Mensural notation - the basics

[@frfrchopin]

It's a good day when this channel uploads!

[@Monrealese]

So true!

[@lorenzocasati2881]

Indeed.

[@soundknight]

So that's the true origin of "Common Time" awesome.

[@AllenGarvin]

It was called "Common time" pretty early, though! Morley's Plaine & Easie Introduction to Practicall Musick (1597) [narrator: 'it is in fact neither plain nor easy'] calls it "common time" on pg 54. I'm pretty sure Morley also refers to C with a slash as cut time, but I can't find it now.

[@peterpanda5069]

Thanks for this!! There is no logic! I’ve been trying to decode a piece in white notation and have been haunted by whether some mark is a 14th century dot of perfection or a 21st century dot of pixelation or a timeless blob of infinite confusion.

[@Tubomiro]

16:18 The Star Wars Opening Credits allusion is hilarious 😆. Love it 😍

[@VaughanMcAlley]

Sadly I have spent too much time doing music and not enough time watching Star Wars to have picked that up 😞

[@Gunnar120]

I love the numerous "theoretical" meters that were very rarely used, but still absolutely important to learn.

[@nicolajpiemonte8907]

The best channel of Music History of the tube! This is what an addicted music student dreams! A simple but accurate way to understand the geniuses of the past and their musical world! Thank you so much, M°Rotem! Fine work as always.

[@HughResnick]

This gave me flashbacks to my student days transcribing manuscripts in grad school in the 90s. If only I had had this channel!

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

Mensural notation: very complicated, yet fascinating grammar and structures, like Latin or ancient Greek. Modern "binary" notation: more "user-friendly", yet more rigid, like English or Chinese. I'd anyway add to the footnotes the two fundmental texts by Willi Apel, "The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600", and Fritz Rotschild, "The Lost Tradition in Music" (an in-depth analysis how mensural notation still influenced late-Baroque composers' writing and musical thinking), I haven't seen them mentioned there, but I've found them to be very helpful about this topic.

[@giobrach]

The Gigue of Bach’s Sixth Partita is written in “cut O”, the only piece I’ve seen this signature used for, at least by him. Also the only gigue I’ve seen in non-ternary time

[@Meiadus]

Are you a native speaker of English? That stuff is not user friendly, and from the Latin and ancient Greek I studied in high school I got the impression that that's much more rigid

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

@@Meiadus I'm an Italian native speaker, and while there are pros and cons to every System's rules, including a Language and its Grammar, I think the overall most "user-friendly" Languages are those with a mostly "analytic" structure, albeit for some purpose, and expecially for the more cultivated, "higher" ones, you might at least in some situations end up regretting the flexibility allowed by "synthetic" languages.

[@ludustestudinis]

@@giobrach "the only gigue I’ve seen in non-ternary time" Oddly, most Gigues that I have encountered are in binary time (Gaultier, Reusner etc.), but this might be due to the fact that the French also had another ternary dance: the Canaries. The binary Gigues are nevertheless dotted throughout, so they have a more jumping character than the ternary Gigues. (but this comment is off-topic)

[@giobrach]

@@ludustestudinis I should have specified I meant the gigues written by Bach, not all gigues ever. The Italian giga in composite time was more widespread among the Germans

[@kuroimusic]

I'm self taught so I made a piece of electronic music following an idea by Brian Eno, only to just realize that it was a menstrual, sorry, I mean, mensural canon; something dudes from six centuries ago did to fuck around. Humbling, yes, but also challenging. This is my favorite channel, so intellectual and rigorous, with some butt jokes here and there.

[@renematei708]

Maximodus is an invention of Apel, it was Modus Maximarum or Longarum...

[@baroqueanimation982]

10:54 --> Best joke ever

[@ArthurSieg]

That was a short piece from the Ass Nova period

[@subplantant]

Lool such a stupid joke I was totally unprepared hahaha

[@artemasgray]

@@ArthurSieg Arse Nova in British English.

[@jcortese3300]

I'm dying to know where he found that.

[@sharp19th56]

​@@jcortese3300 The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch

[@giannuesca6783]

5:40 "Are you confused? Well, it's very confusing" He just summarized the video

[@SoleaGalilei]

Wow, I had no idea that was the origin of common time and "cut time" (as alla breve was usually called in my music classes). Thanks for another fun and informative video!

[@dissonanceparadiddle]

That was wonderful ☺️ this video made me really wax nostalgic. I very much miss the rhythmic discordant beauty that this system offered back then.

[@Hist_da_Musica]

The 'but' joke at 10:50 killed me

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

You just explained the first month of music history I took at university 35 years ago.

[@neilwalsh3977]

I love the way mediaeval - Gothic cadences go up the minor third. I don't see why we can't adapt the 'old ways' to new sounds

[@yuvalne]

"It also allowed composers to show off their genius" Well now I understand why the system was so over elaborate

[@adriepram]

Dodecachordon could be a great name for math prog metal band 🤔

[@AidanMmusic96]

A friend's old black metal band was called Dodecahedron, so they'd have to be careful! :D

[@ProfRonanMC]

What an amazing resource! Your ability to organise complex material simply and logically are exceptional. This episode has made me opt to support you on Patreon. It's the least I can do.

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Thank you very much 😄

[@namets]

This is another great video, thank you🎵🎶

[@WilliamFord972]

I’m glad I was born into a time when Western musical notation has been standardized and relatively simple.

[@A_Muzik]

You and thousands of musicians. Including myself

[@Alwpiano]

Our nowadays system is far simpler. Nowadays is like reading Italian. The older system is like reading Arabic or Chinese.

[@irmafoster3933]

​@@AlwpianoBefore giving thanks for the appearance of a simpler way to create a written form for "reading" the pitch, time value and relative connectivity (?) of the musical presentation, pause to note that languages and dialects thereof (Arabic, Mandarin, Lakota, Di'neh, etc.) might be better suited to methodologies that do not respect the "modernity" of standardized notation. Should we be surprised that one man's concerto is another man's hard rock?

[@TamsinJones]

Thank you for this video. I'm currently delving deeply into the 15th-century music that inspires me and am reading scholarly books by Rodin and Wegman, among others. However, it has been hard going trying to follow some of the discussion of mensural issues and so I really appreciate the way you have made the essentials easier to understand.

[@dayradebaugh]

I highly value this channel. I must confess that I did not fully understand all the details of mensural notation, and can only imagine how difficult it must have been to master these intricacies. However, this video had one very key idea: the notion that the medieval rhythm notations were based on relative values, and the modern scheme has absolute values, based on note shapes. That was an excellent insight. Thanks!

[@AidanMmusic96]

This is incredibly fascinating, and goes way beyond ALL the early music studies I ever did. I clearly play the wrong instrument: as a percussionist, I don't imagine I could ever encounter this notation for my instrument!

[@dlevi67]

At 10:55 I had no choice. Bosch is my favourite painter, and I HAD to give a thumbs up. Especially with that pun. Extremely interesting once again. Thank you so very much for producing these with such a level of quality. One question: why the adoption of so many complexities? It seems that the ancient music writers were keen for music to be as difficult to read and interpret as possible, rather than the opposite (and God knows I have enough problems with modern notation). Was it a way of "keeping it in the family", almost like guild "secrets" for the manufacture of various items?

[@dlevi67]

@paul w Were you educated at all?

[@MaHa-um5sv]

🤣 that was so great!!! There's one video in which Rotem is wearing a blue tshirt with the giraffe from the Garden of Earthly Delights on it. 😃 (not that I'm marathon-watching this entire channel or anything, 😉 haha)

[@jcortese3300]

This is really interesting; I love orthographies of all kinds and am very interested in the history of musical notation. I'd love it if you were to examine the horseshoe nail script that floated around in the VERY early days of music. It almost looks like musical calligraphy, and at bottom it seems like no more than a way to tie to music to the text. I'd love to hear your views on it. These very early, overly complex systems remind me of Egyptian hieroglyphs, where they were a way for specialists to keep something important within a very closed fraternity. I like that our notation today is more straightforward and can be mastered by anyone who gives it a good try.

[@peterpanda5069]

Hufnagels and the other neume notations aren’t so bad, you don’t have the extra challenge of deciding wibbly wobbly mensural ligatures and staying in time with someone else. Though the neumes without explicit pitch information definitely make life hard. If you really want something to curl your hair, check out the Byzantine notation. It is... exquisitely weird.

[@tiosexyy2000]

You master

[@btat16]

Fantastic show as always! I do hope everything is ok with you! It might be me over-analysing but you seem more fatigued than usual. All the best to you and your team, Elam. All of you genuinely make the world a better place

[@suomeaboo]

Tantacrul's newly-released video brought me back to this channel after so long. I realized I never actually looked into mensural notation before.

[@haikel527]

Thank you i'm so happy to see your tutorial. Great job

[@gemmamerinserra4988]

Awesome video, and as crystal clear as the subject allows.

[@CameronSchubertMusic]

Thank you for what you do

[@mafuaqua]

perfect introduction , thanks

[@user-lz5gd8xu8k]

1:02 13세기의 음표 종류 3:29 리가투레 원리 6:18 완전,불완전 체계 13:27 비율카논(조스캥)+듣기

[@ArthurSieg]

The system does perhaps explain why there is so much rhythmical complexity in a lot of the early music. I remember some of the Machaud works we listened to in our music history classes. An intricate visual system that allows for different musical interpretations depending on the context. Exploring the limits and possibilities of a system is a fun thing to do if you've mastered it. It wouldn't surprise me if in 500 years we look back at our current notation systems and musical practices with the same sense of wonder. "Why did they ever make it so complicated".

[@lamilenariahistoria3934]

You should talk about the music from the renaissance and baroque in the European colonies.

[@GrimLordofOregon]

I took notes! Thank you for this very informative look at mensural notation.

[@danielwaitzman2118]

Bravissimo! One can understand now why Music was conceived of as akin to Mathematics. The thought of what was required of the musician in the days of the mensural system is mind-boggling. And you compose, too! Really, you put us all to shame. It is interesting how bits and pieces of the mensural system survive, even into the 19th century, when, say, the first off-the-beat eighth note of a dotted passage can be realized, presumably, as a sixteenth-note, to save the trouble of utilizing double-dots. I believe that an instance occurs even as late as Mendelssohn’s Midsummer NIght’s Dream. And the long appoggiatura constitutes a survival of the notion of a note’s value being determined partly by its context.

[@sarahberry8934]

Early music was the favourite part of my music degree at uni. God I miss playing the viol 😣

[@VaughanMcAlley]

Playing the viol and (as mentioned above) transcribing manuscripts. Fun times!

[@roberthillier4662]

Do get a viol - one of the best things I've done recently!

[@sarahberry8934]

@@roberthillier4662 I wish I could afford one 😭

[@roberthillier4662]

In covid lockdown I am working seriously (at last) on my baroque flute playing - sadly no viol or recorder consorts and so no renaissance music making in these difficult times.

[@Moinsdeuxcat]

Is the dot used for indicating perfect prolatio (in the O or the C) the origin of the dot symbol used for dotted notes (which are effectively "perfect" in that a dotted quarter note contains three eight notes)?

[@mattmexor2882]

I think the power of notation, more than just imbuing us with the ability to communicate a piece of music, is that it enables us to augment our limited ability to comprehend sound with our much more extensive ability to comprehend the visual, enabling music that we can appreciate through listening but would otherwise struggle to create. So, I don't think it is necessarily disadvantageous that a notation is subject to our sense of sight rather than our sense of hearing.

[@agustinavarece]

Thanks for your always incredible work! The proggressive appareance pf shorter figures makes me think in how interpretation of 'older' music could Tend to slow down through ages, then the necessity of shorter figures to separate from the idea of local interpretations of older music in a specifical time

[@soundknight]

Woah, that 80s synth sound was a flashback.

[@Taldanmus]

I SO wish I’d had this in Grad School!! Well done.

[@dejavudabass]

Thank you!

[@AllenGarvin]

Do you know Mosto's setting of Quivi Sospiri, the Dante text that Luzzaschi more famously set? It has a very late (1578!) mensural time puzzle that acts as a bit of word play on "diverse lingue orribili", with a different mensuration symbol in each voice for the phrase--It doesn't line up well in all the parts, which is definitely on purpose. I'm trying to set it in modern notation, but I also want to keep something of the feel of the original, and haven't quite decided how to do so.

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Didn't know about it, sounds awesome! Please do share with us when you're done

[@alemspahovic4126]

@@EarlyMusicSources I've tryed to take my shot at mensural notations, so need re-checks in: drive.google.com/file/d/1GtFNrUtLVdjmAZp-YA_wGnYH-XsMp7Ll/view?usp=drivesdk Source: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYPXnpmva7d2na8

[@cerealbloodx]

I love the basics Elam!!!

[@pabloperezjauregui2109]

Bravo Elam!

[@videosdehistoriadelamusica4484]

Terrific episode! Thank you very much!

[@subplantant]

Yet another superlative episode!

[@ryanpeplinski1884]

Great content!

[@llamallama1509]

Okay, that was fascinating! Thank you

[@soundknight]

I love your singing.

[@deo_gaming6676]

Oh, this video made me remember my transcription class :´)

[@AlainNaigeon]

I was told that Bach once wrote a dotted C sign !! (can't remember the source at the moment I'm writing).

[@adrianciuca2547]

I have no knowledge of that, but there is indeed a strange time signature in Bach, in the uncommonly written binary gigue of the 6th cembalo Partita BWV 830, where an anachronistic “Ф” time signature occurs. Since there is no question about “tempus perfectum cum prolatione perfecta diminution” or whatever, it seems that it’s just a glitch. It should be read as a 4/2 cut-time signature, which is quite unusual too.

[@RandyBakkelund]

Very interesting! I love this channel!

[@feliperodriguezbarrera]

Wena! Tremenda versión del dúo de Josquin! Preciosa!

[@lduc63]

thank you so much for your wonderful(s) viedo(s)++ I think I've at least understood this strange notation (a big black dot) 'ive seen on Tobias Hume second opera 1607. Thanks a lot++

[@brunowilliam9750]

You're incredible!

[@ValentinaRovedaV]

¡Amazing video! I really love your work. Thank you!♥️

[@pereportero5643]

Genius!!!

[@caleoduo9225]

My brain exploded!!! But i love it!!!!!

[@lauramingo2027]

THERE IS NO LOGIC 😂

[@juliapuertolasturon4307]

Those ligatures though

[@JackChessa]

So true

[@MaHa-um5sv]

Please do a video on Bosch's butt music! What do you think of the reconstructions of the tune? Is there a further satirical joke in the notation? Is it just a fart joke like illuminated MSS butt trumpets, etc?

[@electric7487]

Is it true that because the mensurations that were used most often in the days of mensural notation involved divisions by powers of two and three, most of the time signatures seen in modern notation are based on powers of two and three as well?

[@andreamundt]

" B u t t " ! Hahahaha ( 10:54 )

[@neilwalsh3977]

The Gloria in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis seems to play with the mensural idea

[@eleonorakifer8686]

Elam could you talk abaut Art Perfecta?

[@carlosmendez6729]

Thank heavens for modern notation. 😔🙏

[@PedroTrueMX]

What about French, Italian, German, and Alphabeto notation systems? I dont really understand the differences and I cant find sources that talk about them

[@EarlyMusicSources]

We talk about it shortly in the episode about intabulations, check it out as well as the footnote page of that episode

[@dulcietorrans]

is this how my best friend feels when i (annoyingly) analyse his new favourite song

[@ramseytauro]

Are the ligature symbols truly arbitrary? I remember reading somewhere that the binary ligatures originally came from nuemes representing poetic scansion, but it didn’t go into any detail.

[@abueloraton]

What books or treatises about mensural notation do you recommend (in their original languages, including Latin)?

[@limpatience]

Top!

[@A_Muzik]

Did mensural notation automatically give birth to the prolation canon?

[@maniak1768]

Ahh, wonderful. Reminds me of my first bachelors semester. Though we didn't have butt-jokes back then in our course. Or any jokes for that matter.

[@cerenaytac2216]

Ozan devamını türkçe alt yazı bekliyoruz daha detayli tebrikler

[@pianodog88]

Kesinlikle. :)

[@DavidMaurand]

And now we see whence comes the term 'treble'

[@oliviu-dorianconstantinesc288]

Wait, no MINIMODUS? I am very dissapointed!!!

[@endodouble6691]

I bet this stuff would be really interesting if I didn’t need to take an exam in it 💀

[@daletaylor2433]

Another two simple rules for ligatures. If they go up, they read AS WRITTEN. If they go down, they read the opposite of as written. Learn this and most of the memorization is unnecessary.

[@neilwalsh3977]

There's still room for the mathematical in my view. Composition can be complex

[@hunterharris4869]

I guess you could say this is a bit confusa.

[@MakingaStink]

I clicked on this after reading the title incorrectly.

[@electric7487]

"Menstrual notation"

[@yatuiig]

who else thought the title read "menstrual notation" at first XD

[@JewelBlueIbanez]

I read this as “menstrual notation” and was like, wtf?

[@bifeldman]

Well, that was deep water.

[@victotronics]

"But..." That was hilarious.

[@Emre-tf8hp]

I dont blame them. If ıt appeals the eyes instead of the ears, why even bother having logic in your notation?

[@kosmolove8454]

It was a very simple way of notating the gamut of Pythagorean proportions in a way that could be easily sight-read. You should see what some of this late medieval music looks like in modern notation. Not so fluent.

[@declamatory]

I just saw a video of a woman who paints with her menstrual blood, so, I, too, got confused.

[@OlivierAtheba]

10:54 Ahaha nice joke

[@d_dh_h1315]

Online class be like:

[@WeirdLittleDreams]

I have a love hate relationship with your channel. It's like a black hole that sucks me in. But then I lose time adulting.

[@subplantant]

"BUT" - WUT LOL XD

[@saulg2585]

"Butt" Elam Rotem - 2020

[@caduceus7051]

it would be helpful if instead of too much blah blah blah, you were to devise a translator, 16th century to modern notation instead, that will make it clear and simple.

[@spencer.eccles]

So... Music's mensural period? Lmao

[@declamatory]

You bleedin' comedian!

[@liquensrollant]

It seems unavoidable that human beings will create complexity where none is needed! Thank you for this fascinating video on something I didn't even know existed, despite having for years listened to music no doubt composed with it.