# Staff Notation (五線譜)

> From Guido's lines to the five-line staff: pitch fixed to coordinates. Time running left to right, height mapped up and down — the longest-lived format in information design, in continuous use for a millennium.

- IndexStyle No.420 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/staff-notation
- Kind: Style · Family: Notation Systems · Era: 11th century–
- Mood: Trust, Technology, Calm
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- The five-line coordinate system
- Time running left to right
- Clefs and key signatures
- Bars dividing time

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] The five-line coordinate system
- [ ] Time running left to right
- [ ] Clefs and key signatures
- [ ] Bars dividing time
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Neume Notation (ネウマ譜)** — The West's oldest musical writing: melodic inflection recorded in curves like the motion of a hand. The gesture of melody before pitch was fixed to lines, still alive in the manuscripts of Gregorian chant. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/neume-notation
- **Sheet Music Cover (楽譜表紙)** — The lithographed covers sustained by the parlor piano: scene illustration and ornamental lettering in a single image — the graphics that showed music before the record sleeve existed. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/sheet-music-cover

## Further study

- Guido of Arezzo
- mensural notation
- the craft of music engraving

## Reference works

- スクアルチャルーピ写本 15世紀 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Squarcialupi%20Codex%20page%20246.jpg
- ランディーニの譜面と肖像 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco%20Landini%2C%20Squarcialupi%20Codex%2C%20page%20246.jpg

## Source of record

- DIAMM — Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music — https://www.diamm.ac.uk/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/staff-notation
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/staff-notation/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

グイードの線の発明から五線へ——音の高さを座標に固定した記譜法。時間を左から右へ、高さを上下へ写す平面設計は、千年使われ続ける情報デザインの最長寿フォーマット。

特徴: 五線の座標系／左から右への時間軸／音部記号と調号／縦線による小節分割
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。