Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1150), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music.
The time signature is a convention in Western musical notation to specify how many of a particular note value are contained in each measure (bar), and in many cases how these note values are grouped into musical stresses (beats). The time signature is a notational device representing the meter, which is an auditory feature of the music.
A quarter note (American) or crotchet (British) is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note. Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the staff, and downwards if it is on or above the middle line. An upward stem is placed on the right side of the notehead, a downward stem is placed on the left. The Unicode symbol is U+2669.
In music, a half note (American) or minim (British) is a note played for half the duration of a whole note and twice the duration of a quarter note. It was given its Latin name because it was the shortest of the five note values used in early medieval music notation. Half notes are notated with a hollow oval notehead like a whole note and straight note stem with no flags like a quarter note. The half rest denotes a silence of the same duration. Half rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles sitting on top of the middle line of the musical staff, although in polyphonic music the rest may need to be moved to a different line or even a ledger line. As with all notes with stems, half notes are drawn with upward stems on the right when they are below the middle line of the staff and downward stems on the left when they are on or above the middle line. In vocal music, notes on the middle line have a downward stem instead of an upward stem.
A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes.
An eighth note (American) or a quaver (British) is a musical note played for one eighth the duration of a whole note (semibreve). Its length relative to other rhythmic values is as expected—e.g., half the duration of a quarter note (crotchet), one quarter the duration of a half note (minim), and twice the value of a sixteenth note. It is the equivalent of the fusa in mensural notation.
In music, a double whole note (American), breve, or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note. It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation. The longest notated note is the longa, which could be double or triple the length of a breve, although its use is most commonly found in early music. The longest notated note is the maxima.
In music notation, a ligature is a graphic symbol that tells a musician to perform two or more notes in a single gesture, and on a single syllable. It was primarily used from around 800 to 1650 AD. Ligatures are characteristic of neumatic (chant) and mensural notation. The notation and meaning of ligatures has changed significantly throughout Western music history, and their precise interpretation is a continuing subject of debate among musicologists.
A rest is a musical notation sign that indicates the absence of a sound.
Alla breve[alla ˈbrɛːve] – also known as cut time or cut common time – is a musical meter notated by the time signature symbol , which is the equivalent of 2
2. The term is Italian for "on the breve", originally meaning that the beat was counted on the breve.
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations. The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note, but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a "ligature", and by the position of the ligature relative to other ligatures. Modal notation was developed by the composers of the Notre Dame school from 1170 to 1250, replacing the even and unmeasured rhythm of early polyphony and plainchant with patterns based on the metric feet of classical poetry, and was the first step towards the development of modern mensural notation. The rhythmic modes of Notre Dame Polyphony were the first coherent system of rhythmic notation developed in Western music since antiquity.
In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the notehead, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails. Unmodified note values are fractional powers of two, for example one, one-half, one fourth, etc.
Prolation is a term used in the theory of the mensural notation of medieval and Renaissance music to describe its rhythmic structure on a small scale, as opposed to tempus, which described a larger scale. The term "prolation" is derived from the Latin prolatio ("enlargement"/"prolongation"), first used by Philippe de Vitry in describing Ars Nova, a musical style that came about in 14th-century France.
Petrus de Cruce was active as a cleric, composer and music theorist in the late part of the 13th century. His main contribution was to the notational system.
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for polyphonic European vocal music from the late 13th century until the early 17th century. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythmic durations in terms of numerical proportions between note values. Its modern name is inspired by the terminology of medieval theorists, who used terms like musica mensurata or cantus mensurabilis to refer to the rhythmically defined polyphonic music of their age, as opposed to musica plana or musica choralis, i.e., Gregorian plainchant. Mensural notation was employed principally for compositions in the tradition of vocal polyphony, whereas plainchant retained its own, older system of neume notation throughout the period. Besides these, some purely instrumental music could be written in various forms of instrument-specific tablature notation.
In music, a notehead is the part of a note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely black or white, indicating the note value. In a whole note, the notehead, shaped differently than shorter notes, is the only component of the note. Shorter note values attach a stem to the notehead, and possibly beams or flags. The longer double whole note can be written with vertical lines surrounding it, two attached noteheads, or a rectangular notehead. An "x" shaped notehead may be used to indicate percussion, percussive effects, or speaking. A square, diamond, or box shaped notehead may be used to indicate a natural or artificial harmonic. A small notehead can be used to indicate a grace note.
Percussion notation is a type of musical notation indicating notes to be played by percussion instruments. As with other forms of musical notation, sounds are represented by symbols which are usually written onto a musical staff.
Sub Arturo plebs – Fons citharizantium – In omnem terram is an isorhythmic motet of the second part of the 14th century, written by an English composer known by the name of Johannes Alanus or John Aleyn. It stands in the tradition of the Ars nova, the fourteenth-century school of polyphonic music based in France. It is notable for the historical information it provides about contemporary music life in England, and for its spectacularly sophisticated use of complex rhythmic devices, which mark it as a prime example of the stylistic outgrowth of the Ars nova known today as Ars subtilior. It has been dated conjecturally to either around 1358, which, within that school of composition, would make its compositional technique exceptionally innovative for its own time, or some time later during the 1370s.
In medieval music theory, the Latin term modus can be used in a variety of distinct senses. The most commonly used meaning today relates to the organisation of pitch in scales. Other meanings refer to the notation of rhythms.
A maxima, duplex longa, larga, or octuple whole note was a musical note used commonly in thirteenth and fourteenth century music and occasionally until the end of the sixteenth century. It was usually twice or, rarely, three times as long as a longa, four or six or nine times as long as a breve, and 8, 12, 18, or 27 times as long as a semibreve. Like the stem of the longa, the stem of the maxima generally pointed downwards except occasionally when it appeared on the bottom line or space. Before around 1430, the maxima was written with a solid, black body. Over the course of the fifteenth century, like most other note values, the head of the maxima became void.
. In this context it is sometimes called a quadruple whole note. [8] [9] In LilyPond, the longa stem appears similarly to that of a half note,[ citation needed ] instead of always appearing on the right of the notehead as it does in mensural notation: this can be seen below.
