the language of music.- Just as there is a written language that allows us to communicate ideas in the form of words, music also has a written language that allows us to understand how a piece sounds just by reading it on a page. This wonderful ability to find music or melody in a written text requires being able to understand that language that appears with particular symbols and signs and for that it is important to know how to understand each of the elements that make it up. Among them we find the pentagram.
Five lines to be able to communicate music in writing
We cannot start talking about the pentagram without specifying the reason for this name. Its understanding is very simple: the word pentagram comes from the Greek, a language in which the prefix ‘penta’ means five and the word ‘gram’ means line.
Thus, the pentagram is the composition or conjunction of 5 lines that serve as the basis and structure for writing music. On them we place the different symbols and signs that in turn represent different notes, sounds, rhythms or scales. The staff is usually done on one sheet in several blocks so that a piece can be written on the full length of the sheet.
What is the function of the pentagram?
Since human beings began to sing and compose music, it was always very difficult to represent this wonderful creation in a written text. On the other hand, one could learn to sing or play a song only by memory and by repetition or imitation of whoever played it, but you couldn’t do it if you didn’t know it and nobody taught it.
Musical writing allows us to know how to play a song even if it is very old because the musical language is universal. Over the centuries the structure of this type of writing varied and it was not until the fifteenth century when the pentagram with five lines was consolidated, before there were writings of up to four lines. With this succession of five lines, the authors and musicians were able to more accurately represent all the variations, tonalities and heights of the different notes that make up the famous do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si.
Elements that make up the pentagram
In addition to the five lines that give it its name, the staff has other elements that are added to it so that a piece of music is complete when written. Thus, we must first mention the notes, those that are represented with circles and lines and are located on the staff according to their sound.
The staves must also always have the musical key at the beginning of the work that indicates how and in what key it should be played. It is also important to note that everything on the staff is valid, from the lines to the blank spaces between them, spaces in which the note or part of it can appear, thus indicating valuable information for whoever plays or creates the music.
Photos: iStock – Heidi Meamber / Andreas Kaspar
Following