Define neume | Dictionary and Thesaurus

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Web Name: Define neume | Dictionary and Thesaurus

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Plural of neumaExtensive DefinitionNeumes are the basic elements of Western andEastern systems of musicalnotation prior to the invention of five-line staffnotation. The word neume is a Middle English corruption of theultimately Greek word for breath (pneuma : πνευμα).The earliest neumes were inflective marks whichindicated the general shape but not necessarily the exact notes orrhythms to be sung. Later developments included the use ofheightened neumes which showed the relative pitches between neumes,and the creation of a four-line musical staff that identifiedparticular pitches. Neumes do not generally indicate rhythm, butadditional symbols were sometimes juxtaposed with neumes toindicate changes in articulation, duration, or tempo. Neumaticnotation was later used in medievalmusic to indicate certain patterns of rhythm called rhythmicmodes, and eventually evolved into modern musical notation.Neumatic notation remains standard in modern editions of plainchant.Early historyAlthough chant was probably sung since theearliest days of the church, for centuries they were onlytransmitted orally.The earliest systems involving neumes are ofAramaicorigin and were used to notate inflections in the quasi-emmelicrecitation of the Christian holy scriptures. As such they resemblefunctionally a similar system used for the notation of recitationof the Qur'an, the holybook of Islam. This early system was called ekphonetic notation,from the Greek ekphonesis meaning quasi-melodic recitation oftext.Around the 9th centuryneumes began to become shorthand mnemonic aids for the melodicrecitation of chant proper. A prevalent view is that neumaticnotation was first developed in the Eastern Roman Empire (seeByzantiumand Byzantinemusic). This seems plausible given the well-documented peak ofmusical composition and cultural activity in major cities of theempire (now regions of southern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel)at that time. The corpus of extant Byzantine music in manuscriptand printed form is far larger than that of the Gregorianchant, due in part to the fact that neumes fell in disuse inthe west after the rise of modern staff notation and with it thenew techniques of polyphonic music, while the Eastern tradition ofGreek Orthodox church music and the reformed neume notation remainsalive until today.Slavic neume notations ("Znamennoesinging") are on the whole even more difficult to decipher andtranscribe than Byzantine or Gregorian neume notations.Use in Western plainchantSolesmes AbbeyTheIntonation of the Eight Tones Byzantine notationMusic forVespers Byzantine notationneume in Catalan: Pneumaneume in German: Neumeneume in Estonian: Neumadneume in Modern Greek (1453-): Νευματικήσημειογραφίαneume in Spanish: Neumaneume in French: Neumeneume in Italian: Neumaneume in Hebrew: נוימהneume in Lithuanian: Neumosneume in Dutch: Neumeneume in Japanese: ネウマ譜neume in Polish: Neumyneume in Portuguese: Neumaneume in Russian: Невмыneume in Simple English: Neumeneume in Swedish: Neumerneume in Chinese: 紐姆記譜法

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