Mensural Notation - Note Values

Note Values

The basic note values of mensural notation are essentially identical to the modern ones. Mensural notation uses the Breve, nominally the ancestor of the modern breve or double whole note; the Semibreve (whole note), the Minim (half note), Semiminim (quarter note / crotchet), Fusa (eighth note / quaver), Semifusa (sixteenth note / semiquaver), and very rarely smaller ones. There were also two larger values, the Longa and the Maxima (or Duplex longa).

Differences between Mensural and modern notation are partly superficial, but partly quite fundamental:

• Notes were written diamond- rather than oval-shaped, and they had their stems perched directly on top (or bottom, very occasionally) rather than to one side. Before the mid-15th century, all notes were written in solid, filled-in form (Black Notation), but after that the larger note values were written hollow, like today (White Notation).

• Each note had a much shorter temporal value than its nominal modern counterpart. This is because in the course of time, composers invented new note shapes for ever smaller temporal divisions of rhythm, and the older, longer notes were slowed down in proportion. Thus, the basic metrical relationship of a long to a short beat shifted from longa–breve in the 13th century, to breve-semibreve in the 14th and 15th, to semibreve-minim by the end of the 16th, and finally to minim–semiminim (i.e. half and quarter notes) in modern notation. What was originally the shortest of all note values used, the semibreve, has today evolved into the longest note used routinely, the whole note.

• While the relation of each note value to the next smaller one in modern notation is invariably 2:1 (unless indicated otherwise), the mensural system was more flexible. The principal members of the system – maxima, longa, breve, and semibreve – could all contain either two or three of the next smaller units. Whether a note was to be read as triplex (perfecta) or duplex (imperfecta) was a matter partly of context (see below) and partly of mensuration signs, a system comparable to modern time signatures (see below).

• Sequences consisting of the larger members of the system (maxima, longa, breve, and semibreve) could optionally be written together as ligatures.

• Bar lines and ties were not used.