neume writing
The early version of music writing from the 9th century (neuma in latin means warning). It reflects only the direction of the melody, it shows the up or down movements in the melody, the coordination of the text and the melody. In the lack of staves it is impossible to read the exact melody. It just reminds the singer of the melody, although it was still very popular in traditional German territories after the introduction of the staves (by the 14-15th centuries). In contrast with the neumas structured in the in campo aperto (= in an open field) the so-called diastematic writing (structured in space according to pitch) leads to modern readable music writing. There were various forms of neume writing connected to the different regions of Europe: French, Italian, German...etc variants.
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