Inventor of Not Beams – Music, who is not familiar with that term, almost everyone will recognize that term, even children already know it. Some children have been taught more about music, but some others know little about music. It’s no stranger to music being loved by many people because sometimes when you play music or listen to music you will feel happy, sad, and so on. Those feelings make music more colorful and feels more “alive”.
As many people already know that there are people who prefer to play music and there are also those who prefer to listen to music, not even a few also like to play music and at the same time like to listen to music, if you include listening to or playing music more? Whatever the choice, the point is that music always entertains us.
In general, someone who listens to music or plays music will follow the development of age and era. For example, when children are old they will like children’s music, when teenagers will like youth music, and so on. In addition, the development of music must follow the times and the music tastes of the listeners. So, it is natural for someone to like more than one type of music.
Everyone who plays music knows the term tone, but someone who only listens to music is usually less familiar with the tone. Things like that are natural because someone who plays music needs to know the tone so that the music being played is pleasing to the ear. What’s more, for musicians who are definitely able to process notes into something special.
Talking about tone cannot be separated from the name of notation, there are various types of notation, one of which is beam notation. Usually, this block notation already exists in Elementary School (SD) art subjects, but not all of them study it. In addition, the omo block notation has actually been around for a long time or around 500 AD. Who invented block notation? To find out who invented musical notes, you can see the following review.
Definition of Balancing Notes
It is common or mandatory that musical notation must be present in a piece of music. Therefore, musical notation is a system used for writing musical works. In general, the standard of musical notation that exists today is beam notation or better known as musical notes. Each musical note written always represents the duration and pitch of the note when it is played. The pitch of the note is described vertically and the duration or rhythm is described horizontally. In addition, the duration of the note is usually shown in the form of beats.
Some historical records say that the word “note beam” comes from the Dutch language, namely noten balk which means the notes in music that use five horizontal lines to position the note points. Therefore, in musical notation, the five-lined stave system is the basis. When reading musical notes, we need to know what the tempo, beat, dynamics, and instrumentation will be used. In addition, the musical notes will be placed on the stave and the musical notes will be read from left to right.
In the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI), musical notes are notes that are not denoted by numbers, but by lines, circles, and other signs.
When reading musical notes, we will definitely see different notes. It is these different note positions that will determine the duration or rhythm of the tone and pitch when it is played later. Therefore, when you first started learning musical notes, you shouldn’t be surprised why there are so many different notes.
In musical notes, when reading them, there are usually note intervals between spaces or between lines. First, the terts interval is two notes separated by a stave or the notes are in two adjacent spaces (top and bottom). Second, the second interval is two notes close together, one note in the space and one note in the stave.
Basically, every note in a musical note has a different or different frequency. With these different frequencies, each note placement on the stave is made according to the high and low of the note itself. Not only that, beam notation is often referred to as absolute notation, why is that? Because beam notation has a fairly high benchmark for a fixed tone, which is around (a=440 Hz). Therefore, beam notation is very effective when used when playing music.
Talking about musical notes feels incomplete if you don’t discuss the beats of each musical note. In general, there are 6 beats in musical notes, namely: 4 beats, 2 beats, 1 beat, 1/2 beat, 1/4 beat, 1/8 beat. For more details, you can see the table below.
From the picture above it can be said that the smaller the value of a note, the more flags on a note. In addition, notes that already have a cavity may not be given an additional flag.
The History of Balancing Notes
Talking about musical notes cannot be separated from music. Music itself has actually been around for thousands of years, so music can be said to be part of human culture and art. There are already many artistic heritages related to music, such as musical instruments, songs, and many more. Every legacy that occurs in the field of music art and music knowledge, generally comes from kingdoms or countries, such as Rome, Greece, Egypt, China, and others.
Musical games with complete compositions (songs and lyrics) began to occur and were developed by the ancient Greeks. At that time, complete musical compositions were known as Seikilos Epitaph . In fact, relics of complete musical compositions have been engraved on tombstones in Turkey which are thought to have existed since the 1st century.
After the emergence of complete musical compositions, a notation similar to “sol-fa” or western solmization appeared, which used the letters A to G. Notations similar to “sol-fa” grew in the Byzantine Empire (Byzantine). The empire grew and developed during the time of the Roman empire. Some people say that the use of “sol-fa” notation is almost the same as “Boethian notation”. “Boethian notation” is a notation that was discovered and developed by a Roman philosopher named Boethius, he developed his notation around the 6th century. In addition, Boethius was the first person to use the 14 letters of the alphabet in making notations.
Slowly but surely music notation continues to experience development from churches in European countries. The early appearance of musical notation in Europe was used to perform choirs in churches. At that time, the notation was positioned at the top of the word or syllable of the text of a song to be sung. The development of musical notation that occurred at that time was known as Plainchant or Gregorian Chant . At that time also to determine the high and low of a tone only from the previous tone.
Apparently, the notation problem continues to be repaired or perfected by using a 1 tone line at the beginning to using 4 stave lines. Talking about the stave which consists of 4 pieces, it is always connected with Guido of Arezzo. He was someone who was already an expert in the field of music theory at that time. In fact, Guido is also believed to be the inventor of musical notes which at that time replaced the neumatic notation.
In a note that is quite famous and entitled Micrologus . The notes contain singing and a way to teach Gregorian chant , as well as discussing polyphonic musical composition. Some historical records say that this Micrologus existed around 1025 or 1026 AD.
Apart from that, Guido is also quite known for his solfege . In the early appearance of Guido’s solfege consisted of only 6 notes and was often known as the hexachord . The 6 notes in question are ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. Then, along with the times, not ut , in some countries changed to do . In addition, the number of notes was also added to seven with the addition of the note ti ( si ) by many people. Until finally, the notes we know become “solmization” of seven notes. Even the seven-tone “solmization” has been used in many countries and has become a standard in playing a piece of music.
Not only changes to notes and additions to Guido’s notes, but music that continues to evolve makes old musical notes or musical notes also develop. Other developments occurred in the stave where previously there were only 4 lines, now there are 5 stave lines. These 5 staves are the staves that we know and use today.
Although, Guido is believed to be the inventor of musical notes, it is a pity that his name is not well known by some people. This could happen because at that time, the discovery of Guido’s notes was very little publicized.
Inventor of Balancing Notes
After discussing the history of musical notes briefly, it can be said that the inventor of musical notation or musical notes is Guido of Arezzo and he is also known as Guido Aretinus. He is thought to have been born in 991 or 992 AD and is also known as an expert in music theory. However, some historical records, some say that Guido came from Italy and some say he came from France. If seen based on the works that have been created or made, the use of language tends to lead to Italian.
Not only as a music theorist, but Guido is a Benedictine monk from Arezzo. He studied at the Benedictine Monastery or at that time known as Pomposa Abbey. His love for music, he also poured by teaching singing. Until 1025, he felt he was experiencing a mismatch with some “people” in the church, so he chose to leave the church. Even though he had left the church, Guido still taught singing at the cathedral school owned by a bishop from Arezzo.
While at Pompisa, Guido began to develop a new way of writing Gregorian Chant . He uses a stave of 4 lines and uses a clef. Each Gregorian Chant was rewritten by Guido and presented to Pope John XIX.
Guido, who was very interested in the world of music, continued to develop the notation he found, by practicing listening to each note and reading pre-existing scores. Until one day, in a hymn to Saint John the Baptist which is quite famous with the title Ut queant laxis , Guido makes a melody by creating 6 notes, namely ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la . The six notes were named by Guido as the hexachord . It was from Guido’s six that modern “solmization” began to emerge.
Along with the times, there was a change in the name of the note ut that was made by Guido, the note was changed to the word do . The word do occurred around the 1600s and was taken from the first syllable of the family name “doni”. Changing the name not ut to do is named Giovanni Battista Doni. Apart from that, there is also an addition to Guido’s hexachord , namely ti . However, in some countries there are those who replace the word ti with the word si . This is done so that the initial letters do not experience the sameness. As for someone who replaces the word ti into a wordthe is Sarah Ann Glover.
Beam Note Section
When we study musical notes, we will definitely see the shape of the musical notes which consist of the musical note flags, the stem of the musical notes, and the heads of the musical notes. For more details, see the image below.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Balancing Notes
Excess Balancing Notes
Quoted from various sources that there are three advantages of musical notes, namely:
1. Musical notes have become a standard in music applied by many countries, including Indonesia. In fact, it can be said to be the language of world music.
2. Each note has a different symbol, so readers and users will easily understand it.
3. The values contained in the note are very clear, such as dynamic markings or the high and low of a note that are easy to understand.
Lack of Balancing Notes
Quoted from various sources, there are three drawbacks to musical notes, namely:
1. Writing musical notes is very difficult, so only certain people can actually write them.
2. Not flexible, especially when there is a change in the basic tone.
3. It takes a long time to write musical notes because it requires high accuracy.
Conclusion
Musical notes are one of the basics that need to be learned and understood in playing music. This needs to be done because using the right musical notes will produce special notes, which will result in complete musical compositions (songs and lyrics) that are pleasant to hear. In learning musical notes you can do it yourself, but it would be nice to be taught by experts so that the knowledge received can be maximized. More importantly, learning musical notes is not easy, so it takes a lot of enthusiasm and patience.
Source: From various sources