{ "schemaVersion": "v1", "slug": "from-neumes-to-notes-the-evolution-of-music-notation", "title": "From Neumes to Notes: The Evolution of Music Notation", "kind": "solo", "listenUrl": "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/From-Neumes-to-Notes-The-Evolution-of-Music-Notation-e2js79j", "contentStartSec": 114.62, "publishedAt": "2026-10-14", "source": { "provider": "whisper", "model": "faster-whisper:base", "normalizedSchema": "v1", "transcribedAt": "2026-06-09T08:53:44.512Z" }, "paragraphs": [ { "startSec": 114.62, "endSec": 142.3, "text": "What's good?Everybody's Scoobert Doobert, and here.Welcome back to love music more.Today, we are going to talk about musical notation, you know, super fun subject, but reallywhat I'm trying to actually talk about is not just like sheet music.I'm trying to talk about the central problem of how do I communicate a musical idea fromme to you.How do I do that before recording technology exists?" }, { "startSec": 142.3, "endSec": 165, "text": "How do I do that in like an efficient way?So let's go all the way back.That's the central problem, right?And my basic assumption, because there is archeological evidence to support this,is that musicians are as old as humanity itself.You know, homo sapiens are same brains, same emotional structure." }, { "startSec": 165, "endSec": 193.67, "text": "They're the same entities that we are, albeit with different cultural structures.They have existed for well over 200,000 years.During that time, they were humming.They were singing.They were beating on things rhythmically.Again, they have the same brains.They have the same capacity to understand.And they have the same inspirations that we do when we go hiking." }, { "startSec": 193.67, "endSec": 216.95, "text": "You listen to the birds, you replicate a bird, you try and whistle.You hear the town elder banging on a drum as everybody kind of dances around the firelight.You want to bang on the drum too, and you start to pass around rhythms.You start to understand a cultural identity of maybe that tribe or that region of thisis the way that we kind of sing.This is the way that we kind of play drums." }, { "startSec": 216.95, "endSec": 238.79, "text": "This is what differentiates us from this other group that we sometimes hang out with, andwe'll do a little drum off, or sing off, or whatever, we'll tell stories back and forth.All of this is older than history itself.And there's evidence, right?There's like drums, there's little artifacts, bone whistles, very, very old bone whistles." }, { "startSec": 238.79, "endSec": 260.31, "text": "Because I think a lot of people, just like today, realize that they're singing voice,maybe isn't that good, or they lack maybe like we have today.We have a lot of traditions where you can coach up somebody.So even if they might have a lack of raw talent, they can grow their singing voice.If you've heard the perfect example of Ed Sheeran when he was young to Ed Sheeran today," }, { "startSec": 260.31, "endSec": 285.7, "text": "he had a lot of vocal practice, and now he's an incredible singer.Maybe not everybody was doing that.So what do you do when your voice doesn't work, and you want to make music, you make an instrument.So you know, like whittle through a little bone and drill some holes, and boom, you've gota little flute.Over time, you might be able to teach somebody else how to make a little flute.You might make some instructions." }, { "startSec": 285.7, "endSec": 309.5, "text": "And over time, you might be like, hey, I wrote this really sweet flute solo on my bone flutethat I taught somebody else how to make.I want to write down how to do it, so that even when I'm long gone, somebody can playmy sweet little flute solo, and that's what gets us to musical notation.The funny thing is though, this problem's really difficult in the same way that writtenlanguage is very difficult." }, { "startSec": 309.5, "endSec": 336.74, "text": "How do you solve it?It's the same kind of puzzle, trying to communicate an idea so that someone can replicate thatidea and build upon it.The earliest form of musical notation goes back to ancient Babylonia.This is like super old too, 1,400 BCE.That's way, way back.I think beer might be a little older, but I'll have to look that up.What was that doing?" }, { "startSec": 336.74, "endSec": 360.82, "text": "It was trying to make some basic kind of like musical instructions.It's like, hey, slow, fast, that kind of stuff.Then Greek notation starts to indicate some pitches, and again, this is what we have evidenceof.There could be stuff from 100,000 years ago that was doing the exact same thing." }, { "startSec": 360.82, "endSec": 385.34, "text": "But there's a little bit less cultural necessity, I guess, to pass things around outside of anoral tradition, because you're kind of like living units were smaller.If you really are only hanging out with your family, your cousins, you know, maybe someother, it's like, this is your unit, you can all just kind of pass around the idea as nobig deal.You don't need to write it down.Just tell the other person." }, { "startSec": 385.34, "endSec": 405.74, "text": "But then when you start going into these like larger agricultural societies, you associatemusic with things like religious ritual.And that has to be written down because you don't want to get the religious ritual wrongand piss off the gods.It's now you need some notation.So I think that's kind of why you see like Babylonia, Greek, these ancient cuneiform kind" }, { "startSec": 405.74, "endSec": 436.36, "text": "of like tablets, like things that have been etched into stone that survived to this day.So you're starting to indicate pitches, but how do you indicate pitches?Because even the concept of pitch, and I think I did this on my very first podcast, whatis a note is very flexible.What is a note?It's fundamentally arbitrary.We say that A equals 440 hertz in most modern contexts." }, { "startSec": 436.36, "endSec": 466.92, "text": "There's some very interesting debates about whether or not that's like bad for our mindsoul.I don't know if I really subscribe to that, but the concept is valid in terms ofthere's no real reason why A has to equal 440 other than it's convenient for all of usto get on the same page here so that when I have a musician from Europe flying, they'renot always sharp because we agreed on what an A is." }, { "startSec": 466.92, "endSec": 489, "text": "But back then, there's no like oscilloscope to say that is this hertz level, hertz didn'teven exist because hertz wasn't alive yet, you know, it's named after a dude.So what do you do?You've got pitch in terms of up and down, higher and lower, and that's what, like now" }, { "startSec": 489, "endSec": 513.8, "text": "we do this huge pivot out, you know, from 6th century BC to 9th century AD, and we startto see these things called the neumes, N-E-U-M-E-S.And we get into one of my favorite types of music, medieval music.I love medieval music.I always in the weirdo that goes to these little churches around San Diego, and I sit in" }, { "startSec": 513.8, "endSec": 531.28, "text": "the audience and I give my little tips, and I listen to these ancient medieval recreations,the best of their ability.And I think that's the reason why I like it so much is that yeah, it kind of feels likea Ren fair vibe because everyone's in costumes and stuff, that's pretty fun.You're in a random church, that's kind of fun too." }, { "startSec": 531.28, "endSec": 553.84, "text": "And you're playing these ancient songs, like the oldest things that we could somewhat recreate,because it's using these kind of up and down contours.It's not really saying, hey, play an A, then play a B, then play a C. It's playing like,hey, you know, like a middle-ish, and then go up a little bit, and then go down a littlebit, and then back to middle-ish.I love that kind of stuff." }, { "startSec": 553.84, "endSec": 578.84, "text": "And then I also really like Baroque music because that's kind of like the fullest formationof that kind of music, and that kind of transforms into more modern music.But I really like medieval and Baroque music because it just feels like a little portalin time.And if you can ever go see that, especially with period instruments, it's nice.But it's nice because there's a lot of up to interpretation." }, { "startSec": 578.84, "endSec": 601.36, "text": "And there's a whole scholarly field, so you're like a bunch of PhDs and stuff that studythis, and argue back and forth in papers and like, what did that new, really correspondto in terms of pitches, in terms of modernity?And I just think it's fun to have these kind of musical discussions over great areas.Because it's written down, but it's not written down that well, really.It's not communicating that idea fully." }, { "startSec": 601.36, "endSec": 624.52, "text": "And a lot of what it's doing is it's presupposing prior knowledge.It's almost like a cheat sheet.And you'll see this in a lot of bands.Like, I don't know, people will write down musical notation that's a little bit moredirectional, or it might be like a simple rhythmic phrase, or something to kind of jog yourmemory and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, now I go to the bridge.And this is what the bridge kind of feels like." }, { "startSec": 624.52, "endSec": 648.72, "text": "It's like, okay, I got enough.That's what a lot of those medieval kind of versions of notation were was like, hey,you know, this tune, right?But I took that tune and I made it go down here instead.It's like, oh, okay, cool.And so built on that prior knowledge, I know what to do next.I'm using these neumes as little like memory joggers." }, { "startSec": 648.72, "endSec": 678.68, "text": "And then going from there, we go to the 11th century, and there's this awesome name,Guido of Arezzo.And he revolutionizes the whole thing.He adds in staves.He adds in these lines, the four line staff.And that allows us to, instead of just going up and down, we have reference points forhow up and how down.And this is where we get into this idea of stepwise movement." }, { "startSec": 678.68, "endSec": 705.92, "text": "And so if you think like, like, do-ray-me, do-ray-me, you know, that's going up each oneof those as a step.And that allows us to start going like, okay, instead of going, do-ray-me, I want youto go, do-me, you know?Now I'm distinguishing.Those are both higher, but they're different levels of higher.You feel me?And that gives me all of this specificity that now before where I was like, hey, play" }, { "startSec": 705.92, "endSec": 731.84, "text": "it slow, play it, solemn, use these instruments and go up and then go down.Don't me, ray, you know?Now I went up and then I went down.But I was able to tell you how much up and how much down, go up two steps in the scalein this case.It would be four half steps and then go down one step in the scale, or two half steps.Anyway, it doesn't really matter." }, { "startSec": 731.84, "endSec": 752, "text": "But basically the idea is like, I can tell you one note to play now, sort of.Sort of.It's not quite good enough because consider things go really high and things go reallylow.If I only have four lines, that's not a lot to work with.That's probably just enough for me to write a very simple melody and have people beable to replicate it in different areas." }, { "startSec": 752, "endSec": 774.96, "text": "But again, they have their own concept of pitch in the same way that I don't know whatI'm just saying.I don't have perfect pitch.Somebody with perfect pitch is like, ooh, brutal.You're singing in between notes or something, whatever.I don't care.Nerd.Just kidding.I'm doing a podcast on musical notation.But what I'm saying is that you give these generalities to people and now they're going" }, { "startSec": 774.96, "endSec": 792.88, "text": "to put them on whatever pitches they want.That's one of the things I also like about period performances is that they will use differentpitches or they will have scholarly debates about, oh yeah, if somebody was composingin Italy at the time, this was their idea of what an A was and if someone was in Germany,this is what their idea of what an A was." }, { "startSec": 792.88, "endSec": 810.4, "text": "It's fun to hear these different pieces played and you can look this up on YouTube.You don't know, I actually have to go to a church like Weirdo's like me.You can go on YouTube and check this out and you can hear these things that if you werelistening to modern music right before it, it's like, whoa, that whole thing sounds reallysharp or that sounds really weird." }, { "startSec": 810.4, "endSec": 838.32, "text": "But it's fun because you're hearing it sort of in the way that the composer actuallyintended it or to our best of our ability because again, the notation isn't great yet.So then where do we go?Next, we are going to go into rhythm.So in the 13th century, we start to develop kind of like ways to notate rhythm more accuratelyand then boom, 15th century happens and printing presses become a thing." }, { "startSec": 838.32, "endSec": 862.84, "text": "And that is just this absolute like Cambrian explosion of intellectualism and that helpsus to solve this age-old problem because now you don't just have the handful of composersthat are trying to pass stuff back and forth from the different major population centersin Europe.You have pretty much anybody with any musical abilities like, hey, I want to hear and" }, { "startSec": 862.84, "endSec": 884.64, "text": "perform that cool piece that I heard at the symphony or church or whatever, I don'tplay that at home.Anybody that has musical talent now wants to play that at home.So now there's this demand that makes music accessible to this wider audience and it alsocreates this need for standardization.In fact, there's demand, let there be supply.And so from that, we get into the Renaissance and the Baroque innovation." }, { "startSec": 884.64, "endSec": 913.52, "text": "So that's where we get two really cool things.So we get figured bass, which is a weird, I had to learn it in a musical, I really don'tremember it super well, but it's a weird way to show, to indicate the melody, whichis usually the highest voice and then the bass, which is usually the lowest voice, whichis always the lowest voice.And they're counterpoint, the way that they're interacting with each other." }, { "startSec": 913.52, "endSec": 936, "text": "The reason why we still learn it at music schools is a great way to learn counterpoint.And counterpoint is like your vitamins in music, which I need to take more of at some point.But anyway, that's a me problem, not you problem.Figure bass is this little innovation of polyphony.So we had a lot of emphasis on the melody, and now we're gaining more and more emphasis" }, { "startSec": 936, "endSec": 957.96, "text": "as we get into this like, you know, 13th, 14th century of polyphony, multiple lines, multipledifferent things happening at once, a lot of harmonies.And if you want to hear this, you know, this kind of style, where it goes polyphony, youcan hear the influence of, you know, people reading music now, and like really thinkingabout it." }, { "startSec": 957.96, "endSec": 984, "text": "Just kind of like writing melodies, like really thinking about the way that all of theselines, this polyphony is intersecting, and creating like the music of the spheres, a lotof this is very religious.I would recommend Johannes Ockeghem, he's a 15th century composer, and there's a specificbass that it's got the funniest album cover I've ever seen.It's by a group called the beauty farm." }, { "startSec": 984, "endSec": 1012.28, "text": "And it is absolutely classic, all of their album art is very funny, clearly like Renaissanceslash Baroque music students.And I would recommend Ockeghem masses, if you want to listen to this, I think it's absolutelybeautiful.It's a really great example of like that printing press era right in the beginning andhow it's super charging music, because this feels like deep rich music." }, { "startSec": 1012.28, "endSec": 1036.08, "text": "This has a lot of thirds and sixths, like a lot of this major and minor tonality.It has dissonance.It is this huge quantum leap from where Gregorian chant was.And a lot of that is due to the cultural interchange that was possible due to musical notation,getting passed back and forth.Like this, that kind of music, Johannes Ockeghem does not happen in a vacuum." }, { "startSec": 1036.08, "endSec": 1060.08, "text": "And I also love it because it's such a good precursor to, you know, Bach, who like reallycrystallizes the whole thing.But Ockeghem is just this, it's like music of the spheres, it's gorgeous and it's bizarre.I love it.I listen to it in my car sometimes, whatever.So we go from, we go from that, we go into the Renaissance.So this is kind of coming out of that Ockeghem and into that Bach and then we go into the" }, { "startSec": 1060.08, "endSec": 1082.72, "text": "Baroque, where it's really, really coming together.And now we get specific like options where you're able to improvise embellishments.And then also create like tablature that was specific different types of instrumentation.And so we start to see like as we get into like the 17th century too, modern music notation" }, { "startSec": 1082.72, "endSec": 1105.28, "text": "where you have your five line staff, you got key signatures, dynamic markings, you gottreble, you got bass, and it can flow in between.And then you also have like these specific, like I'm saying, tablature styles of notationfor like violin, viola." }, { "startSec": 1105.28, "endSec": 1127.52, "text": "It allows you to like speak specifically to these different groups of instrumentation.And then that opens you up more for symphonic work because now people can talk to each other.And you can put it in a way that that instrumentless can understand and they're not having toread like a thousand ledger lines.And it's really exciting because now we can add like dynamic markings." }, { "startSec": 1127.52, "endSec": 1151.6, "text": "And because we figured out the basics, it's really hard to add in more when you can'teven like communicate like this is what the pitch is and this is what the rhythm is.And it's also hard, that's a harder problem than it seems like, once it's solved, thenit seems easy kind of problem.But to go, okay from here to here within these two lines, there will be this number of beats.And the common time is four four." }, { "startSec": 1151.6, "endSec": 1177.4, "text": "There will be four quarter notes in every bar.Which is like, oh, of course, but back then, not necessarily.And so now you have this rhythmic pulse of one, two, three, four and boom, there you go.And we repeat, one, two, three, four, every single time.And now you can create different accents.And that's where like our modern backbeat, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four," }, { "startSec": 1177.4, "endSec": 1203.6, "text": "you know, that creates this like sense of groove and sense of space and sense of order.Rather than like a Gregorian chant that's just kind of like floating there, you know,it's kind of going, going, it's up to whatever the composer wants you to go a little fasterand slower, you know, whatever.Having the order of bars and then the ability to break it with these extra little moments." }, { "startSec": 1203.6, "endSec": 1211.72, "text": "Like you can write on there to say, hey, look at the composer basically, there's a littlesimple for that and the composer's going to tell you when that beat is over." }, { "startSec": 1212.52, "endSec": 1234.44, "text": "Or the conductor because like we figured out the basics or in the same way like get louderhere, you quieter here.So then how do you take that to the next level to like digital stuff?Well, now you can kind of do it all." }, { "startSec": 1234.44, "endSec": 1255.92, "text": "You can do it online with like Noteflight, you got Sibelius and you can compose iton your computer and listen to all of the different instruments playing it virtuallybefore you give it to players.That's a really cool thing too because now instead of having to like be super geniusthat can hear everything in your head, you can actually physically write it out, listen" }, { "startSec": 1255.92, "endSec": 1280.6, "text": "to it, see if you like it, and then hand it to a player.The best thing though is to be able to play a little bit yourself so you have to internalizeit.And next week I'm going to be talking to a percussionist drummer who is going to talkabout the difficulties for notating for, you know, drums and percussion because a lotof people just think like, oh yeah, okay, that's, this is how I would program the drums" }, { "startSec": 1280.6, "endSec": 1303.08, "text": "or this is, you know, what drums do?And so they put the instrumentalist into a box.And I think one of the things to learn throughout this history of musical notation is thereused to be a lot more room for movement and improvisation and I think that we mighthave gone too far the other direction for quite a while in terms of like replication." }, { "startSec": 1303.08, "endSec": 1325.52, "text": "So before when there was fidelity loss, when there was like, I transmit this to you throughpaper and I cannot tell you things like where the actual pitches are or anything beyondjust the direction and the vibe that leaves a lot of room for interpretation from you.When I'm able to tell you absolutely everything as well as exactly what tempo to be at, controlled" }, { "startSec": 1325.52, "endSec": 1351.68, "text": "by like an atomic clock, you know, and exactly what frequency to be at, exactly howI want everything tuned and played and dynamics and speed.Now you are kind of like a computer and I am inputting these things to you as a musicianand saying spit it back out at me the way I intended, make it sound good, go.There's a thing in the middle and figured bass is a good example of this where it like" }, { "startSec": 1351.68, "endSec": 1375.56, "text": "kind of, it gives you like, this is, these are the general contours of what I'm lookingfor.These are the places that I want you to hit have fun in between.Both are cool.Both are good.And it's fun.You're going to enjoy this conversation if you enjoyed this one.This conversation next week because it talks about the building improvisation in insideof your scores." }, { "startSec": 1375.56, "endSec": 1399.6, "text": "So you like, and jazz does this a ton where there's a thing called like a real book whereit's basically the roadmap of the song more or less where these are like the key elementsthat make this song that song.This key melody, maybe an A section and a B section, it's based off of this tune soyou can look up those lyrics and kind of feel how it was phrased if you want to play" }, { "startSec": 1399.6, "endSec": 1429.04, "text": "it instrumentally and then go, play around with it, trade solos, flip it up on top ofits head.But here's like a roadmap of chords, rhythm, tempo, general melody and go for it from there.There might be other ways to do this though.Just because this is the way that like somebody in the, you know, 15th through 17th centuryfigured out doesn't mean this is the only way.And that's where postmodern music comes in." }, { "startSec": 1429.04, "endSec": 1455.64, "text": "There was a really cool one that I saw on Instagram of a man that was doing a trombonesolo performance.And inside of the score, it said put a six pack of beer on the stage, mess up really badon your trombone and throw a chair into the audience.And that was written into the score, you know, or John Cage where you have like written" }, { "startSec": 1455.64, "endSec": 1481.32, "text": "into the score exactly nothing basically, just sit there and let the audience squirm.And that's the song, you know, those are playing with the idea of musical notation aswell as the idea of music.And that's a really interesting thing.And maybe there's unexplored, you know, those seem like super extreme examples of course.Maybe there are unexplored means of transmitting information from composer to musician, from" }, { "startSec": 1481.32, "endSec": 1505.5, "text": "composer to player that we can try still.And maybe the key is putting less on the page or putting a ton on the page when it'smeant to be.And then absolutely nothing letting them just follow the dancers.And it's funny to think the juxtaposition between spatial audio, 3D sound flying around" }, { "startSec": 1505.5, "endSec": 1535.3, "text": "your head, the absolute pinnacle of recorded music to going back to cuneiform stone tabletscarving in, play this one for the god, nice and slow.But that's the journey of music, and this is all relatively recently.So where does it go from here?I don't know, but I'll be here to write it down.Hope you enjoyed this episode.Once again, my name is Scoobert Doobert." }, { "startSec": 1535.3, "endSec": 1551.98, "text": "You can check out my music and all my links at scoobertdoobert.pizza, and I'll be there.Be sure to rate the podcast five stars if you enjoyed it, subscribe as well, and I'llsee you next week with a great conversation.Picking up from where we left off here, take care everybody." } ], "correctionsApplied": [ { "id": "fuzzy-host-name", "count": 1, "note": "Fuzzy host name + glued suffix (rapidfuzz) (100.0%): 'Scoobert Dooberted' -> 'Scoobert Doobert, and'" }, { "id": "scoobert-dubert", "count": 1, "note": "Host intro name ASR typo" }, { "id": "scoobert-url", "count": 1, "note": "Outro URL ASR typo" }, { "id": "scuba-duber-name", "count": 1, 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