As we look at magnificent medieval manuscripts, a question arises: was their sole purpose to ‘conserve’ the music after a performance? Perhaps the musicians were supposed to sing by heart or use less elaborated scripts that are lost today. If this is true, do we really have to take the music of the past ‘literally’?

During the last chapters you got acquainted with many new signs and now you understand that they can be difficult to ‘translate’ into modern notation. What are your strategies to avoid this ‘loss in translation’?

We suggest that you note your reflections down.

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