In the previous parts of our little story of musical notation (which you can respectively find here, here and here) we have mainly been focusing on note pitches. But what about the evolution of rhythmic notation? We left it a bit aside since the Greek period, and in fact, the signs which are still used by metrists today have been abandoned in music a long time ago.

Indeed, these signs do not appear in the neumatic notation (I might say almost not: some neumes contain them) and we have to wait until the 12th century and the Notre-Dame School before polyphonists precised the length of notes in ternary melismas. Here begins the notation said mensural. The length of the note is not set but determined by the context: 1 or 2 beats for short ones and 2 or 3 beats for long ones.

This method becomes standard and gets broader in the 13th century: form and layout specify new lengths. New types of notes are invented: squares, rounds, filled or hollowed as well as new queues (with a hook for example).

In the beginning of the 14th century, the rhythmic notation became highly elaborated (use of different colors, of signs such as circles or points) and reached a peak at the end of the same century, to finally become progressively simplified. Features from this period are still observable, for example, C and C barre, as well as numeric combinations, which became fractions indicating bars.

In the 17th century a new character appeared: the bar line, and changed everything. A new way of counting was then introduced, not 1-1-1-1 anymore, but 1-2-3-4, and therefore set the duration of notes according to the figuring.

From this time, and despite the many treaties offering an improvement in the rhythmic notation, this one has remained almost unchanged. Thanks to the non-harmonic music, the debate has recently been revived, but the proposed new types are still very experimental.

So, this is the end of our little story of musical notation, but I already promise a post following this exciting saga: I will show you soon some examples of musical notation not exactly like any other!