Early Music Printing Helped Shape Modern Music Notation

Music notation went through many different stages before reaching its current standard form. However, this form is not the result of a master plan by music scholars or of a vote by practicing musicians.

Music notation was still in the midst of an evolutionary process when an outside factor drastically slowed down and effectively ended many aspects of that process: the invention of the printing press. Arguably the most important factor in finalizing note shapes, signs, symbols, and so on was early music printing.

Up to the 15th century, music was created, duplicated, and distributed by handmade manuscripts. That method was slow and expensive.

In the late 15th century, a wood-block printing technique was used to publish a few music instruction books. Much more effective, however, was a newly invented movable-type method of printing.

Printing from movable type had been known in China for hundreds of years before the 15th century, but the technique was perfected in Europe about 1450 by the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1395-1468). His unique contributions included a mold for casting type with precision and in large quantities; a type-metal alloy; an oil-based printing ink; and a new kind of press, modeled after presses used in papermaking and bookbinding.

None of those features existed in any other kind of printing, including the Chinese movable-type system. Gutenberg's invention remained the basis for typesetting for the next 500 years.

His own printed masterpiece, and the first book ever printed from movable type, was his famed Bible, now usually called the Gutenberg Bible (before 1455).

A music adaptation of the Gutenberg method was used to print liturgical books with plainsong notation about 1473. In 1501 an Italian publisher, Ottaviano Petrucci (1466-1539), issued the first book of polyphonic music printed entirely from movable type, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton (One Hundred Songs of Harmonic Music-actually there are only 96 pieces in the book, and the word harmonic describes a style that would now be called polyphonic).

By 1523 Petrucci had issued 59 volumes of vocal and instrumental music. Other publishers soon joined the movable-type movement.

At first, music printers used a triple-impression method, each sheet going through the press three times: once to print the staff lines, again to print the words, and a third time to print the notes. To reduce the time and work involved, printers developed a two-impression technique: one run through the press to print the words and one run for the music.

Printing everything-staff, notes, and text-in one operation was first practiced by John Rastell in London about 1520. Pierre Attaingnant, in Paris, applied this one-impression method on a large, systematic scale beginning in 1528.

Music printing exploded throughout the 16th century. In Germany music printing began about 1534, and in the Netherlands in 1538. Major music-printing centers in the 16th century included Antwerp, Lyons, Nuremberg, Paris, Rome, and Venice.

Music printing eliminated the need for local copyists to produce manuscripts for local performances. Music printed in any city could end up being performed in any other city. Personal idiosyncrasies or local-regional practices became impractical.

Just as letter shapes became standardized by the invention of book printing, so the shapes of notes, clef signs, accidentals and other notational devices became more settled when music printing replaced hand copying. For example, the change from diamond-shaped notes to rounded heads occurred during the 16th century, and music printing played a major role in consolidating and finalizing that change.

Music printing also encouraged new notational layouts, especially scores.

From the 13th century to the 16th century, polyphonic music was notated in a layout called a choirbook format. The upper parts were written either on facing pages or in separate columns on the same page, with the tenor (being the lowest voice at that time and having a separate musical function) on a single staff extending across the bottom.

During that time, composers were taught to compose polyphonic music one part at a time, that is, all of one part, all of another part, and so on.

In the 16th century, handwritten music, especially for church choirs, still tended to be in the old choirbook format.

However, 16th-century music printers issued most of their ensemble music in the form of oblong part books, each part (or voice) being printed in a separate volume. That method of printing made extra money for the publishers because to perform any piece of music, performers had to purchase all the individual parts.

From the composer's point of view, however, that method of printing made composition extremely difficult. Because of stylistic musical changes in the 16th century, composing the music the way it was printed-one part at a time-was no longer efficient.

Composers became more and more concerned about coordinating both harmonic fullness and polyphonic independence of the voices. That new dual emphasis required constant adjustments to one part or another during composition. The composer needed flexibility.

Many composers solved that problem by drafting their compositions with all the parts on the same page in score form so that they could see the complex issues at a glance and write all the parts simultaneously. Sometimes composers wrote the drafts on erasable slates or on cheap paper before transferring the individual voices to part books for printing and performing.

Eventually some draft scores became important enough to be published. The first printed ensemble score was issued in 1577.

By stabilizing the forms of music symbols and by influencing the development of score writing, early music printing played a major role in establishing music notation as it is still practiced today.