Who Invented Music Notation?

Who invented music notation? The answer takes us on a fascinating journey through history, from ancient civilizations to a revolutionary 11th-century monk named Guido of Arezzo. Learn how humanity developed a system to preserve music, why notation changed the course of music history, and how it continues to evolve in the modern age. Join us as we uncover the origins of the universal language of music!

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📌 Timestamps:
0:00 Intro: Why Do We Write Music?
0:47 Early Attempts: Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece
2:24 Guido of Arezzo: The Father of Modern Notation
3:34 Evolution of the Staff and Rhythm Notation
4:22 The Printing Press and the Five-Line Staff
4:44 Why Music Notation Matters
6:06 Innovations in Modern Music Notation
6:33 Notation Beyond Western Music
7:23 Conclusion: A Legacy of Sound

#MusicHistory #MusicNotation #GuidoOfArezzo #HistoryOfMusic #SheetMusic #MusicalInventions #WesternMusic #AncientMusic #HowMusicWorks #CulturalHistory

[coolinva]

'JIanPu' (SImple Notation: 1-7) also invented in Euro and now widely used in China, and ancient China used GongChiPu (some Chinese words for different pitches) which is really complicated and nobody uses it now. Thanks for the info.

[SteveMavronis]

I would like to see comparisons between modern western notation based on fractional note duration and the Chinese Jianpu numeric system.

[kathym]

It must be fascinating to those who can recognize sounds by ear to put their skill together with musical notation.

[tommunyon]

I drew a substitute assignment for a music teacher. It was the first time I had seen the C-clef, when I took on a string instrument class. Viola players seem to have a scale all to themselves.

[PippaRilley]

Interesting Informations.
Never thought bout how & when written music came to B. Thank you. 🎉

[artistjoh]

Musical notation is very simple compared writing and reading written language, so it is amazing that it is not taught to all children, and because it is not, vast numbers of adults find it as incomprehensible as hieroglyphs. We can learn it as adults, but those who learned it as children are the ones who are most fluent, and are fortunate to have the whole world of music making open to them.

[kaloarepo]

From what I can gather there were musical notation systems before Guido d'Arezzo but it was not complete -it worked only if you knew the musical work already in general but had become rather rusty and vague about the details of the piece -what was revolutionary about this was that you could reproduce all the music without ever having learnt the piece at all before. The Chinese and the Byzantines had a system known as pneumes -they merely jogged your memory!

[robertfindley]

In effect it's a common language with roots 1000 years old. It's sad we don't have a common language for speech in general.

[paulnovosel]

Oops! This vid skipped over 200 years of neumatic notation before Guido of Arezzo's quadtatic notation...Saint Gall, et.al.😮

[oninoyakamo]

One doesn't etch into a clay tablet. A stylus is pressed into the clay before the tablet is dried

[peterjackson]

No mention of the Great Stave that our school music teacher showed us.

[jimvandemoter]

Something this video doesn't talk abut is the Grand Staff. At one time there wasn't bass and treble clef. Where now we have middle 'C' there was a solid line. In order to simplify things a space was created and the treble and bass clefs came about.

[heronimousbrapson]

Still can't master sight reading...

[imrithvishwamitr]

Guido learned music from the arabic world in 12th century who in turn got it from Hindus .
Solfez comes from India. It is called Sargam or
sa re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni, sa.
Solfez is copy of hindu Sargam.

[jennyohara]

2025 and still no clue how music can be written down

[BerndBorchert]

the 5 line system is very European. it is not possible to notate melodies and harmonies outside the european 12 tone system

[Theranthrope]

3:35 - 4:22 This whole period is what the video should actually be about; the rest is fluff.

Also, China and India claiming to having invented something hundreds of years after someone has, like with gunpowder and noodles, is not notable. They both do that with literally everything and should be ignored.

[duledule]

Pretty stupid question.
Like a stonemason wondering who invented the hammer... or when you go to lunch and chew on a good steak while deep in thought wondering who invented the fork.