neume

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (4)  · 
“
An example will make this clear Illustration This indicated the precise melodic interval but did not give any idea of the rhythm, and the natural accents of the text were the only guide the singer had in this direction, as was the case in neume-notation and in early staff-notation also.

View all »
Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A sign used in the notation of plainsong during the Middle Ages, surviving today in transcriptions of Gregorian chants.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (14)

  • By "barbarism" they especially meant that in the inherited Gregorian chant, neume groups with several notes, or even melismas, are oftentimes placed on an unaccented syllable, while the accented syllables are oftentimes treated with only a single note. —  New Liturgical Movement
  • E.g., an upward stroke of the pen indicated a rise of the melody, a downward stroke a fall, etc. In the course of two or three centuries these marks were added to and modified quite considerably, and the system of notation which thus grew up was called "neume notation," the word neume (sometimes spelled neuma_, or pneuma_) being of Greek origin and meaning a nod or sign This system of neumes was in some ways a retrogression from the Greek letter system, for the neumes indicated neither definite pitches nor definite tone-lengths. —  Music Notation and Terminology
  • An example will make this clear Illustration This indicated the precise melodic interval but did not give any idea of the rhythm, and the natural accents of the text were the only guide the singer had in this direction, as was the case in neume-notation and in early staff-notation also. —  Music Notation and Terminology
  • The elements of neume-writing as given by Riemann in his Dictionary of —  Music Notation and Terminology
  • "[37 Footnote 37: Elson--Music Dictionary, article, "Notation Another writer[38] gives a somewhat different explanation, stating that the staff system with the use of clefs came about through writing a letter (C or F) in the margin of the manuscript and drawing a line from this letter to the neume which was to represent the tone for which this particular letter stood Footnote 38: Goddard--The Rise of Music, p. 177 A third writer[39] asserts that because the alphabetical notation was not suitable for recording melodies because of its inconvenience in sight-singing "points were placed at definite distances above the words and above and below one another." —  Music Notation and Terminology
More examples »
 

Tags

neume hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 103 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, series of notes sung on one syllable, from Medieval Latin pneuma, from Greek, breath; see pneuma.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English neume, newme, neme, from Old French neume, “a sound, song, or close of song after an anthem” (Cotgrave), from Middle Latin pneuma, also neupma, neuma, a song, a sign in music, from Greek πνεῦμα, breath, breathing: see pneuma. In the sense of ‘sign,’ some compare Greek νεῡμα, a nod.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/njum/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

dosh · wrathful · uppity · drowsy · divine

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich