[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF NOTATION IN NEUMES, TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURY.]
These signs, though representing definite turns and embellishments in the melody, gave no exact indication of pitch. The first sign of anything approaching a staff occurs in the tenth century, when one or two lines were drawn across the page to mark the place of certain tones or pitches. The first line was used for the tone F and the second for the tone C. Other lines were later added for the other tones, and each line was marked with the letter of the tone to which it was assigned. Though all the letters of the scale were used in this fashion, F, C, and G were the ones most commonly employed and from the Gothic characters for these were developed our modern clef signs, as may be seen from the following illustration:
[Illustration: GENESIS OF CLEFS FROM GOTHIC LETTERS.]
A system of letter notation seems to have grown up contemporaneously with the neumatic system. Its invention has been ascribed to Gregory the Great and to Boethius, without much authority in either case. The first instances of its practical use are found in the writings of Notker Balbulus and Hucbald. Originally fifteen letters were used to designate the tones of two octaves; this number was afterward reduced to seven, repeated in successive octaves. The letters ran from A to G, but none of them had a definite tone meaning, as they have with us. A was merely the tone taken as a starting point and the series was always counted upward from it. In the system as it was finally completed the lowest G was added and called _gamma_ to distinguish it from the G in the regular series. It is of interest to note here that the introduction of B flat necessitated the use of two differently shaped B’s. The B _durum_ was angular [music sign] and the B _molle_ was rounded [music sign]. From the former was derived our natural sign (♮) and from the latter our flat sign (♭). Our sharp is merely a variation of the natural. The system of letter notation was originally devised chiefly for instruments, particularly the organ, though its use gradually became universal. It belongs, however, more properly to a period later than the one we have been discussing.
