Music Video Lesson: When Was Music First Written Down?

Hi and welcome to VirtualSheetMusic.com and LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. And today's question is when was music first written down? Boy, you know this is a great question. Because there's so much music from centuries ago, you feel like we know all the music that ever was ever played, but it's far from the truth. As a matter of fact, through most of history, music was not written down. We don't really know what people played in antiquity with the songs they sang and the beats they pounded on their drums, and all the rest of it. But actually, written music goes back further than you think.

There were primitive types of writing that at least had notes, certain degrees of scale degrees, going back to ancient Rome and Greece. In fact, in ancient Greece, as long ago as the 6th century, there was some time of writing. Now, the early writing of music was really just reminders of how to sing the songs more or less and really that's where music rotation grew from. And our system really has its roots in the 11th century growing from Gregorian chant in the church, plain song, taking liturgical text and singing it.

And to remind people the ways it went up or down and different flourishes, there were little squiggly lines and such. Eventually, Guido de Arezzo decided to draw a line and make that one reference of pitch, and notes could go above and below that line. That eventually got to a point where there were four lines. And if you've ever seen some of the Gregorian chant notations, it's a very interesting, it's evocative of modern notation, but not quite. It doesn't have bar lines. It doesn't really have the same rhythmic accuracy that we have today.

It wasn't until the end of the 17th century that modern notation, as we know it, was really flourishing. So again, to recap, ancient Greece going back to the 6th century B.C., by the way, ancient Greece, make a note of that. There was some attempt at writing down ideas that could be translated so people could remember them musically, but it wasn't until really the 11th century with Gregorian chant and the four lines, and finally by the end of the 17th century we have modern notation as we know it today.

Thanks for the excellent question and keep them coming in. I'm Robert Estrin here at VirtualSheetMusic.com and LivingPianos.com.

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