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are also a few symbols that are used in later texts to clarify the articulation of notes where more than one is allocated to the same syllable. |
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The pitch symbols are set out in Fig. 9.1 on p. 256, starting from the highest. The vocal and instrumental symbols are shown in parallel columns, and each pair is assigned a number for convenience of reference.4 The whole scheme covers a little over three octaves. The symbols form groups of three, as is visually apparent in the instrumental series. The bottom symbol in each triad represents a 'natural' note on a diatonic scale. The modern notes shown in the boxes are the conventional equivalents used in most scholarly literature, chosen to avoid sharps and flats, but the true pitch will have been about a minor third lower.5 The two other symbols in each triad represent successive sharpenings of the 'natural' note; I shall call them the first sharp and the second sharp. The degree of sharpening is not fixed but varies between a quarter-tone and a semitone, depending on the genus of the composition or the conventions of the key. For example, in the enharmonic genus the notes 22, 23, 24 would be interpreted as e,  , f, whereas in chromatic they would stand for e, f,  . (In this latter case 24 is a higher note than 25, just as in modern notation E double sharp is higher than F.) The notation does not in fact distinguish between enharmonic and chromatic scales.6 |
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The first sharps are normally used only for the lower movable note of a tetrachord (Parhypate hypaton or meson, Trite synemmenon, diezeugmenon, or hyperbolaion); and when the standing note at the base of the tetrachord is represented by a natural, the lower movable note is always represented by the first sharp, whatever the genus.7 The upper movable note is then represented in the enharmonic and chromatic genera by the second sharp, and in the diatonic either by |
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4The numbers are those used by J. M. Barbour, Jour. Am. Musicol. Soc. 13 (1960). 3, and Barker, GMW ii. 426ff. Pöhlmann, DAM 144, following J. Chailley, has a slightly different numbering. |
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5 The basis of this estimate is explained at the end of the chapter. The conventional equivalences were established by F. Bellermann, Die Tonleitern und Musiknoten der Griechen (Berlin, 1847), 54-6. |
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6 In Alypius' tables of chromatic scales, but in the Lydian key only (p. 384 J.), the second sharps are marked as chromatic by having a small transverse stroke through them; so also in Boeth. Inst. Mus. 4.3-4. But this diacritic is nowhere attested in the musical documents. |
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7 One might have expected a diatonic sequence of naturals such as 43, 46, 49, 52 to be used in notating the corresponding diatonic tetrachord (e' f' g' a'), but it never is: the notation is 43, 44, 49, 52. |
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