---
title: "From Neumes to Notes: The Evolution of Music Notation"

description: "How do you write music down? How do I convey my musical ideas to you without being in the same room or without recorded music? These questions have puzzled musicians for thousands of years! But now, the question is: Is our current method of music notation the best it can be? Should innovation stop here? Join us as we break down the history of music notation and explore its future in this episode of LMM."

status: complete

date: 2024-05-21

kind: solo

guestSlugs: []

listenUrl: "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/From-Neumes-to-Notes-The-Evolution-of-Music-Notation-e2js79j"
appleUrl: "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-neumes-to-notes-the-evolution-of-music-notation/id1567355195?i=1000656238583&uo=4"
spotifyUrl: "https://open.spotify.com/episode/0YKGipYRxvOH5hePQaaRMc"

topicsDiscussed:
  - "Jazz"
  - "History of Music Notation"
  - "Neumes"
  - "Ancient Notation"
  - "Musical Communication"
  - "Evolution of Pitches"
  - "Medieval Music"
  - "Renaissance Innovations"
  - "Modern Notation"
  - "Digital Notation"
  - "Improvisation in Music"

hostNote: |
  Somewhere in ancient Babylonia, someone carved musical instructions into stone and said: play this one for the god, nice and slow. That's the same problem we're still solving, how do I get a musical idea out of my head and into yours without being in the same room?
  
  I trace the full arc: cuneiform tablets, neumes (the early medieval shorthand that told you the shape of a melody but not its exact pitch), Guido of Arezzo inventing the staff and the do-re-mi concept of stepwise movement, the printing press creating demand for standardization, and how four-four common time went from a contentious choice to something so obvious we forget it was invented. The juxtaposition that keeps surfacing: we now have 3D spatial audio, the absolute pinnacle of recorded sound, and it all traces back to someone scratching a stone.
  
  You come away understanding notation not as a fixed system but as a technology that's still being iterated, and with a clearer sense of what it captures well and what it's always left out.

selectedMoments:
  - label: "Introduction to the Core Problem"
    startSec: 115
    note: "I set the stage for discussing how to effectively communicate musical ideas across generations."
  - label: "Archaeological Evidence of Early Musicians"
    startSec: 138
    note: "Discussion of the ancient roots of music-making and the intrinsic connection to communication."
  - label: "Transition to Notation and Its Challenges"
    startSec: 274
    note: "Exploring the shift from oral traditions to the written form of musical expression."
  - label: "The Role of the Printing Press"
    startSec: 857
    note: "How the printing press changed the landscape of music sharing and notation accessibility."
  - label: "Guido of Arezzo's Innovations"
    startSec: 632
    note: "Introduction of the staff and its significance in modern music notation."
  - label: "Conclusion and Future Thoughts"
    startSec: 1488
    note: "I reflect on the journey of music notation and speculates on its future."

excerptQuotes:
  - text: "How do I communicate a musical idea from me to you? How do I do that before recording technology exists?"
    startSec: 116
    reviewed: true
  - text: "The earliest form of musical notation goes back to ancient Babylonia... That's way, way back."
    startSec: 316
    reviewed: true
  - text: "This is kind of why you see like Babylonia, Greek, these ancient cuneiform kind of like tablets, like things that have been etched into stone that survived to this day."
    startSec: 361
    reviewed: true
  - text: "Now there's this demand that makes music accessible to this wider audience and it also creates this need for standardization."
    startSec: 858
    reviewed: true
  - text: "And this is where we get into this idea of stepwise movement. And so if you think like, do-ray-me, do-ray-me, you know, that's going up each one of those as a step."
    startSec: 679
    reviewed: true
  - text: "And the common time is four four. There will be four quarter notes in every bar. Which is like, oh, of course, but back then, not necessarily."
    startSec: 1128
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It’s funny to think the juxtaposition between spatial audio, 3D sound flying around your head, the absolute pinnacle of recorded music to going back to cuneiform stone tablets carving in, play this one for the god, nice and slow."
    startSec: 1492
    reviewed: true

faq:
  - question: "What is the history of music notation?"
    answer: "The history of music notation spans from ancient cuneiform tablets to modern digital notation, reflecting the evolution of how musicians communicate their ideas over centuries."
  - question: "Who is Guido of Arezzo and why is he important?"
    answer: "Guido of Arezzo was a medieval music theorist who significantly improved music notation by introducing the staff system, allowing for more accurate pitch representation."
  - question: "What role did the printing press play in music?"
    answer: "The printing press revolutionized music distribution in the Renaissance, making musical works more accessible and encouraging a wider audience to engage with music."

transcriptPublished: false

draft: false
---