reader question João Pedro dos Santos, Porto Alegre, RS
illustrates Felipe Martini
edition Felipe van Deursen
They were not discovered, but invented. Notes are a convention, an established code for musicians to read scores. But the western model, the famous “do-ré-mi”, is just one of the codes. Depending on the country or people, each sound can be represented by different notes or markings. The scores into which these notes will be arranged also vary from tradition to tradition. The Western model is the most popular of all and emerged thanks to the Church, the institution responsible for making official and schematizing musical teaching in the Middle Ages.
The creator
The banknotes we know were created by the Italian monk Guido of Arezzo. While working at the monastery in the city of Pomposa at the end of the 10th century, Arezzo noticed that Gregorian singers had difficulty memorizing sacred music. Since most people were illiterate, the Church valued music as the most powerful method of gathering believers.
the balcony
The monk assembled the sequence “ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si” based on the initials of the verses of the Hymn to Saint John the Baptist, an extremely popular song at the time and therefore easy to memorize. In the 17th century, because it was very difficult to read, the “ut” became “do”
everyone’s music
The do-re-mi is not universal
In other parts of the world, the grading system is different from the western one. In South Korea, for example, the chongganbo it is a scheme with several boxes and cells that simultaneously indicate the timbre and duration of each note to the singer. Other countries whose music uses different systems are India, Russia, Indonesia, China and Japan. And there’s more. The Hummingbird project, developed by an American piano teacher and a specialist in data visualization, intends to “uncomplicate” the reading of scores in the Western model and facilitate music teaching. There are critics and defenders of the method. The consensus among musicians is that it serves as a good introduction, but that the traditional way is even more complete.
READ TOO:
– How are the musical notations different from “do-ré-mi”?
– How is a pop song made?
– Why do some songs stick in our heads?
– What was the first music video in history?
Consultancy Mônica Lucas, Head of the Department of Music at the University of São Paulo (USP)
Sources Books A brief history of Musicby Roy Bennett History of Musical Styleby Richard Crocker, Western Music Historyby Donald Grout and Claude Palisca, History of Notation, by Charles Williams; site Music Files