Early History

Western music notation has developed over two and a half thousand years of civilisation.

The ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, used letters of the alphabet to indicate different pitches.

Boethius (A.D. 470 -525, an adviser to the court at the end of the Roman Empire), wrote five text books describing the music theory of that ancient era.
The first 15 letters of the alphabet were used for the pitches of two octaves, which was the official working range of sounds in those days.
Boethius' books remained standard texts throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond.

From the 7th Century a system of Neums was introduced for the notation of plainsong. The Neums consisted of grave ( ` ) and acute ( ´ ) accents and horizontal lines, placed over the lyrics to indicate where the melody line was going up or down.

 The sign of the Trill in our present system is a relic of the old Neum system.

To present accurate note pitches the device of the staff (or stave) was added. This began as a single horizontal line, then more where added until a four line staff was standardised for the plainsong (= simple melody line without chords or harmony). The notes were written on (and in between) the lines of this staff.

Our present notation system developed from this plainsong staff and the old letter name system introduced by the Greeks.