A post wherein I really show my musical ignorance…

November 9, 2009 Ka'ela Ja'el
Tags: curiosity, music

I have a question for all those on my flist that are musically inclined. This question comes from nowhere in particular, except maybe from idle curiosity.

You know written music – I’m not talking about Doh-Re-Mi, and ABCDEFG music, but real, technical, written music with the notes and the lines and the squiggles etc. (See what I did there – the technical terms I used :D) What I want to know, is have there been/ are there, different ways of writing music.
I mean, do (or did) the Chinese/Japanese/Africans/Inuits write their music the same?

I figure there must be other music ‘languages’ but I don’t think I have ever heard of them.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

← o_0

Meme time →

5 Comments Add your own

1. baby_elvis | November 9, 2009 at 9:09 am

Musical notation is the fancy term. And I have no idea, but I imagine that there were many written systems.
Choreographical notation always freaks me out.

Reply
2. baby_elvis | November 9, 2009 at 9:13 am

Oo, wikipedia has quite a good entry on it – there’s lots of different systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_notation#Ancient_Greece

Reply
- 3. Ka'ela Ja'el | November 9, 2009 at 2:09 pm
  
  Thanks! That answers my question nicely.
  
  Reply
4. ethanthescribe | November 9, 2009 at 12:10 pm

I know that our existing system evolved over time… it used to be 11 lines, for example, before they broke in into two groups of 5 plus middle C.

Reply
- 5. Ka'ela Ja'el | November 9, 2009 at 2:08 pm
  
  Oh wow…thanks. I never knew that.
  
  Reply