CLASS NOTES: Ars Nova, New Rhythm in the 14th Century (Western Music History through Performance)

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Notes on video lecture:

Ars Nova, New Rhythm in the 14th Century

Western Music History through Performance

Jonathan Coopersmith, Curtis Institute of Music

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on January 20, 2016 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

Vitry, Renaissance, weak, durations, semibreves, duple, no, threes, minims, 14th, syncopation, context, perfection, mixed, complex, rhythmic, combinations, whole, division, exact, relative, triplets

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at the beginning of the century

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there was finally a system of musical notation which

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showed pitches

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but durations were

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music before this had been rhythmically grouped always into

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same note shape could be given two or three beats, but depending on

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confusing

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limiting

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Philippe de

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credited with creating the ars nova

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Latin for "new art"

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the last line of his treatise is "This is the new art."

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ars nova is a name for the era of music in the 1300s

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innovations in notation

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breaking with the idea of a " ", i.e. that music needed to be grouped into threes

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allowed for several levels of

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breves could be broken into groups of two or three

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semibreves could be broken up into 2 or 3 smaller units called minims

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a radical shift

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for the first time, note were fixed

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and no longer confined to groups of three

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definitions

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breve = double whole note

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semibreve = note

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four distinct time signatures or meters

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9/8 time signature

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breve into 3 semibreves into 9 minims

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this is like three groups of which wasn't such a big change from what had come before

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if a breve is divided into three semibreves, as before, but each breve is divided into only two

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a new feature of ars nova

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3/4 signature

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if a breve is divided into only two semibreves, and each breve into three minim

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this gives us a 6/8 signature

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sounds like two groups of triplets

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not a big change

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but if a breve is divided into only two semibreves, and each breve into only two minims

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this gives us a 2/4 signature

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a completely new sound

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the most radical of all new time signatures since there were groups of three at all

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the real innovation is fixed note shapes

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notes were no longer relative

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both triple and meter (2/4) are possible

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is possible for the first time

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the shift of a musical accent in which emphasis is given to beats instead of strong beats

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since note shapes retain their value regardless of the context

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allowed composers to exploit of rhythm

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some of the most music was composed during this time

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combining syncopations, meters, and different voices and meters at the same time

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without this new notation, the innovations that occurred in the would not have been possible

Spelling Corrections:

rythmically ⇒ rhythmically

Ideas and Concepts:

Pre-renaissance revolutionary musical style via tonight's Western Music History course: "ars nova, n. (Latin:"new art") was a period of the tremendous flowering of music in the 14th century, particularly in France. It opposed the Ars Antiqua of 13th-century France, and was the title of a treatise written in 1320 by the composer Philippe de Vitry, the most enthusiastic proponent of the movement. Ars nova allowed notes to be written with greater independence of rhythm, shunning the limitations of the rhythmic modes which prevailed in the thirteenth century, developed new techniques and forms such as isorhythm (a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern), the overall aesthetic effect of these changes being to create music of greater expressiveness and variety than had been the case in the thirteenth century. This sudden historical change with its new degree of musical expressiveness can be likened to the introduction of perspective in painting."

Hitherto unknown musical notation via tonight's Western Music History course:

"breve, n. a note lasting two times as long as a whole note. In 1320, the French composer Philippe de Vitry began the era of music known as the "ars nova" by defining, among other things, a radical shift in representing the length of a musical notes.

Breaking with the idea of a ternary ("perfect"), a mandatory group into threes notes, he created a new base unit of note length, called a breve. Each breve could be broken up into 2 or 3 semibreves and each semibreve could be broken up into 2 or 3 minims, which gave composers new time signatures or meters to organized their music.

These terms have persisted until today, where a breve is a double whole note, a semibreve is a whole note, and a minim is a half note. Because it lasts longer than a bar in most modern time signatures, the breve is now rarely encountered. However, in time signatures where the top number is exactly twice that of the bottom, such as 4/2 or 8/4, it lasts a whole bar and so may still be found."