Music notation

The system of graphic conventions for recording note pitch and metric and rhythmic characteristics and relationships. It indudes markings for tempo, expressing and other dynamic features of a piece of music. Sheet music employs a five-line staff on which the notes are positioned. Musical notation cannot capture the qualitative tonal nuances that sometomes constitute the differences between two instruments of the same kind (e.g. two violins) or two voices of the same range. Nor does the system preclude distinctive stylistic signatures of performers or conductors executing a work, which theoretically can be reduced to slight variations in any of the prescribed elements such as tempo or volume, but which taken together constitute the style of interpretation.