Keyboard tablature

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An example: Dieterich Buxtehude's O dulcis Jesu (BuxWV 83) in full score using tablature

Keyboard tablature is a form of musical notation for keyboard instruments. Widely used in some parts of Europe from the 15th century, it co-existed with, and was eventually replaced by modern staff notation in the 18th century. The defining characteristic of the best known type, German organ tablature, is the use of letters[a] to indicate pitch (with added stems or loops to indicate accidentals) as well as beams for rhythm. Spain and Portugal used a slightly different cipher tablature, called cifra.

Historical details[edit]

The earliest extant music manuscripts written in German tablature date from the first half of the 15th century, with the oldest example, a German manuscript dating from 1432, containing the earliest known setting of a partial organ mass as well as a piece based on a cantus firmus.[1] These manuscripts used letters (the same as today) to identify pitch, with the upper voice typically written on a staff in mensural notation.[2] This style was also present in other German-speaking areas, such as Austria.[3] These manuscripts contain valuable information as to the evolution of the music from the period,[4] with extensive evidence of the influence of vocal, and later dance music, on early instrumental music.[5] This practice which could still be seen in collections from the 16th century[6] eventually led to the full-fledged Baroque dance suites of later centuries.[7] This hybrid tablature was also featured in some early printed music books, such as Arnolt Schlick’s Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Lidlein of 1512.[8]

Later notation that included the upper voice in letters as well[3] became prevalent in the latter part of the 16th century.[9] Even works published in open score, such as Samuel Scheidt's Tablatura Nova (1624), may have been influenced by the strict vertical alignment of so-called "new German organ tablature".[10] Remaining in use in Germany (and neighboring areas, such as modern-day Hungary[11] or Poland[12]) through the time of Bach,[10] the music of some composers of the period remains available only in manuscript tablature format.[13][14] The last use of this style of notation is in Johann Samuel Petri’s Anleitung zur praktischen Musik (1782).[15]

In France, England and Italy, staff notation was the norm,[16] and while there are isolated examples of tablature from England (the 14c Robertsbridge codex), there is no evidence that such use was as widespread as in Germany.

Notation[edit]

North German tablature[edit]

See also: Organ tablature

The use of tablature was not limited to solely keyboard music: many vocal works of the period, notably in the Düben collection, survive in this format.

Iberian cipher notation[edit]

Juan Bermudo's Declaración de instrumentos musicales (1555) introduced two tablatures, one assigning numerals from 1 to 42 to each key of the organ, and the second counting white keys only from 1 to 23. Only a third method of cifra was widely adopted however: introduced in Venegas de Henestrosa's Libro de cifra nueva (1557), and later used in Cabezón’s Obras de música (1578), it used 1-7 with together accidentals; slashes lower the octave and superscript dots raise it.[citation needed][17]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Although letters are by far the most common method, numbers are also a possibility. See Colton 2010 for the description of an English example, or Encyclopedia Britannica 2018 for a description of Spanish keyboard tablature.

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Apel 1937, p. 210.
  2. ^ Apel 1937, p. 212.
  3. ^ a b Crane 1965.
  4. ^ Apel 1937, p. 213-217.
  5. ^ Apel 1937, p. 218,229,235-237.
  6. ^ Apel 1937, p. 226.
  7. ^ Apel 1937, p. 230.
  8. ^ Apel 1937, p. 220-222.
  9. ^ Apel 1937, p. 232-233.
  10. ^ a b Boe & Godwin 1974.
  11. ^ Papp 2005.
  12. ^ Baron 1967.
  13. ^ Tuck 1966, p. 123.
  14. ^ Smith 2009.
  15. ^ "Tablature, 2.iii", Thurston Dart, revised by John Morehen and Richard Rastall in New Grove online
  16. ^ Tuck 1966, p. 122.
  17. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica 2018.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Apel, Willi (1937), "Early German Keyboard Music", The Musical Quarterly, 23 (2): 210–237, doi:10.1093/mq/xxiii.2.210, ISSN 0027-4631, JSTOR 738677
  • Apel, Willi (1961), The notation of polyphonic music, 900-1600 (4th ed.), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Medieval Academy of America
  • Baron, John H. (July 1967), "A 17th-Century Keyboard Tablature in Brasov", Journal of the American Musicological Society, 20 (2): 279–285, doi:10.2307/830790, JSTOR 830790
  • Benson, Joan (2014), "Exploring the Past: Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries", Clavichord for Beginners, Indiana University Press, pp. 68–82, ISBN 9780253011589, JSTOR j.ctt16gzjxk.10
  • Boe, John; Godwin, Joscelyn (1974), "Playing from Original Notation", Early Music, 2 (3): 199–201, doi:10.1093/earlyj/2.3.199, ISSN 0306-1078, JSTOR 3125580
  • Braatz, Thomas (1 September 2006), "BWV 1121 - Organ Tablature", www.bach-cantatas.com, retrieved 15 May 2019
  • Crane, Frederick (July 1965), "15th-Century Keyboard Music in Vienna MS 5094", Journal of the American Musicological Society, 18 (2): 237–243, doi:10.2307/830688, JSTOR 830688
  • Colton, Lisa (2010), "A Unique Source of English Tablature from Seventeenth-Century Huddersfield", Music & Letters, 91 (1): 39–50, doi:10.1093/ml/gcp081, ISSN 0027-4224, JSTOR 40539093
  • "Tablature", Encyclopedia Britannica, 2018
  • Emery, Walter (October 1938), "The Orgelbuchlein: Some Textual Matters: I. Readings of the tablature in 'Christus, der uns selig macht'", The Musical Times, 79 (1148): 770–771, doi:10.2307/923787, JSTOR 923787
  • Gaare, Mark (March 1997), "Alternatives to Traditional Notation", Music Educators Journal, 83 (5): 17–23, doi:10.2307/3399003, JSTOR 3399003, S2CID 144806718
  • Godwin, Joscelyn (1974), "Playing from Original Notation", Early Music, 2 (1): 15–19, doi:10.1093/earlyj/2.1.15, ISSN 0306-1078, JSTOR 3125877
  • Jackson, Roland (July 1971), "[Letter from Roland Jackson]", Journal of the American Musicological Society, 24 (2): 318, doi:10.2307/830503, JSTOR 830503
  • Johnston, Gregory S. (1998), "Polyphonic Keyboard Accompaniment in the Early Baroque: An Alternative to Basso Continuo", Early Music, 26 (1): 51–64, doi:10.1093/earlyj/XXVI.1.51, ISSN 0306-1078, JSTOR 3128548
  • King, A. Hyatt (1962), "The Organ Tablature of Johann Woltz", The British Museum Quarterly, 25 (3/4): 61–63, doi:10.2307/4422744, JSTOR 4422744
  • Nanni, Matteo; Moths, Angelika, "How do tablatures work? - From Ink to Sound", FutureLearn, University of Basel
  • Papp, Ágnes (1 August 2005), "Orgeltabulaturen des 17. Jahrhunderts aus Ungarn: Intavolierung, Reduktion, Notationsarten" [Hungarian organ tablatures from the 17th century: Intabulation, reduction, notation types], Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (in German), 46 (3): 441–469, doi:10.1556/SMus.46.2005.3-4.9, JSTOR 25164477
  • Rifkin, Joshua (April 1969), "[Letter from Joshua Rifkin]", Journal of the American Musicological Society, 22 (1): 142, doi:10.2307/830826, JSTOR 830826
  • Smith, David J. (2009), "Early Seventeenth-Century Keyboard Culture at the Court of the Archdukes in Brussels: The Manuscript Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Mus. MS 40316", Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, 63: 67–98, ISSN 0771-6788, JSTOR 25746578
  • Tuck, Mary Lynn (1966), "Tablature Notation in the Sixteenth Century", Music Educators Journal, 53 (1): 121–123, doi:10.2307/3390828, ISSN 0027-4321, JSTOR 3390828, S2CID 191320043
  • Wollny, Peter; Maul, Micheal (2008), "The Weimar Organ Tablature: Bach's Earliest Autographs" (PDF), Understanding Bach, 3: 67–74

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

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