes seems to be a scribe's shortcut.
Compound neumes
Several neumes in a row can be juxtaposed for a single syllable, but the following usages have specific names. These are only a few examples.| Praepunctis | a note appended to the beginning is praepunctis; this example is a podatus pressus because it involves a repeated note | |
| Subpunctis | One or more notes appended at the end of a neume; this example is a scandicus subbipunctis |
Other basic markings
| Flat | same meaning as modern flat; only occurs on B, and is placed before the entire neume, or group of neumes, rather than immediately before the affected note. | |
| Custos | At the end of a staff, the custos indicates what the first note of the next staff will be | |
| Mora | Like a dot in modern notation, lengthens the preceding note, typically doubling it |
Interpretive marks
These markings, although present in almost all early manuscripts, are subject to great dispute.| Vertical episema (vertical stroke) |
Seems to indicate a subsidiary accent when there are five or more notes in a neume group | |
| Horizontal episema (horizontal stroke) |
Used over a single note or a group of notes (as shown), essentially ignored in the Solesmes interpretation; other scholars treat it as indicating a lengthening or stress on the note(s). | |
| Liquescent neume (small note) |
Can occur on almost any type of neume; usually associated with certain letter combinations such as double consonants, consonant pairs, or diphthongs in the text | |
| Quilisma (squiggly note) |
Always as part of a multi-note neume, usually a climacus, this sign is a matter of great dispute; the Solesmes interpretation is that the preceding note is to be lengthened slightly. |
Other interpretations of the quilisma:
- Shake or trillTrillTrill may refer to:* Trill , a type of musical ornament* Trill consonant, a type of sound used in some languages*Trill, a type of bird food-Fiction:* Trill , two symbiotic races of aliens in the fictional Star Trek universe...
-- Prof. William Mahrt of Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
supports this interpretation. This interpretation is also put into practice by the Washington Cappella Antiqua, under the current direction of Dr. Patrick Jacobson. - Quarter-toneQuarter toneA quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....
or accidentalAccidental (music)In music, an accidental is a note whose pitch is not a member of a scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the symbols used to mark such notes, sharps , flats , and naturals , may also be called accidentals...
. The support for this interpretation lies in some early digraphic manuscripts which combine chironomic neumes with letter-names. In places where other manuscripts have quilismas these digraphs often have a strange symbol in place of a letter, suggesting to some scholars the use of a pitch outside the solmizationSolmizationSolmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world.In Europe and North America, solfège is the convention used most often...
system represented by the letter names. The trigon is a neume peculiar to St. Gall which may also have a microtonal meaning.
There are also litterae significativae in many manuscripts, usually interpreted to indicate variations in tempo, e.g. c = celeriter (fast), t = tenete (hold) (an early form of the tenuto
Tenuto
Tenuto is a direction used in musical notation. Arguably, it is one of the first directions to be used in music notation, as Notker of St...
), a = auge (lengthen, as in a tie
Tie (music)
In music notation, a tie is a curved line connecting the heads of two notes of the same pitch, indicating that they are to be played as a single note with a duration equal to the sum of the individual notes' note values...
). The Solesmes editions omit all such letters.
Other functions of Western neumes
Neumes were used for notating other kinds of melody than plainchant, including troubadourTroubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
and trouvère
Trouvère
Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...
melodies, monophonic versus and conductus, and the individual lines of polyphonic
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
songs. In some traditions, such as the Notre Dame school
Notre Dame school
The group of composers working at or near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris from about 1160 to 1250, along with the music they produced, is referred to as the Notre Dame school, or the Notre Dame School of Polyphony....
of polyphony, certain patterns of neumes were used to represent particular rhythmic patterns called rhythmic mode
Rhythmic mode
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations . The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note , but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a "ligature", and by the position of the ligature...
s.
Other types of neumes
- Ekphonetic neumes annotating the melodic recitation of (Christian) holy scriptures.
- Neumes of byzantine musicByzantine musicByzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
- in several stages, old Byzantine, middle Byzantine, late Byzantine and post-Byzantine, and neo-Byzantine (reformed). - Neumes of slavic chant (slavic neumes).
- Mozarabic or Hispanic neumes (SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
), also called Visigothic script. These neumes have not been deciphered, but the Mozarabic liturgy varies somewhat from the Roman rite. - Daseian notationDaseian notationthumb|400px|right|Tu patris sempiternus est filius, written in Daseian notation. The Daseian signs are at the far left of the staff.Daseian notation is the type of musical notation used in the ninth century anonymous musical treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis...
- an early form of Western music notation used in 9th and 10th-century music theoryMusic theoryMusic theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
treatises. - Buddhist chantBuddhist chantA Buddhist chant is a form of musical verse or incantation, in some ways analogous to Hindu, Christian or Jewish religious recitations. They exist in just about every part of the Buddhist world, from the Wats in Thailand to the Tibetan Buddhist temples in India and Tibet...
uses a type of neume.
External links
- Oliver Gerlach (Ensemble Ison): Performing Western Plainchant—Introduction into the Latin Neumes of the 10th century (Accessed November 26, 2009)
- David Hiley and Janka Szendrei: "Notation", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 12, 2006), (subscription access)
- Font package for writing post-Byzantine neumes
- Kenneth Levy: "Plainchant", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 20, 2006), (subscription access)
- Comparative table of cheironomic and square neumes
- Samples of early notation, showing the same chant in many different notations
- Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Neum
- Solesmes Abbey
- The Intonation of the Eight Tones Byzantine notation
- Music for Vespers Byzantine notation