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to it interpreted.]] HISTORY Although Chant was probably sung since the earliest days of the church, for centuries they were only transmitted orally. The earliest systems involving neumes are of Aramaic origin and were used to notate inflections in the quasi-emmelic recitation of the Christian holy scriptures. As such they resemble functionally a similar system used for the notation of recitation of the Qur'an , the holy book of Islam. This early system was called ''ekphonetic notation'', from the Greek ''ekphonesis'' meaning quasi-melodic recitation of text. Around the 9th Century neumes began to become shorthand mnemonic aids for the melodic recitation of chant proper. A prevalent view is that neumatic notation was first developed in the Eastern Roman Empire (see Byzantium and Byzantine Music ). 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, Syria, Lebanon and Israel) at that time. The corpus of extant Byzantine music in manuscript and printed form is far larger than that of the Gregorian Chant , 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 music and the reformed neume notation remains alive until today. Slavic neume notations (" Znamennoe Singing ") are on the whole even more difficult to decipher and transcribe than Byzantine or Gregorian neume notations. The earliest Western notation for chant appears in the 9th century. At first the markings only appear as curvy signs above the text, based loosely on ancient Greek inflection marks. While these signs indicated whether the melody went up or down, and how many notes there were, there was no indication of what Intervals were to be sung; these are called chironomic or '''in campo aperto''' neumes. Presumably these were intended only as mnemonics for melodies learned by ear. The earliest extant manuscripts (9th-10th centuries) of such neumes include:
In the early 11th century, Beneventan neumes (from the monastery of St. Benevant in southern Italy) were written at varying distances from the text to indicate the overall shape of the melody; these are called '''diastematic''' neumes. Shortly after this, one to four Staff lines clarified the exact relationship between pitches, an innovation traditionally ascribed to Guido D'Arezzo . All of these neumes resembled the same thin, scripty style of the chironomic notation. In 13th century England, Sarum chant was notated using square noteheads, a practice which subsequently spread throughout southern Europe (although in Germany a variant called '''Gothic neumes''' continued to be used until the 16th century). 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 Meter , 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 s of the earliest manuscripts and published them in a book 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 (although there are also published editions of this book in modern notation). The Solesmes monks also determined, based on their research, Performance Practice for Gregorian chant, based generally on giving every note equal length, but the rhythmic practices of chant are a subject of deep dispute among modern musicologists. Neumes are always used syllabically; a three-note neume, for example, indicates that (at least) three notes are to be sung to a single syllable. 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 note are called ''neumatic'', and those with many neumes per note are called ''melismatic''. Clefs Neumes are written on a four-line Staff on the lines and spaces, like modern music notation. A Clef at the beginning of each line indicates the location of C or F on any of the lines, as shown: Note that chant does not rely on any Absolute Pitch ; the clefs are only to help find the half and whole steps (see Hexachord ). Single note neumes 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 as the name ''repercussive'' implies. Two-note neumes When two notes are one above the other, as in the podatus, the lower note is always sung first. Three-note neumes 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. Other basic markings Interpretive marks These markings, although present in almost all early manuscripts, are subject to great dispute. Other interpretations of the quilisma:
There are also ''litterae significativae'' in many manuscripts, usually interpreted to indicate variations in tempo, e.g. c = ''celeriter'' (fast), t = ''tenete'' (hold), a = ''auge'' (lengthen, as in a Tie ). The Solesmes editions omit all such letters. RHYTHMIC INTERPRETATION OF NEUMES While most scholars agree with the Solemnes monks that the shapes of the notes do not indicate any kind of rhythmic variation, and the notes are all of equal length (except when the ''mora'' is encountered), there are many differing interpretations. Some champion two note values, one shorter and one longer (twice, or even three times, as long); but that school of thought cannot achieve consensus on how the two note values are to be applied. Musicologist Gustav Reese 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 Solemnes interpretation has permeated the musical world, apparently due to its ease of learning and resonance with modern musical taste. OTHER TYPES OF NEUMES
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