Parallels With Early Music
The two traditional Sacred Harp practices just noted—unwritten accidentals and unwritten dotting—have parallels in older European music.
The music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance was often annotated under the assumption of musica ficta, which were particular raisings and lowerings of notes by the interval of a semitone, not written in the music notation. Authentic performance of such music must rely on the best available musicological scholarship to interpret the difficult and obscure rules governing when musica ficta should be introduced.
Extra dotting was common in the Baroque era, when it was often referred to by the French term notes inégales, "unequal notes". Again, the scholarly issues concerning whether or not to dot are vexed.
Read more about this topic: Performance Practice Of Sacred Harp Music
Famous quotes containing the words parallels, early and/or music:
“If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.”
—Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)