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 Who invented the staff?????
Author: FT 
Date:   2002-03-18 21:52


Who invented the staff????? or the notes???? or the key signatures??? or the time signatures??

who?????

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: diz 
Date:   2002-03-18 21:57

It was a gradual process - but basically speaking - early middle ages was the start of it all - the staves were varied - from one or two lines to many more than five - the notes were called neumes. Look up Groves (or the like) it has an excellent article on medieval music notation.

The glory of the old "medieval" notation (having sung gregorian chant) is that the boundaries of pitch and rhythm are much more loose than our "tonal" based system. If you ever get a chance to learn how to sing it - do it, it's great fun.

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: GBK 
Date:   2002-03-18 22:36

FT...diz has given you a good suggestion (Groves).

Also, find the Harvard Dictionary of Music (Apel), look up "notation" and you will find a wealth of information.

By the way, (sorry, but I must repeat myself) a good music dictionary should be in everyone's personal library. It need not be expensive. There are several good ones to choose from...GBK

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: jbuter 
Date:   2002-03-18 22:57

Look up some information on a monk named Guido de Arezzo. Believe he first used his hand (five fingers/four spaces between them) to teach music to his choir. Transition to lines and spaces on paper evolved.

jbutler

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: bob gardner 
Date:   2002-03-18 23:07

all this time i thought it was ST Patrick. He used it to drive the snakes out of Ireland.
Wrong again.
I like J Butler one about the hand.

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: jbuter 
Date:   2002-03-19 01:31

Found this info fairly quickly on the net:

Guido da Arezzo (991-1033) was a music theorist: his fame as pedagogue was legendary in the Middle Ages and he is remembered today for his development of a system of precise pitch notation through lines and spaces and for propagating a method of sight-singing which relied upon the syllabes ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la.
His "Micrologus" is the earliest comprehensive treatise on musical practice: it was used throughout the Middle Ages in monasteries, and from the 13th century also in the universities.

Its text is preserved in at least 70 manuscripts from the 11th to the 15th century.


jbutler

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: David Pegel 
Date:   2002-03-19 01:53

I know according to legend a piano staff used to be just an 11-lined staff with a simple symmetrical clef on it. It eventually evolved into two staves, the extra line being Middle C, both on the ledger line above the bass clef and the one below the treble clef. That was where "grand staff" got it's name.

So I've heard... It's very interesting.

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: bob gardner 
Date:   2002-03-19 02:56

Daivd: I believe you are 100% correct. I took a class on music fund. last year and this was covered in detail. I kept getting confused with the bass clef. Since we don't use it was was always lost and had to write down all the lines and spaces. The notes in the bass clef are of course different then in the treble clef.
i kept having senior moments.
peace

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: diz 
Date:   2002-03-19 04:57

"senior moments?" - you're a credit to dementia!

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: Bob 
Date:   2002-03-19 13:33

Did you ever have that nightmare where you are taking a final and you haven't studied for it.....then you realize you are not asleep!
As pointed out evolution is not just a biological phenom. "In the beginning" everyone memorized the music and then as we got dumber we had to write it down.

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 RE: Who invented the staff?????
Author: Ken Shaw 
Date:   2002-03-19 17:18

FT -

You really need to go to the books. There's just too much to go over for anything here to be useful. There are entire graduate school courses just on notation.

To get started, look in the Harvard Dictionary under "Staff." Then go to "Note," "Notation," "Neume," "Key Signature," "Time" and whatever other words you find in the articles.

For much more, go to Grove.

Best regards.

Ken Shaw

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