# history of music notation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671 "2005-06-03T02:52:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/1 "2005-06-03T02:52:02Z")
I am trying to ascertain the period of some sheet music I recently purchased by the style of notation. This music features square shaped notes, four lines (instead of the usual 5), and clefs that look like a group of three squares. All the notes are solid black and square with a tail. This particular sheet music is illuminated(hand drawn) on large folio sized paper sheets. Does anyone know the history of music notation, or a good resource/book? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/2 "2005-06-03T02:54:59Z")
It’s Gregorian notation, for Gregorian chant. [Here’s](http://lphrc.org/Chant/) a good introduction. ---
**Author:** ![percussion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@percussion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percussion)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/3 "2005-06-03T03:03:02Z")
its plainchant notation from the middleages I really should be able to give you a great explination on it but being immature and disinterested in all music history before Messiaen in my first years of music school I can hardly remeber it myself :smack: if you want a good text which deals in it, as well as the rest of the histoy of western music i recomended “A History of Western music” By Donal J. Grout and Claude V. Palisca ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/4 "2005-06-03T03:12:30Z")
Excellent response time! So this is where the intellectual elite reside… Any idea how to differenciate between chants from different periods? For example, was the 4 line notation specific to a certain time etc.? What do you look for when determining the time period of pieces? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/5 "2005-06-03T03:13:40Z")
Just had to point that out… ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/6 "2005-06-03T03:21:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Any idea how to differenciate between chants from different periods? For example, was the 4 line notation specific to a certain time etc.? What do you look for when determining the time period of pieces? The earliest Western chants weren’t notated at all, and the earliest notation (only recently deciphered) took the form of little symbols written above the text. The notation went though several variations before settling on the modern 4-line staff and the standarized neumes. This is what all official Catholic chant books have been written in for the past several hundred years, so there’s no way to really tell what period chant it is from the notation alone. It’s usually possible to tell what variety of chant it is from what the melody is, though if it’s from an “official” chant book it’s almost certainly Gregorian. Otherwise, it could be Sarum, Ambrosian, Old Roman, Mozarabic, Neo-Gallican, or a bunch of other little local variations. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/7 "2005-06-03T06:09:20Z")
There’s other more mundane things that can be used to arrive at a date - the type of paper, the ink used, etc. None are accurate, but together they can give a good indication. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/8 "2005-06-03T23:16:22Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s other more mundane things that can be used to arrive at a date - the type of paper, the ink used, etc. None are accurate, but together they can give a good indication. These things would help if one were only trying to find the time period in which the particular score was written. Various chant traditions were handed down for centuries, though, so to tell from when or what variety of chant the actual music was, it would be necessary to look at the actual melodies. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/9 "2005-06-04T06:06:56Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > These things would help if one were only trying to find the time period in which the particular score was written. Various chant traditions were handed down for centuries, though, so to tell from when or what variety of chant the actual music was, it would be necessary to look at the actual melodies. True - but chances are, you’ll draw a blank. (On a related note, the ‘dates’ given for chants in the Liber Usualis have always amused me…there’s one that’s listed as something like “13th-16th century” :dubious: ) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-music-notation/306671/10 "2005-06-04T07:06:38Z")
My wife is a music history professor at UCLA who specializes in the Middle Ages. Here’s what she has to add: > [@](#): > > Yes, chant notation begins to develop in the 900s, but square notes didn’t come into use until much later: 12th to 13th Century. If it’s written on paper, not parchment, then it’s more recent – 15th Century at the earliest, but probably even later because paper doesn’t hold up as well as parchment does. The three-note clef is a C clef that indicates where middle C is. If I could actually examine it I could date it more accurately, but since chant notation has been in use for about a thousand years, its hard to nail it down with nothing more that the brief description you gave. The best book on Gregorian chant is David Hiley’s **Western Plainchant: A Handbook** from Oxford University Press.