Musical letter notation

Musical letter notation (from Lat. Notatio - notation, notation), a system of graphic symbols used to record music. Birth of musical letter notation refer to the distant past. Already the old Greek had a character system representing sounds, fixed only by their height, rather than resist length. It stayed in musical practice up to10 century. When Greek letters were changed to Latin (in this embodiment in the 20th century people used to represent individual sounds and tone). In the Middle Ages were spread special characters - neumes , written over verbal texts, served as a reminder of melodies for songs. Later to indicate the height of the sharpest sounds people began to use horizontal stripes.

In the 11 century Italian musical theorist Guido d'Arezzo introduced a system of four musical lines that became the layout of modern staff paper. In the early lines people placed letter signs for height recorded on their sounds, and these signs were examples of modern keys. In the forthcoming number of lines had been brought up to 5, and neumen signs of altered notes with square heads. This system is extensively used to record a Gregorian chant, known as the Choral Notation.

Next step was the so-called mensural notation, fixed as the height and duration of sounds. At once in 15-17 centuries a character or a digital system called tablature, that served as a recording of instrumental music. As in the modern digital system is used to simplify the learning game of some folk music, it meant not sounds themselves, but the strings and frets on the fretboard (for strings).

In the 17-18 centuries accords with figures were recorded over or under the notes of the bass voice - so-called basso. In Russia since the late 10 century in the Orthodox church singing was hook musical letter notation , but in 17century it was made a gradual transition from the hook to the letter 5-line musical notation.