Neume

Writing for the singing voice

The first neumes were written without staff lines above the Latin text. The page Notation symbols describes what follows from this: without lines only the graphic form showed whether the voice went up or down. The punctum, the single dot, marks a note without further movement. From it developed the square note heads of the medieval chant notation. The page calls the punctum the basic building block of Gregorian chant notation.

The descriptions of the shapes come from the page Notation symbols, where every sign is explained and dated.

Several notes on one syllable

Clivis, pes, torculus and porrectus carry more than one note. The page Notation symbols says that the clivis marks a melisma, several notes on a single syllable of text. It is the descending counterpart to the pes, which ascends. Together with punctum and virga, clivis and pes form the basic neumes. Such melismas occur especially in alleluia verses and tropes.

The torculus rises to a peak and falls back, a short melodic wave. It is typical in the jubilus of the alleluia, the vocalise without text. The porrectus is the counter-movement: a lowering followed by a lifting again, in a way the valley between two peaks. It is one of the basic forms of the medieval square notation.

From the dot to the line

The virga is the first “direction-showing” neume: according to the page it marks a note higher than the one before. How much higher was shown only by the staff lines that came later.

A sign from this world is the custos. It appears at the end of a line of music and announces the first note of the next line. It helps the singer see the next piece of the melody before the line has been sung out. In chant manuscripts and in keyboard prints of the 15th to 18th centuries it was usual; in modern engraving it has largely vanished, but it is preserved in urtext editions of early music.

Neumes and polyphony

Alongside the neumes the first polyphony came into being. The page Intervals describes organum from the 9th century: fourth, fifth and octave formed the basis of the very first polyphony. The article Why the fifth sounds hollow adds that organum leads two voices in parallel fifths and fourths and that thirds counted there as dissonance.

Common mistakes

• Reading neumes as pitches: Without lines and clef they show the direction, not the exact note.
• Confusing clivis and pes: The clivis goes down, the pes goes up.
• Swapping torculus and porrectus: The torculus has the shape low – high – low, the porrectus high – low – high.