Numbered musical notation is mostly used in southeast Asian countries. It originated in France, and then it was modified by the germans. And it developed into what it is today. I’ll show you how to look at the numbered musical notation using the ODE TO JOY example.
We can see that in the scores, there are four lines of numbers in each of the big rows. It refers to soprano, alto, tenor and bass from top to bottom.
4/4 means one beat on a quarter note, four beats per bar. In the same way, 3/4 means one beat on a quarter note, three beats per bar. 4/2 means one beat on a half note, four beats per bar.
The number 1234567 refers to Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti respectively. And the 1=D in the upper left hand corner means that the song’s key is D major, because the natural major scale is represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Similarly, the natural minor scale is represented by 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If you want to represent B minor, write 6=B.
| Do | Re | Mi | Fa | Sol | La | Ti |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| D | E | F# | G | A | B | C# |
As you can see here, if you want to represent a high octave or a low octave you have to use a point “.“. To put one point on top of the number means to go up an octave. To put one point on the bottom means to drop an octave. How many points you add on top or bottom means how many octaves you change.
The use of accidentals (#, b, natural sign…), slur, bar-line and repeat marks is the same as that staff notation.
In the ODE TO JOY, the fourth bar has two “-“. The first one is added to the bottom of the 2(Re). It means to shorten the time value of the original note by half. It calls 减/jiǎn/时/shí/线/xiàn/(The line that shortens the time value). The 2 without the “_” is a quarter note. The 2 with the “_” is the eighth note. If the 2 with double “_”, it is the sixteenth note. If the 2 with triple “_”, it is the thirty-second note.
If “-” is after a number, it refers to the length of a original note. It calls 增/zēng/时/shí/线/xiàn/(The line that extends the time value).The second “-” followed by 2 means 2 is extended by one beat. If 2 is followed by two “-“, it means 2 is extended by two beats.
Also in the 4th bar, there is a point after 3(Mi), which is called an Dotted note. The dotted note itself has no specified length, and its length is determined by the length of the preceding note. The point is to increase the time value of the original note by half. A quarter note plus an dotted note equals a quarter note plus a eighth note.
There are all notations of the ODE TO JOY. Try to read numbered musical notation while playing! 🙂
v(◦ˉω'◦)~♡(≧ω≦*)♪ 