tablature.jpg|thumb|upright=1.75|An example: Dieterich Buxtehude's O dulcis Jesu (BuxWV 83) in full score using tablature]] Keyboard tablature is a form of musical notation for keyboard instruments. Widely used in some parts of Europe from the 15th century, it co-existed with, and was eventually replaced by modern staff notation in the 18th century. The defining characteristic of the best known type, German organ tablature, is the use of letters[a] to indicate pitch (with added stems or loops to indicate accidentals) as well as beams for rhythm. Spain and Portugal used a slightly different cipher tablature, called cifra.
The earliest extant music manuscripts written in German tablature date from the first half of the 15th century, with the oldest example, a German manuscript dating from 1432, containing the earliest known setting of a partial organ mass as well as a piece based on a cantus firmus.[1] These manuscripts used letters (the same as today) to identify pitch, with the upper voice typically written on a staff in mensural notation.[2] This style was also present in other German-speaking areas, such as Austria.[3] These manuscripts contain valuable information as to the evolution of the music from the period,[4] with extensive evidence of the influence of vocal, and later dance music, on early instrumental music.[5] This practice which could still be seen in collections from the 16th century[6] eventually led to the full-fledged Baroque dance suites of later centuries.[7] This hybrid tablature was also featured in some early printed music books, such as Arnolt Schlick’s Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Lidlein of 1512.[8]
Later notation that included the upper voice in letters as well[3] became prevalent in the latter part of the 16th century.[9] Even works published in open score, such as Samuel Scheidt's Tablatura Nova (1624), may have been influenced by the strict vertical alignment of so-called "new German organ tablature".[10] Remaining in use in Germany (and neighboring areas, such as modern-day Hungary[11] or Poland[12]) through the time of Bach,[10] the music of some composers of the period remains available only in manuscript tablature format.[13][14] The last use of this style of notation is in Johann Samuel Petri’s Anleitung zur praktischen Musik (1782).[15]
In France, England and Italy, staff notation was the norm,[16] and while there are isolated examples of tablature from England (the 14c Robertsbridge codex), there is no evidence that such use was as widespread as in Germany.
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See also: Organ tablature |
The use of tablature was not limited to solely keyboard music: many vocal works of the period, notably in the Düben collection, survive in this format.
Juan Bermudo's Declaración de instrumentos musicales (1555) introduced two tablatures, one assigning numerals from 1 to 42 to each key of the organ, and the second counting white keys only from 1 to 23. Only a third method of cifra was widely adopted however: introduced in Venegas de Henestrosa's Libro de cifra nueva (1557), and later used in Cabezón’s Obras de música (1578), it used 1-7 with together accidentals; slashes lower the octave and superscript dots raise it.[citation needed][17]