the basic ratio on which the mensural notation of rhythm is built is considered complete is 2:1.
the basic ratio on which the mensural notation of rhythm is built is considered complete is 2:1.
the basic ratio on which the mensural notation of rhythm is built is considered complete is?
2:1
in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period in which mensural notation was used, four basic "mensuration signs" determined the proportion between the two main units of rhythm. there were no measure or bar lines in music of this period; these signs, the ancestors of modern time signatures, indicate the ratio of duration between different note values. the relation between the "breve" and the "semibreve" was called tempus, and the relation between the "semibreve" and the "minim" was called prolatio. the breve and the semibreve use roughly the same symbols as our modern double whole note (breve) and whole note (semibreve), but they were not limited to the same proportional values as are in use today. there are complicated rules concerning how a breve is sometimes three and sometimes two semibreves. unlike modern notation, the duration ratios between these different values was not always 2:1; it could be either 2:1 or 3:1, and that is what, amongst other things, these mensuration signs indicated. a ratio of 3:1 was called "complete", perhaps a reference to the trinity, and a ratio of 2:1 was called "incomplete".
time signature
the decisive innovation of mensural notation was the systematic use of different note shapes to denote rhythmic durations that stood in well-defined, hierarchical numerical relations to each other. while less context dependent than notation in rhythmic modes, mensural notation differed from the modern system in that the values of notes were still somewhat context-dependent. in particular, a note could have the length of either two or three units of the next smaller order, whereas in modern notation these relations are invariably binary. whether a note was to be read as ternary ("perfect") or binary ("imperfect") was a matter partly of context rules and partly of a system of mensuration signs comparable to modern time signatures. there was also a complex system of temporarily shifting note values by proportion factors like 2:1 or 3:2. mensural notation used no bar lines, and it sometimes employed special connected note forms (ligatures) inherited from earlier medieval notation. unlike in the earliest beginnings of the writing of polyphonic music, and unlike in modern practice, mensural notation was usually not written in a score arrangement but in individual parts.
mensural notation