Neume

Have you ever seen a song that has funny little symbols above the words? Those are called neumes! Neumes are tiny little notes that were used a long time ago to help people sing songs correctly before music was written out like it is today. They look a bit like squiggles, or little bird feet, or even little smiles or frowns!

When people wanted to learn a song, they couldn't just read it like we do now. They had to listen to someone singing it first and then remember how it went. But sometimes it was hard to remember the right tune, especially if the song had lots of notes in it. That's when they started using neumes.

Neumes would tell you what the singer meant to do with their voice at certain points in the song. If the neume went up, the singer was supposed to sing higher. If the neume went down, the singer was supposed to sing lower. Sometimes the neumes would be very close together, so you had to sing lots of notes all in one breath!

It might seem strange that people didn't just write out the music like we do now, but remember, this was a very long time ago, and things were different back then. Some people still use neumes today, especially in certain types of religious music, because they like the way they look and think they're a special way of communicating with the past. Pretty cool, huh?