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cannot take it for granted that the system in its original conception supplied sharps for all the lower notes from e' down to A or G. But presumably it supplied enough to cater for the current modal scales, and perhaps for some of them to be taken at more than one pitch (on larger or smaller auloi) to suit different voices. |
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We must suppose that the Argive notation was handed down among professional musicians, perhaps especially auletes, not immune from accretions, yet preserved in its basic substance with great fidelity. Originally it was meant as a means of writing down music generally, not specifically instrumental music. At some later time a need was felt for a less esoteric set of symbols, particularly, perhaps, for the use of vocalists. The triadic structure of the Argive system was taken as given but was concealed by lettering continuously without regard for the distinction between primary and modified notes. Initially, it seems, the new notation was provided just for the common singing octave f'-f.21 In a subsequent systematization it was made coextensive with the older notation, although this meant providing 'vocal' symbols for notes deeper than any normally sung. After that both notations were extended in parallel. |
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The vocal notation probably dates from the late fifth or the fourth century BC. The Ionic alphabet on which it is based was officially adopted at Athens in 403/2, and had been in widespread unofficial use there for a generation before that. It was also establishing itself in other Greek cities at this period. The actual letter forms used in the notation point to a date before rather than after 300: the square E, and the Classical S and W.22 |
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The first definite reference to the existence of musical notation comes in Aristoxenus.23 He criticizes people who treat the notation |
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21 Or perhaps the tenth a'-f, if the letters A B F at first corresponded to the instrumental triad  and represented the notes a' g' f', as suggested by J. M. Barbour, Jour. Am. Musicol. Soc. 13 (1960), 5f. |
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22 The original S at 31 has given way to the later form C but the reversed form 3 at 7 reveals what it had been (Winnington-Ingram, Philol. 122 (1978). 240f.). More problematic is 43 Z with its modified form 197, as in the 4th cent. zeta had the shape  . It is easy to suppose that 43 was modernized in the course of transmission, as 31 was, but it is also necessary to postulate a corresponding alteration of 19, perhaps from  ; see Winnington-Ingram, loc. cit. |
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23Harm. 2.39-41. It has sometimes been claimed that book-rolls shown eing read in musical performances in certain 5th-cent. vase-paintings must be scores: see especially Pöhlmann, Griechische Musikfragmente, 10 f., 83 f. and Beitrage, 61-9. But |
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(Footnote continued on next page) |
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