Actually it originates from the early 16th century printing of music from individual pieces of metal type, each of which had a section of the 5-line staff and a single note or rest. (This single-impression method was worked out by Pierre Attaignant and probably other Parisian printers, and was more efficient than the triple- and double-impression methods used earlier by Ottaviano Petrucci.) There was no way to beam notes together until the practice of engraving on copper plates came into use in, I believe, the 17th century.
To which Mark responded
Thanks for the information. Even so, there must be an explanation why beaming practice for instrumental music evolved while beaming practice for vocal music did not.
I would submit the following explanation.
Prior to about 1850, or so, choral music was engraved, the same way instrumental music was. I have acquired copies of printed Organ and Piano works dated to about 1812, and of the music for the Funeral of Lord Nelson, dated about ten years earlier; there is no difference between the engraving of the two; choral music was beamed just the same as instrumental music, though I would note that the choral music generally used double the time values as is customary today, so that most of the music is in 4/2 and 3/2 meters, rather than 4/4 and 3/4; this eliminates the need for many beams.
After 1850, until between 1930 and 1950, most all choral music was typeset, where the notes and staves were assembled from noteheads, and vertical and horizontal lines. To see how this was, find an old hymnal, or songbook, and look at the music with a handlens, looking especially for small gaps in the staff lines. Clefs were generally one piece of type, but the area occupied by a quarter note was assenbled from as many as a dozen small pieces of type: one or more noteheads, several staff lines, and the stem line. "Choral beaming" was adopted by the typesetters as a means of saving time and materials, as instead of multiple flags, the typesetter could use a single beam, which could be also used elsewhere, for example, by turning it 90 degrees, using it as a heavy bar line.
The latest example of typeset music I have seen dates to about 1950; the use of photographic methods of preparing music made music typesetting obsolete. To my knowledge today, there are exactly two fonts of music types in existence in the world today; a printer in England has a set of "square notation" type, and a printer in the U.S. has a set of round notation type, which I understand is being donated to the Smithsonian Institution.
ns
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