Course: From Ink to Sound: Decoding Musical Manuscripts

During the last few weeks you explored different concepts how to note down music. You discovered how delicate the translation into modern notation is, that expresses certain aspects more precisely …

If you want to deepen your understanding of some of the aspects we discussed during this course, you can start with this selected bibliography. Apel, Willi. The Notation of Polyphonic …

With the notational reforms of the second half of the 13th century the musicians adopted a notational system that permitted to deduce the note values by the shape and form …

Last week we discovered that ligatures are the central means to convey rhythm in the modal notation of the 12th and early 13th centuries. We learned that in modal notation …

What are the necessary steps when transcribing modal notation? And how do you start your transcription? Through this article we offer you a step by step overview on the fundamentals …

Musical rhythm is one of the basic aspects that we experience as we listen to music. However, a way to record rhythmical proportions was introduced precisely into the history of …

If you want to deepen your understanding of some of the aspects we discussed during this course, you can start with this selected bibliography. Apel, Willi. The Notation of Polyphonic …

Now it’s time to say goodbye. Thank you for joining our journey through medieval music and its history of notation and for sharing your thoughts with us and the other …

In addition to showing us beautiful music examples, the preceding steps were mostly concerned with how different forms of tablatures work. Let us now focus on why tablatures were made. …

French lute tablatures make use of an utterly practical system. This notation does not depict the notes in a symbolic way as we are used to in the vocal music. …

During the 16th century Germany and Spain implemented the most common keyboard tablature systems. Those tablature systems were used by musicians to render a polyphonic vocal piece into an instrumental …

Intabulation of Gilles Bins dit Binchois Dueil angoisseux. © München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 352b, Buxheimer Orgelbuch, f. 32v Nearly all keyboard sources from the past were notated using tablatures. Generally, …

The last week of this course will introduce you to the main notational systems of keyboard and lute music: the so-called tablatures. You will get an overview on how instrumental …

Thank you for joining our journey through medieval music and its history of notation – as well as for sharing your thoughts with us and the other learners. We hope …

Please introduce yourself and let the other learners know what kind of interest you have in musical notation. Think about the different types of relations you have to musical notation. …