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Eras of European art music
Ancient music	1500 BCE - 476 CE[citation needed]
Early music	476[citation needed] - 1600[citation needed]
Common practice period[citation needed]	1600 - 1900
20th century classical music	1900 - 2000

Early music is European classical music before the Classical music era and after Ancient music. The common range given is from the end of Ancient music to the beginning of the Baroque era in about 1600, and so roughly corresponds with the European Middle Ages period.

Contents 1 Post-Antiquity 2 Authentic performance 3 Notation and performance 4 See also 5 Sources 6 External links

For information on early music post-Antiquity, see the following articles:

• Medieval music (roughly 1000-1450)
• Renaissance music (roughly 1450-1600)
• Baroque music (roughly 1600-1750)

The term "early music" is closely associated with the concept of authentic performance. The authentic performance movement began with the performance of early music, and in general, the earlier the music, the more likely it is that its performers will show an interest in authentic performance as it becomes more difficult for the reason listed below and others.

According to Margaret Bent (1998), Early music notation, "is under-prescriptive by our standards; when translated into modern form it acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies and distorts its original openness." Before about 1600, written music did not consistently state which instruments are used when. A century earlier, people who wrote down music did not always specify whether lines of polyphony were to be sung or played on an instrument. Similarly, the notation frequently does not indicate what key to play the music in, if any. Accidentals were not necessary. Notations for rhythm go back only to about 1200. There is thus a speculative element to all modern performances of Medieval and Renaissance music. However, Renaissance musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic counterpoint and thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score, "what modern notation [now] requires [accidentals] would then have been perfectly apparent without notation to a singer versed in counterpoint" (ibid). See the article on Renaissance music and its section on notation and performance.

• List of early music ensembles
• Neo-medieval music

• Judd, Cristle Collins. "Introduction: Analyzing Early Music" in Judd, Cristle Collins (ed.) (1998). Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-2388-3.
• Bent, Margaret. "The Grammar of Early Music: Preconditions for Analysis" in Judd, Cristle Collins (ed.) (1998). Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-2388-3.

• Early Music FAQ
  • What is Early Music?