Notation: the entire history of Western music is based upon and influenced by its methods, yet we often overlook the study of historical methods.  Tablature is one such method that is often ignored.  Tablature came into common use in the 16th century during which time it became the predominant notation for instrumental music.  This is especially true for solo instruments such as the lute, the most popular and important solo instrument of the Renaissance period.  Tablature is a type of phonetic notation in which sounds are represented by letters, numbers, or other signs. (Apel 54)  Therefore, it is a method that refers the performer directly to the technical devices required to re-create a composer’s intentions.  Mensural notation is, in contrast, a diastematic notation that represents pitch intervals graphically on a staff.  It is, therefore, an indirect notational method, since the symbols represent elements, such as pitch and intervals, of a purely intellectual character.  In German terminology such pitch notation is referred to as “Tonschrift” whereas tablated, finger notation is called “Griffschrift” (54).
    Is “Tonschrift” or “Griffschrift” the more effective method for instrumental notation?  Scholarly opinion seems divided on the issue.  Apel claims that pitch notation “proves in the end to be by far the more successful one,” (54) while Richard Rastall states that “the most successful instrumental notations have been those that provide the performer with precise instructions on the placing of his fingers on the strings, holes or keys of the instrument” (6).  If the common practice of lutenists is any indication, “Griffschrift” must be the better notation for the Renaissance lute.
    Music for the lute is notated in tablature, almost without exception.  During the Renaissance, tablature was the primary notational system for many other instruments as well.  Tablation methods for keyboard, viol, and flute survive, however, lute tablatures became far more advanced than these other phonetic methods.  “Because of the tremendous vogue which lute playing enjoyed in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the vast literature of lute music created during the period, lute tablature is certainly the most important notation of this kind” (Apel 55).  “Lute tablatures,” Apel says, “play a unique role in the field of notation, because they are based on principles fundamentally different from all other varieties of notation” (54).  Dart and Morehen claim that, “because of lute tablature’s simplicity, clarity, and logic, it provided a very important rivalry to mensural staff notation” (509).  This rivalry influenced many important future developments in the notational language.
    In this paper, I will describe why mensural notation was inadequate for the lute.  Next, I will discuss the methods of the three major, regional lute tablature styles that have survived: German, Italian, and French.  Finally, I will provide clear examples of lute tablature’s influence on the development of our modern, universal notational system.

Reasons tablature was necessary

    The basic issue separating tablature and mensural notation is the chasm found between instrumental and choral music during the Medieval and Renaissance periods.  Instrumentalists, especially lutenists, were generally not used for church music.  Vocalists and lutenists could be considered practitioners of completely different art forms.  Consequently, “instrumentalists were quite ignorant of vocal music, of its notation, rules and practices” (Smith 12).  This division between genres is a major reason for the appearance of tablatures, since instrumentalists simply chose their own methods for notating its music.
    Another reason for the chasm between instrumentalists and vocalists lies in each one’s respective capabilities.  The lute, due to its layout and pitch arrangement, is physically unable to perform much of the music written for other genres without significant alteration.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the intabulations of vocal polyphony, which were very popular and financially lucrative at the time.  Often these intabulations would have to make significant alterations in order to make the music idiomatic enough to be playable; sometimes they became so altered that they bore little resemblance to the original (Rastall 172).  The lute, along with most instruments, has to have music written in an idiomatic fashion.  Such incompatibility created the need for new instrumental music written in tablature.
    The notation itself was the largest factor.  The mensural notation found in common use during the early Renaissance was primarily a singer’s notation; it did not translate well into more than one line per staff (Berger 3).  In fact, it could not effectively represent more than a single line without creating an impossibly confusing situation.  The option of using multiple staves in an open score to notate the polyphony could not work for rhythmic reasons.  With the evolution toward polyphonic music, solo lutenists began playing music of increasing complexity.  Mensural notation is incapable of representing such music in a clear way, especially with regard to rhythm.  Its system of using note shapes to delineate rhythm had the unfortunate consequence of rhythms not lining up vertically.  One can imagine the impossibility of this situation for the reader of part music.  As Arthur Ness states “The impulse for polyphonic music on the lute required a distinct system of score notation – lute tablature” (733).
    In the case of the lute, composers and performers were not separate entities, as seen in the vocal idiom.  The writers of lute music were also practicing lute players.  The professionals, much like the amateurs, were not interested in overly intellectual systems.  They desired a system that would shorten the amount of time from rehearsal to performance; relying on their skills as practicing musicians and minstrels to imply the musical aspects not found in the tablature (Coelho 6).  Clearly, the presence of a living culture allowed the Renaissance lutenist the freedom to notate only what is necessary.  Even though this practice may be aggravating to historians, such a focus on performance, free of intellectualism, justifies the use of tablature.
    Another major issue is the capability, or lack thereof, music printing had for creating a standardized, universal musical notation.  Clearly a system much like that we use today would not have been feasible, given Renaissance printing.  The techniques that define lute tablatures are designed around the capabilities of music printing procedures as well as being a necessary result of the circumstances surrounding music of this period.

The Three Systems

    During the 16th century, the spread of knowledge between the areas of Europe was very slow.  Since tablature was borne out of necessity, different systems were devised independent of one another.  Each system is based on a common principle.  There are six strings along the fingerboard of a lute with nine or more frets intersecting them to form chromatic steps.  Thus there are 54 intersections capable of being played on the lute; the tablature systems merely have different ways of indicating these intersections (Apel 56).  Since the systems were not standardized, there is a great amount of variation within each tablature method and the examples given in the following demonstrate the common practices.
    The earliest system of importance was the German system.  Apparently invented by the blind organist Conrad Paumann (1410-1473) , it uses a complicated system of lettering in which each letter represents a specific string and fret.  By specifying every possible intersection, the German system avoids having to use a staff to represent the courses.  This decision allowed for greater ease in music printing, since text was the easiest thing to print.  It is clear from the lettering that this system was originally designed in the 14th and 15th centuries when the lute was a five fret, five-course instrument, though no examples of tablature for such instrument survive (Apel 74).  The earliest preserved document of German tablature, written for a six course, nine fret lute, dates from 1512 (74).
    The alphabetical lettering begins on the intersection of the first fret and the lowest string, continuing horizontally along each fret up the neck (see example A).  Adaptations were made to the system when more frets, the sixth course, and the unfretted diapason strings were added.  Adaptation was accomplished through capitalization, placing a line over the letters to start the lettering over, or by creating different symbols.  These alterations forced the German system into incredible complexity; for this reason it was eventually and reluctantly replaced in Germany by the French system.

Influences on modern notation

    The competition between tablature and staff notation during this time period is the single most important influence on our modern notation.  Dart and Morehen agree that many of the most valuable features of modern notation have derived from tablatures (509).  These features include the bar line, the flag, the beaming of rhythms and style and expression markings.
    With the rise of instrumental music and the importance of dance styles, rhythm became a central element in the music.  Mensural rhythmic notation is based upon a division of the primary beat into three smaller beats.  The number three was used to represent the divinity.  Instrumentalists made the decision to divide note values into only two of the lower value, rather than three.  This duple division strengthened the sense of meter and made instrumental music much more convenient to read and perform.  Choral music eventually adopted this method as well.
    Of all the lasting influences felt from lute notation, the re-introduction of the bar line has perhaps been the most important.  Bar lines had been removed from French notation in the 13th century.  As the lute began to play rhythmic dance music, notation needed to adapt to its requirements.  The use of bar lines and the consequent denotation of meter became standard practice in lute notation.
    Lute tablatures also introduced the flag as a means of notating rhythmic duration.  As Rastall says
            “Decorative lute-music had for long been adding flags to rhythm-stems and further beams to rhythm-grids, so that rhythm-signs
             using three or four flags or beams were quite familiar.  Thus the notation for demi-semiquavers and smaller values existed even
             before the need for it arose, and staff notation simply took over the idea from lute-tablature”  (176).
    German tablature’s greatest legacy is the first use of beamed rhythms, an innovation the other lute tablatures did not share (see Example D).

Conclusion

    Without a doubt tablature was the most appropriate system of notation for the Renaissance lute and vihuela.  Many of the most valuable features of modern notation have derived from these tablatures (Dart 509).  As I have shown, the bar line, rhythmic flagging and barring and dynamic indications have come directly from the German, French, and Italian systems.  Although tablation methods are often ignored, I believe it is important that we begin to see the beauty in the clear, simple and logical lute tablatures.

Works Cited

Apel, Willi.  The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600.  Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1949.

Berger, Busse.  Mensuration and Proportion Signs.  New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Chew, Geoffrey.  “Notation”  New Grove.  1980.

Coelo, Victor.  Performance on lute, guitar, and vihuela: historical practice and modern interpretation.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Dart, Thurston and John Morehen.  “Tablature”  New Grove.  1980.

Dowland, Robert.  Varietie of Lute Lessons: A lithographic facsimile of the original edition of 1610, with an introduction.  London: Schott, 1958.

Ness, Arthur.  “Sources of lute music”  New Grove.  1980.

Rastall, Richard.  The notation of Western music: an introduction.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.

Smith, Hopkinson.  Liner notes to Fantasias: musica de vihuehla/ Luys Milan.  France: Astree Auvidis.  1998.

Williams, Charles.  The story of notation.  New York: Greenwood Press, 1969.