Measured Music.—The next step in advance, and one that proved very important and far-reaching in its results on the development of music, was the invention of a notation that indicated, although not very conveniently, the relative duration of sounds. Thus it became possible to express two or more parts in a permanent form. The plan of this first attempt at a notation by means of which relative duration of notes might be expressed was very complicated. Music written with these signs was called Measured Music (Cantus Mensurabilis).
The Record of Early Harmony.—There are references to the manner of using voices in combination in the writings of several men associated with the Christian Church in its early days. Censorinus, who lived in the 3d century, makes mention of a practice of using a melody in octaves accompanied by the fifth to the lower note of the octave, which is also the fourth to the upper. Cassiodorus, in the 6th century, mentions various ways of accompanying the chant with consecutive fourths and fifths. In a work called “Sentences About Music,” written by Bishop Isidore of Seville, who lived in the 7th century, we read that “harmony is a modulation of the voice, the concordance of many sounds and their agreement.” In the 9th century we meet with the names of several writers: Remi d’Auxerre who defines harmony as “a consonance of voices, and their union in one group”; Jean Scot Erigene who recognized that the succession of chords composed of octaves, fifths and fourths is a rational one; Odo or Otger, a churchman of the south of France, whose work was the first to mark an epoch in the development of the art of music. Also another monk, the Fleming Hucbald, who lived in the 10th century. They defined consonance and dissonance, and appear to have been the first to give rules for the construction of Diaphony. Hucbald says in his “Musica Enchiriadis”: “Certain dissimilar sounds sung together make an agreeable effect, and this mingling of voices is sweet to the ear.”
Their immediate successor, Guido, has been credited, unjustly, with being the inventor of nearly every improvement in the art up to his time. The old organum closed with his. The earliest writer who treats of the new organum is John Cotton, in the 11th century. He was the first to promulgate the rule that contrary motion is always to be preferred to similar or oblique. He says: “At least two singers are required in diaphony formed from different sounds. While one voice sings a melody, the other surrounds it with different tones, and at the end of the phrases the two voices unite at the unison or octave.” The fullest development of the new organum was attained in the works of Guy de Chalis, about the close of the 12th century. He gives examples in which we find intervals of the eleventh and twelfth, a demonstration of the existence of a system differing from the Gregorian, which does not exceed the octave. In the same epoch, Denis Lewts, of Liége, a Carthusian monk, gives rules to fix the use of accidental signs, a flat to lower B, a sharp to raise F. He speaks of these as if they had been in use for a long time, and indicated that the idea was to avoid the occurrence of the diminished fifth or the augmented fourth, known in harmony as the tritone. This process is called Musica Ficta, and formed a part of the instruction of singers. The examples cited by Lewts conform to this theory, and show that although in the songs, motets and other compositions of the period the sharps and flats are not found, it is because musicians knew the principles and made the application for themselves. Instruction in those days was chiefly oral, a method which placed a premium on a retentive memory. By the time that the 13th century was reached, musical forms and melodies were widely spread, and as we look back to the 9th century it is possible to note the gradual development. Harmony always existed, in a limited sense; but it did not take on a scientific development until the Middle Ages. It is to the musicians of this latter period, from the 13th to the 15th centuries, that we must give the honor of having taken the germ of a science of harmony and of having brought it forward to mature development.
- Reference.
- Williams.—The Story of Notation.
Questions.
Explain the earliest system of notation used for the Church scales. What was the next improvement?
State the defects.
What was the system of Notation by Neumes? Did they indicate absolute or relative pitch?
Give the successive steps making use of lines.
What was the origin of our Clef signs?