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Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:23:37 +1300
From: "G maj"
Subject: Re: Standard, vs. new notation

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Ron/datadigr
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: Standard, vs. new notation

>
>
> Hi all:
>
> Maybe I have my history wrong but my understanding is that instrument
> specific tablature predates *standard notation* by a good long while,
> and that standard notation--although it has come to be a de facto
> standard across most instruments--was developed for the instrument it
> suits best (as in the logic of standard notation most closely _fits_):
> keyboard.

Nope.
Music has been written down in simpler forms dated around 800AD
http://www4.hmc.edu:8001/humanities/Hum2d/hum2dt1/music.html

Benedictine Monk, Guido d'Arezzo (995 - 1050AD France), introduced methods
for distinguishing between pitches.
http://www.stevenestrella.com/composers/composerfiles/guido1050.html

A monk named Franco from Cologne (1240 - 1280 AD) who introduced time
signatures, musical notation gradually began to take on the form we know.
http://www.stevenestrella.com/composers/composerfiles/franco1280.html

Meaning written music as we know it (more or less) has been around over 700
years... at least in Europe & England ... remember USA, Australia & New
Zealand weren't invented yet.

I believe zee humble harmonica has been around for less than 200 years?
>From 1820 or there abouts. Richter didn't come up with the tuning we know
&
love so well until around 1826.
http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q1.html

- ---oOo---

Do NOT get me started on the evils of seeing the piano keyboard as the
center of
music theory and written music - it is not the center, music itself, music
theory and written music was doing very well long before the keyboard came
along. Do not make the mistake that the keyboard is definitive to music
theory or written notation.... its calling the tail a "dog".

Although I hasten to add, there have been "keyboards" around for longer than
evidence of written music ... however they started out with less notes than
a diatonic harmonica in key of C.
http://www.uk-piano.org/history/compass.html
http://www.uk-piano.org/history/history_1.html

Things didn't used to be so neat and tidy as they have been over the 20th
century, and I'd say that the way people perceive the keyboard has a lot to
do with that....
http://www.casaninja.com/christi/academic/classicaltuning.html
http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/temper.htm
http://smt.ucsb.edu/mto/issues/mto.98.4.4/mto.98.4.4.scholtz.html

What we have in today's common "modern" music is a cut down harmogenised
version of what once was.
The music we hear today is an utterly compromised tuning at best. The
majority of people are missing out on a huge universe of musical expression
for the sake of standardisation & making things nice and neat on paper, and
comparitely grey and dull to the soul & ears ... ummm ... ok ... I better
stop.

G maj