In European music prior to about Events January January 1 - Scotland adopts January 1st as being New Years Day February February 17 - Giordano Bruno burned in a stake for heresy July July 2 - Battle of Nieuwpoort: Dutch forces under Maurice of Nassau defeat Spanish forces under Archduke Albert in a battle on the coastal dunes... 1600, musica ficta (from Latin, "false" or "feigned" music) referred to In music, chromatic indicates the inclusion of notes not in the prevailing scale and is also used for those notes themselves (Shir-Cliff et al 1965, p.17). See chromatic scale, total chromatic, twelve tone technique, serialism, twelve tone equal temperament, chromatic sequence. In optics, see Chromatic aberration For chroma... chromatically altered pitches, not notated in the music, which were to be supplied by singers.

Simply put, musica ficta were notes outside of the In Music theory, the diatonic major scale (also known as the Guido scale), from the Greek diatonikos or to stretch out, is a fundamental building block of the European-influenced musical tradition. It is sometimes used to refer to all the modes, but is generally used only in reference to... diatonic This article is about modes as used in music. For other meanings of the word mode, see mode. In music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic define the pitches. However, mode is usually used in the sense of scale applied... modal system in use in a given piece, and which were used to avoid harsh This article is about musical harmony. For other uses of the term, see Harmony (disambiguation). Harmony is the art of using pitch simultaneity (or chords, actual or implied) in music. It is sometimes referred to as the vertical aspect of music, with melody being the horizontal aspect. Very often, harmony... harmonic or Look up Melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. However, this succession must contain change of some kind and be perceived as a single entity (possibly gestalt) to be called a... melodic intervals (for example the This article is about the musical interval. For other uses of the words, see tritone (disambiguation). The augmented fourth between C and F# forms a tritone. The tritone, which derives its name from the fact that it spans three whole tones, is a musical interval of six semitones. Two tritones... tritone, the "diabolus in musica"). An example would be the use of a B-flat instead of a B-natural, in order to avoid a tritone against an F in another part. In modern transcriptions of Medieval music is music of Europe in the Middle Ages. This era, using the interchangeable terms medieval and middle ages, covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire (476 CE) and the papacy of Gregory the Great (sixth century) to approximately the beginning of the fifteenth century, though... Medieval and Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately 1400 to 1600 CE. Defining the end of the period is easier than defining the beginning, since there were no revolutionary shifts in musical thinking at the beginning of the 15th century corresponding to the sudden development of the... Renaissance music, these notes are almost invariably indicated with An accidental is a musical notation symbol used to raise or lower the pitch of a note. Standard use of accidentals Accidentals: sharp, flat, natural In most cases, a sharp raises the pitch of a note one semitone while a flat lowers it a semitone. A natural is used to... accidentals, since modern singers cannot possibly receive the kind of training given to singers seven hundred years ago; only small portions of that training can be reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory sources.

The exact performance practice of musica ficta, where and when they were used, is a matter of intense investigation and controversy among For the album by Prince, see Musicology (album). Musicology is the scientific study of music (Greek: musike = music and logos = word). the whole body of systematized knowledge about music which results from the application of a scientific method of investigation or research, or of philosophical speculation and rational systematization to... musicological scholars; it has been controversial, and is likely to remain so, for a long time. Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. Narrowly it may be defined as the description in words of elements of music, and the interrelationship between the notation of music and performance practice. Broadly, theory may be considered any statement... Music theorists from Odo of Cluny or Saint Odo (c. 878 - 18 November 942) is a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Odo was the second abbot of Cluny. He enacted various reforms in the monastery system of France and Italy. His feast day is the 18th of November. from the 1911 Catholic... Odo of Cluny in the ( 9th century - 10th century - 11th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. Events The beginning of the Medieval Warm Period Viking groups settle in northern France - Norse become Normans Foundation of Cluny, first... 10th century to Gioseffo Zarlino (January 31 or March 22, 1517 – February 4, 1590), was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning... Zarlino in the (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. Events Beginning of the Little Ice Age a cooling period that resulted in lower crop yields across the world, and harsher... 16th century give highly different rules and situations for application of ficta. The controversy is not only among contemporary musicologists; theorists of the late Middle Ages were never in agreement on the rules of ficta either. (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages. Events Fourth through eighth crusades... 13th century music theorist Johannes de Garlandia and (13th century - 14th century - 15th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to 1400. Events The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age Beginning of the Ottoman Empire, early expansion into... 14th century theorist Philippe de Vitry (October 31, 1291 – June 9, 1361) was a French composer, music theorist and poet. He was the defining music theorist of the early ars nova, as well as an accomplished, innovative, and influential composer. He was born in Paris. Biographical details of his life are sketchy... Philippe de Vitry both wrote that ficta were essential in singing Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). The term is usually used in reference to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance: Baroque forms such... polyphony, but resisted their use in Broadly speaking, plainsong is the name given to the body of traditional songs used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. The liturgies of the Orthodox Church, though in many ways similar, are generally not classified as plainsong, though the musical form is nearly as old as Christendom itself. Gregorian... plainchant, while early 14th century theorist Jacques de Liège insisted that notes in plainchant needed to be altered with judicious application of musica ficta.

13th century theorists also divided the use of ficta into two general categories: causa necessitatis (ficta supplied by necessity, for example to avoid a dissonant interval); and causa pulchritudinis (ficta supplied for reason of beauty). Sometimes a melodic phrase simply sounds better, or sounded better to a trained 13th-century ear, when it is smoothed out by judicious application of ficta.

As an example of a related contemporary performance practice, This Wikipedia article contains images and sound files, which often are omitted or rendered poorly on Web sites that echo the Wikipedia. To see and hear them correctly, be sure you are reading the original Wikipedia version of this article. This article concerns how Sacred Harp music is sung, focusing... Sacred Harp singing contains a situation similar in concept to ficta, involving the non-notated raising of the sixth scale degree in a minor mode (resulting in a In music, the Dorian mode is a diatonic scale or musical mode using all notes in the major scale beginning on the note just a whole tone below it, ie a major scale starting from its second degree. Examples are: The D Dorian mode contains all notes the same as... Dorian inflection); new singers must be taught to do this by ear.

References and further reading

• Article "musica ficta," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN 0674615255
• Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0393090906