Paleography, Musical

the musical historical discipline that studies ancient systems of music notation; a branch of paleography. Musical paleography involves collecting and describing examples of old music notation, dating them, deciphering them and translating them into modern notation, and publishing the deciphered version, usually with scholarly comments. Alphabetical and numerical systems of notation are studied, as well as systems that use special, conventional signs, the decipherment of which often presents great difficulties (Western European neumes and Old Russian kriuki, for example).