Types of Music Sheets: Where do (Guitar) Tablatures come from?

Along guitarists, there has been this ongoing "battle" between the use of types of music sheets. Classical guitar players use the "standard" music sheets while the rest of the guitar players mostly use the guitar tablatures. What is the difference between the types of music sheets? And which one came first? When did they start to use the guitar tablatures? And are there more types of music sheets to learn? Nowadays you can choose which type of music sheet you would like to play. Actually, they might have more in common than you think. So which one is the best?
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I have devided this post into MUSIC SHEETS and TABLATURES. Let's clear out a few music terms before we start the time-line:

• Staff ('stave'): Framework for written sheet-music; A set of 5 horizontal lines and 4 spaces between them that represent a different musical pitch.
• Time signatures: It defines the beat and the rhythm.
• Notehead, Stem & Flag: The parts of a note; shaped into a dot/circle, a line and a flag. The note is placed on the staff (stave) and indicates the pitch, which indicate the duration. Mostly in black or white, dependend on the duration.
• Minims, crotchets and semiquavers: A few examples of notes with a time value. 
• Bar lines: Vertical lines to seperate between bars. Placed on the staff (stave).
  

MUSIC SHEETS:

Music system - 500-600 (6th Century)
Pythagoras was a man of logic frames; He was interested in shapes and numbers. He also discovered that there must be logic in sounds. He has been called the 'father of music and harmony'.

• Pythagoras had discovered that different shapes/sizes of the same material bring a different sound at the same timeframe. A smaller shape/size would have to go faster than a bigger one (Hertz) and so the sound is much higher than the bigger one.
  Hereby you can calculate that an octave, the 1st note is 440Hz and the 8th note is 880Hz, the double of the first one. Within these ranges Pythagoras discovered how to calculate the notes in between and so what sound they make based on how "fast" it goes:
• Pythagoras had discoverd the harmony of the frequencies of sound. He put different ratios of lengths of the same strings together, but at the same tension.
  
• Pythagoras had discovered the musical intervals (that we use nowadays; the octave, the fifth, fourth, second). He made a concept of a music interval based on the 12 months in a year. The 'whole' months have 31 days and the 'half' months have 30 days. Thereby he devided the months into a system that we can see nowadays in the system of the piano keys

Boethius was a man who wrote down the Pythagorian understanding of maths and music. His book was called: De Institutione Musica (The Principles of Music). By print this was brought to medieval Western Europe.

Pope Gregory was the man who started the first music school in Europe. The school was called: Schola Cantorum. The music school focussed on the Gregorian singing style. Melodies were often learned and passed on by ear, cause there was not any formal way to write a tune down.

Music sheets - 650 (7th Century)
St. Isidore had developed a new system of writing music. The notation of music was called 'Neumes'.
Simply said, the vocal singings were written down into notes or a group of notes.
Neumes were dots and used like markings when to make a sound. Not really the exact notes or rhythm to be sung like we do nowadays.

Fourline staff - 1000 (11th Century)
Guido D'Arezzo had seen that people were struggling to learn the songs based on the Neumes. He added some additions to the Neumes:
Neumes were written on a four-line staff, unlike the five-line staff we have nowadays. Thereby you can mark the pitches (the height of the notes). This is what we know nowadays! He made sure there were time signatures so the duration and tempo of the song could be measured. Also he had invented the solfege framework (as we know nowadays: Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do).

Noteheads - 1250 (13th Century)
Franco of Cologne added more notation to the Neumes.: Duration of notes.
He created a system of symbols for the different note durations. They were mostly square or diamond-shaped black noteheads with no stems. Hereby it created more rhythmic melodies.

Timesignatures - 1320 (14th Century)
Philippe de Vitry created a system of time signatures for minims, crotchets and semiquavers. By 1450, white notes had begun to overtake black notation.

TABLATURES:

Brandon Acker has been doing research about the history of guitar tablatures.
His definition of guitar tablatures: Guitar tablature is a system of coordinates where the lines represents the strings and the numbers represents the frets. It's like an instruction how to play a song.
Brandon is excited to show people how to understand historical tablature and hopes that people are willing to learn to play from it. [ Check for free tablatures: https://imslp.org/ ]

The History of (Guitar) Tablatures - 1400-1800 (15th century till 19th century)
In the medieval times they used similar tablatures already, but not only with numbers but also with letters. One of the first known tablatures is the heart-shaped Pesaro Manuscript.
[A manuscript is a handwritten part of music, which we call 'music scores' nowadays.]

The first tablatures had (6) horizontal lines, like in modern guitartablatures. These represent the strings. As you can see below on the picture, there are letters on those lines. The letters indicates the frets. So instead of using numbers - like nowadays -, they used the alphabet. The letter A would be an open string, the letter B would be the 1st fret, the letter C would be the 2nd fret, etcetera etcetera.
Above the tablature, you'll see the rhythm and the timesignature written down (like in modern days).

The lines are based on the kind of guitar you play. Every guitar has a different amount of set of strings.

Types of tablatures (1400-1800)
There were 3 main types of tablatures used for pluck instruments. Written in books and in print:
1. French tablatures - The system that uses letters (like we saw in Pesaro's manuscript)
2. Italian tablatures - This system uses numbers. This is very recognisable for today's guitar tablatures. The only exception is that the Italian tablatures are flipped upside down. (So instead of the nowadays EADGBe from the E on the bottom and the e on the topline, they flipped it to eBGDAE.)
3. German tablatures - This system uses individual symbols for each location on the fretboard (kind of like a new alphabet).
[4. Neopolitian tablatures. Combination between the French and Italian tablatures.]

(The Heart-shaped Pasaro Manuscript; 1480-1511)

(A page in Italian lute tablature from the lutenist Capirola; Lute book; 1515-1520)

(No lines and no staff; on the top you'll see how fast it goes by the notestems and noteflags)

Ornaments
Ornaments are symbols that adds expressiveness to the song. A bit of like an emotional tune to the note. The composers have written down these ornaments in the beginning of the tablaturebook. Mostly they used 3 types:
1. Tremblement (Thrill)
* Noted as a little komma behind the note.
2. Appogiatura (Grace)
* Noted as a bow from the note to the other.
3. Martellement (Mordent)
* Noted as an X behind the note.

Brandon Acker mentions that the key is to get closer to the view and the intention of the composer:
"If you understand what the symbols mean, the music is much more elaborate and freely with all sorts of beautiful decorations on top."

In the Baroque period they used types of "slurs". Without the slurs it would sound very heavy and static. To add the Slur, the sound becomes more smooth, light and legato (music tones together). It becomes an elegant song. It is perfectly used for a Minuet/Menuet (social dance). In these situations the guitar has been an importance to the social circumstances!

Examples of Slurs:
Hammer-on: Pluck the string in the right hand and then hit the string on the fret hard enough with the left hand to make a pitch.
Pull-off: Pluck the string in the right hand and with the left hand pluck the string.
Thrill: On the same note hammer-ons and pull-offs very fast.
Slur: On more notes hammer-ons and pull-offs very slowly.

(Example of the tablature for the song "Canarios";
Played with your index finger - One dot under the note.
Played with your middle finger - Two dots under the note.)

In the Renaissance period, they played the guitar a bit differently than in the Baroque period. They used the P and I (thumb and index finger). Thumb strikes down which makes the sound harder, and the index finger strikes up which makes the sound light.
This creates a 'strong-weak-strong-weak' sound. In the Renaissance they call it good-and-bad taste. To use both fingers means that it is a good taste.


Or:

(Here you'll see the index finger, the middle finger and the ring finger)

To play these manuscripts, just tune your guitar a bit differently. A standard guitar tuning would be : EADGBE. To play the manuscripts you tune the G string into an F#. (double check: play the open B string and the G string on the 5th fret). Now you can play directly from the manuscripts from the lutes!!

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For whoever is frustrated by reading music sheets.... Take it as a game. It is a game of counting, a game of reading and a game of play to figure out a "secret code". As a well-rounded guitarist, I think it's good to be open to sheet music, TAB and playing by ear.