There is evidence that the earliest Western musical notation, in the form of neumes in campo aperto (without staff-lines), was created at Metz around 800, as a result of Charlemagne's desire for Frankish church musicians to retain the performance nuances used by the Roman singers.
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The music contained in the troper was long considered to be indecipherable, as there are only rudimentary indications of pitch and duration by the use of a form of notation known as neumes and a tonary which classified and indicated the melodic mode (octoechos).