Mensural notation

Mensural notation is a system of written musical notation that represents pitches and their relative durations, especially in music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Mensuration: The organization of note durations and rhythmic proportions in mensural music. Mensuration determines how note values relate within a passage.
Longa: A note value in mensural notation, normally longer than a breve. It occupies a key position in the system’s descending note-value hierarchy.
Franconian notation: A thirteenth-century notation system that assigned more consistent durations to individual note shapes. It helped establish the durational principles later expanded in mensural notation.
White mensural notation: A late medieval and Renaissance form of mensural notation using mostly unfilled noteheads. It is the familiar visual form in many Renaissance sources.
Modern musical notation: The standardized staff notation used widely in contemporary Western music. It commonly organizes rhythm through measures and fixed time signatures.
Maximodus: A mensural sign governing the relationship between maxima and long notes. It specifies whether a long contains two or three maxima.
Breve: A note value in mensural notation, normally shorter than a long and longer than a semibreve. Its relation to the semibreve is governed by tempus.
Ars nova: A fourteenth-century musical style and theoretical movement associated with new rhythmic notation. Its innovations broadened the rhythmic possibilities of mensural writing.
Black notation: An earlier form of mensural notation in which noteheads are generally filled in. Its note shapes and coloration differ from later white notation.
Neumatic notation: An early system of symbols placed above text to indicate the contour of chant melodies. It predates mensural notation and generally does not specify precise note durations.

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