Medieval neumes: music as it was written 1,000 years ago

→Small strokes, simple curves… and a whole song takes shape before our eyes! In the Canadian province of Ontario (London), medieval neumes reveal a thousand-year-old world of sound to researchers.

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Medieval neumes: music as it was written 1,000 years ago
Deborah Meert-Williston, Kate Helsen & Brian McMillan © Colleen MacDonald/Western News

If you can’t read music, how do you picture it in your head? Parchment fragments from the 12th century, recently acquired by Western University (in London, Ontario, Canada) archives hold a clue, showing a type of medieval music writing that began at least three centuries earlier, long before the idea of the musical staff or notes had been imagined: neumes!

Ancient Squiggles in the Archives! 

Angel

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