Boethius’ Notation
During the period of history dominated by Pope Gregory the Great, a change was made in this system by which capital letters, small letters and double letters were used, an improvement, since only the first seven letters of the alphabet were employed, thus:
This system seems to have been used chiefly for theoretic demonstration. These two methods indicated the pitch sufficiently, but not the duration of the sounds.
Neumes.—The next attempt was somewhat of a retrogression instead of an improvement. Signs called Neumes were placed over the words. These signs consisted of points, lines, accents, hooks, curves, angles and a number of other characters placed more or less exactly over the syllables to which they were intended to be sung, in such manner as to show, relatively, by the distance above the text, how much the voice was to rise or fall. They did not indicate duration. absolute pitch or The number of characters in use, according to manuscripts still preserved, varied from seven to forty. In later forms they appear in the notation used for the old Plain Song melodies (Gregorian) which were recalled into general use by Pope Pius X, in 1904.
