A TIMELINE OF WESTERN MUSIC

I MADE THIS
IT TOOK ME A YEAR AND A HALF
THE REAL VERSION IS A WALL MURAL
BUT HERE IS THE REFERENCE GUIDE VERSION.

600 BCE

582 BCE

-  Pythian games music competition in Greece, Scados of Argos wins. Lyre, Kithara, and aolos competitions common.

500 BCE

400 BCE

380 BCE

-  Plato's Republic.

320 BCE

- Aristoxenus writes treatise Harmonic Elements, music is tied to ideas of poetry and astronomy, genera told classification of tetrachord, 5 in all, 2 comprise a scale.

300 BCE

200 BCE

200 BCE

- In Greece, earliest existing musical work in writing (on papyrus), fragment of chorus from Euripides' Orestes, tonoi served as means of organizing melody, 15 semitones accepted, heterophony.

146 BCE

- Rome takes over Greek islands, absorbs musical ideas. Brass and wind instruments - tuba, cornu, buccina, tibia.

100 BCE

4 BCE

- Julius Caesar is Roman Emperor.

0 CE

1st Century

- Greece - Epitaph of Seikilos, drinking song, shows rhythm and pitch notation, notes named by position in tetrachord and tetrachord name, monophonic.

100 CE

200 CE

300 CE

395 CE

- Roman Empire separates into East and West.

400 CE

476 CE

- Fall of Roman Empire, Christian church becomes main preserver of music, largely sung, monophonic (all voices singing same melodic line).

500 CE

500 CE

- Boethius writes treatise de institutione musica.

520 CE

- Rule of St. Benedict in Italy, musical church service becomes standardized.

600 CE

657 CE

- Reorganizing and standardizing chant in western Europe under Pope Vitalian and Pope Gregory II, in progress until 731.

700 CE

800 CE

800 CE

- Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

840 CE

- First treatise on Gregorian Chant by Aurelian of Rome.

800-900 CE

- Oldest manuscripts with musical signs, neumes showed ascending (/) and descending (\) lines.

900 CE

900 CE

- music enchiriadis, a music handbook, shows organum as plainchant doubled at the fifth (not monophonic!).

1000 CE

1025 CE

- Guido of Arezzo writes Micrologus, a treatise on music theory, creates solfege system of ear training.

1066 CE

- Battle of Hastings and Haley's Comet.

1099 CE

- First Crusade.

11th Century

- Music accompanied Canonical Hours and Mass, often antiphonal or responsorial, tenor line holds note, structure delineated by semicadence and final cadence, plainsong notation - staff with four lines, shows exact pitch.

- Secular music mostly monophonic, not notated until later; jongleurs, minstrels, students and clerics traveled from court to court, singing songs of wine, women and satire.

- Wincester Troper, a collection of organum songs, implies music school at Wincester Abbey, organum mostly used for trope, kyrie, and gloria parts of service. Intervals considered consonant - 4th, 5th, unison, and octave.

1100 CE

1151 CE

- Hildegard of Bingen, female German prophet, writes Ordo Virtutem.

1163 CE

- Leonin compiles Magnus Liber Organi, (big book of organum) at Notre Dame, work in progress until 1190.

1180 CE

- Perotin continues Leonin's work, also composes organum in 4 parts, though 3 parts remains standard, work continues until 1238.

12th Century

- Organum in two kinds: florid organum (embellished upper voice) and discantus (note against note). Rhythmic notation in modes, triple meter.

1200 CE

1215 CE

- Magna Carte signed in England.

c. 1250 CE

- Clausula has developed in to motet with rhymed Latin or French secular verse, tenor voice played by instruments. Petrus de Cruce writes free rhythm in upper voices. Intervals of a fourth are falling from favor, thirds now considered consonant. Hocket technique popular.

1250 CE

- Sumer Is Icumen In - rondellus (English motet), major rather than modal, 3rds and 6ths consonant.

1280 CE

- Franco of Cologne writes Ars Cantus Mensurabilis which notates time value of notes in choirbook format.

13th Century

- Troubadors, trouveres, and meistersingers travel in aristocratic circles of Italy, France and Germany singing secular ballads of courtly love, religion and politics, often in rondeau form. Instrumental music largely for dancing; instruments included lyre, vielle, organistrum, psaltery, lute, flute, oboe, trumpet, bagpipe and organ.

1300 CE

1307 CE

- Dante, Divine Comedy.

1310 CE

- Phillippe de Vitry writes Roman de Fauvel, a book of poems and music, employs duple meter, division of breve into small rhythmic values and isorhythm.

1325 CE

- Faenza Codex compiled in Italy, organ arrangements of motets.

1338 CE

- Hundred Years War, lasts until 1453.

1348-1350 CE

- Black Plague in Europe.

1353 CE

- Boccaccio, Decameron.

1360 CE

- Guillame de Machaut writes Missa de Notre Dame. Also known for ballades - dominant treble voice, stanzas with refrain, polyphonic rondeau.

1386 CE

- Chaucer, Canterbury Tales.

1400 CE

1420 CE

- Squarcialupi Codex, collection of 14th century Italian trecento songs that trovatori sang in court, 3 main formes fixes: madrigal (stanzas and ritornello), caccia (hunting song), and balata (polyphonic, for dancing, with refrains). Popular composer of trecento - Francesco Landini, known for double-leading tone cadence.

1431 CE

- Jean d'Arc executed.

1450 CE

- Guillame Du Fay writes Missa se la face ay pale, exemplifies the mass written as one piece, unified by "head motive." A musician of the Burgundian court, he writes masses, motets, and magnificats, at the same time that Gilles Binchois (French chanson composer) and John Dunstable (English feaubourdon composer) achieve fame.

1450-1550 CE

- Instrumental music developing in Europe. Low (quiet) instruments include harp, vielle, lute, psaltery, organ, flute, recorder. High (loud) instruments incude shawm, cornet, slide trumpet, sackbut. Percussion instruments include kettle drume, small bells, cymbals. Accidentals scorned in notation, but used in practice to avoid tritone (musica ficta).

1452 CE

- Johannes Ockeghem appointed to royal chapel of King of France, career as singer and composer of canon - fuga, mensuration, retrograde, double.

1454 CE

- Johann Gutenberg prints Bible.

1473 CE

- First music to be printed - musical liturgy for mass.

1480-1490 CE

- Patronage by wealthy families supports composers: Sforza family in Milan - Josquin de Prez, Este family in Ferrara - Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brumel and Adrian Willaert, Medici familiy in Florence - Heinrich Isaac and Alexander Agricola.

1482 CE

- Pythagorean tuning changes to make 3rds and 6ths bigger, thus more consonant, change supported by music theorist Boethius.

1490 CE

- Obrecht writes Missa Fortuna Desperata; he is a choirmaster and composer of mostly masses and motets.

1492 CE

- Columbus arrives in Cuba.

1495 CE

- Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper.

15th century CE

- While composers are still appointed by the church or courts, patronage by wealthy families begin to support composers: Sforza family in Milan - Josquin de Prez, Este family in Ferrara - Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brumel and Adrian Willaert, Medici familiy in Florence - Heinrich Isaac and Alexander Agricola.