Daseian notation - Wikipedia

29/11/2016, 00)36

Daseian notation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daseian notation (or dasian notation)

is the type of musical notation used in
the ninth century anonymous musical
treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica
enchiriadis. The music of the Musica
enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis,
written in Daseian notation, are the
earliest known examples of written
polyphonic music in history.[1]

Usage
Musicologist Willi Apel has called the
notation "a mediaeval imitation of the

Tu patris sempiternus est filius, written in Daseian notation. The

Daseian signs are at the far left of the staff.

ancient Greek notation".[2] The treatises

themselves refer to it as "dasia"; the
word derives from the Greek daseia, which refers to "rough breathing" at the start of a word in spoken
prosody.[3]
Daseian notation makes use of a staff of varying numbers of lines, from four to as many as eighteen, as well
as a system of four shapes which are rotated in various ways to represent the full gamut of eighteen pitches
used in the treatises. These eighteen pitches are based on a system of four repeating hexachords, resulting in
the following scale: G A B c | d e f g | a b c' d' | e' f' g' a' | b' c''. This scale does not correspond to any
known performance practice. When it is used to construct polyphonic music, as directed in the treatises, it
results in a number of written tritones, which were considered undesirable by theorists in performance and
were probably mistakes of the author.[4]
The notational signs were then placed at the far left of the staff (similar in placement to modern clef), and
some illustrations are supplemented with "T" and "S" in between the signs so as to clarify the placement of
semitones.[5] Syllables of the spoken words were then written on the staff lines (see example above). If the
pitch changed, the word syllables would be raised or lowered to a different staff line. This was used to notate
organum in two, three and four-voice styles.[2]
In addition to the Enchiriadis treatises, this notation is also used in the Commemoratio brevis de tonis et
psalmis modulandis treatise.[3] However, despite the wide circulation of the Enchiriadis treatises, this
notation was not widely used in practical sources. Music manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries record
almost exclusively monophonic music, and even the extant sources of polyphonic music, such as the
Winchester Troper, are written in unheighted neumes.[6] This would continue until the development of the
widely used staff system of Guido of Arezzo in the eleventh century.
Philipp Spitta was the first modern musicologist to correctly interpret this notation, in an 1889 publication.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daseian_notation

Page 1 of 2

Daseian notation - Wikipedia

29/11/2016, 00)36

See also
Musica enchiriadis
Scolica enchiriadis
Tonary

References
1. Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca. A History of Western
Music. Norton, 2006, p. 88.
2. Apel, Willi. The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600.
Revised 4th edition. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval
Academy of America, 1953, pp. 204-206.
3. Hiley, David. "Dasian [Daseian] Notation". The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed Stanley
Sadie. London:Macmillan, 2001.
4. Hoppin, Richard. Medieval Music. Norton, 1978, p. 192.
5. Grout, p. 90.
6. Hoppin, pp. 198-199.

Daseian notation and its modern equivalents.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daseian_notation&oldid=693798690"

Categories: Medieval music Musical notation
This page was last modified on 4 December 2015, at 23:42.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daseian_notation

Page 2 of 2