According to Apel's "Notation of polyphonic music" in white mensural
notation the longest note is a Maxima, followed by a Longa, Brevis,
Semibrevis, Minima, Semiminima, Fusa and Semifusa.
As music speeded up the longer note value were discarded and smaller note
values came into use...
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 5:47 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Finale tab question
In a message dated 1/2/10 7:47:39 AM, [email protected] writes:
Historical tablature used headless notes, but this made it difficult
when
music required notes of longer duration than semibreve.
I have always loved the delicious irony that the note with the longest
value in modern notation, usually termed a "whole" note in the USA,
should be known as a semibreve. Literally "half a short."
In earlier notation there was obviously a longer note value, a breve,
that could be so subdivided. And if there was a "short" (brevis), there
was clearly a "long" (longa) of even greater value.
All this goes to show how music of the Middle Ages began to be
embellished, and musicians needed to devise shorter and shorter values
in order to notate such passages. Eventually, even the minim couldn't
do the job. Hemidemisemiquavers anyone?
Peter Danner
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