Part 21 (1/2)

_Tenuto_--(from _teneo_, to hold)--a direction signifying that the tones are to be prolonged to the full value indicated by the notes.

_Toccata_--a brilliant composition for piano or organ, usually characterized by much rapid staccato playing.

_Triplet_--a group of three tones, to be performed in the time ordinarily given to two of the same value. The first tone of the triplet is always slightly accented.

_Tutti_--(derived from _totus_, _toti_, Latin--all)--a direction signifying that all performers are to take part. Also used occasionally to refer to a pa.s.sage where all performers do take part.

APPENDIX A

THE HISTORY OF MUSIC NOTATION

Many conflicting statements have been made regarding the history and development of music writing, and the student who is seeking light on this subject is often at a loss to determine what actually did happen in the rise of our modern system of writing music. We have one writer for example a.s.serting that staff notation was begun by drawing a single red line across the page, this line representing the pitch _f_ (fourth line, ba.s.s staff), the _neumae_ (the predecessors of our modern _notes_) standing either for this pitch _f_, or for a higher or lower pitch, according to their position _on_ the line, or _above_ or _below_ it.

”Another line,” continues this writer, ”this time of yellow color, was soon added above the red one, and this line was to represent c' (middle C). Soon the colors of these lines were omitted and the _letters_ F and C were placed at the beginning of each of them. From this arose our F and C clefs, which preceded the G clef by some centuries.”[37]

[Footnote 37: Elson--Music Dictionary, article, ”Notation.”]

Another writer[38] gives a somewhat different explanation, stating that the staff system with the use of clefs came about through writing a letter (C or F) in the margin of the ma.n.u.script and drawing a line from this letter to the neume which was to represent the tone for which this particular letter stood.

[Footnote 38: G.o.ddard--The Rise of Music, p. 177.]

A third writer[39] a.s.serts that because the alphabetical notation was not suitable for recording melodies because of its inconvenience in sight-singing ”points were placed at definite distances above the words and above and below one another.” ”In this system ... everything depended on the accuracy with which the points were interspersed, and the scribes, as a guide to the eye, began to scratch a straight line across the page to indicate the position of one particular scale degree from which all the others could be shown by the relative distances of their points. But this was not found sufficiently definite and the scratched line was therefore colored red and a second line was added, colored yellow, indicating the interval of a fifth above the first.”

[Footnote 39: Williams in Grove's Dictionary, article, ”Notation.”]

It will be noted that all three writers agree that a certain thing happened, but as in the case of the four Gospels in the New Testament, not all the writers agree on details and it is difficult to determine which account is most nearly accurate in detail as well as in general statement. Communication was much slower a thousand years ago than now and ideas about new methods of doing things did not spread rapidly, consequently it is entirely possible that various men or groups of men in various places worked out a system of notation differing somewhat in details of origin and development but alike in final result. The point is that the development of musical knowledge (rise of part-writing, increased interest in instrumental music, etc.), demanded a more exact system of notation than had previously existed, just as the development of science in the nineteenth century necessitated a more accurate scientific nomenclature, and in both cases the need gave rise to the result as we have it to-day.

Out of the chaos of conflicting statements regarding the development of music notation, the student may glean an outline-knowledge of three fairly distinct periods or stages, each of these stages being intimately bound up with the development of _music_ itself in that period. These three stages are:

(1) The Greek system, which used the letters of the alphabet for representing fixed pitches.

(2) The period of the neumae.

(3) The period of staff notation.

Of the Greek system little is known beyond the fact that the letters of the alphabet were used to represent pitches. This method was probably accurate enough, but it was c.u.mbersome, and did not afford any means of writing ”measured music” nor did it give the eye any opportunity of grasping the general outline of the melody in its progression upward and downward, as staff notation does. The Greek system seems to have been abandoned at some time preceding the fifth century. At any rate it was about this time that certain _accent marks_ began to be written above the text of the Latin hymns of the church, these marks serving to indicate in a general way the progress of the melody. E.g., an upward stroke of the pen indicated a rise of the melody, a downward stroke a fall, etc. In the course of two or three centuries these marks were added to and modified quite considerably, and the system of notation which thus grew up was called ”neume notation,” the word _neume_ (sometimes spelled _neuma_, or _pneuma_) being of Greek origin and meaning a _nod_ or _sign_.

This system of neumes was in some ways a retrogression from the Greek letter system, for the neumes indicated neither definite pitches nor definite tone-lengths. But it had this advantage over the Greek system, that the position of the signs on the page indicated graphically to the eye the general direction of the melody, as well as giving at least a hint concerning the relative highness or lowness of each individual tone (the so-called _diastematic system_), and this was a great aid to the eye in singing, just as the relative highness and lowness of notes on the modern staff is of great value in reading music at the present time.

Thus although the neumae did not enable one to sing a new melody at sight as our modern staff notation does, yet they served very well to recall to the eye the general outline of a melody previously learned by ear and therefore enabled the singer (the system was used for vocal music only) to differentiate between that particular melody and the dozens of others which he probably knew. Neume notation was used mostly in connection with the ”plain-song melodies” of the Church, and since the words of these chants were sung as they would be p.r.o.nounced in reading, the deficiency of the neume system in not expressing definite duration values was not felt. But later on with the rise of so-called ”measured music” (cf. invention of opera, development of independent instrumental music, etc.), this lack was seen to be one of the chief disadvantages of the system.

The elements of neume-writing as given by Riemann in his Dictionary of Music are:

”(1) The signs for a single note: Virga (Virgula) and Punctus (Punctum).

(2) The sign for a rising interval: Pes (Podatus). (3) The sign for a falling interval: Clinis (Flexa). (4) Some signs for special manners of performance: Tremula (Bebung), Quilisma (shake), Plica (turn), etc. The others were either synonyms of the above-named or combinations of them....”

Since music in the middle ages was always copied by hand, it will readily be understood that these neumae were not uniform either in shape or size, and that each writer made use of certain peculiarities of writing, which, although perfectly intelligible to himself, could not readily be interpreted by others (cf. writing shorthand). Here then we observe the greatest weakness of the neume system--its lack of uniformity and its consequent inability accurately to express musical ideas for universal interpretation.

Examples of several neumes are given merely in order to give the beginner a general idea of their appearance.