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14                                          MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
higher by small letters. Eventually a third octave was added to the scale, four notes of which are attributed to Guido, and one to his pupils; the two remaining notes still later. The highest octave was then expressed by double letters; as, aa, bb, &c. These three octaves in modern notes would constitute the following scale:
This is the alphabetical system of names for the notes which we, in England, still retain for every purpose but that of exercising the voice, for which solfaing on vowels is preferred.
Gregory's alphabetical system of notation was, however, only partially adopted. Some wrote on lines varying from seven to fifteen in number, placing dots, like modern crotchet-heads, upon them, but making no use of the spaces. Others used spaces only, and instead of the dots wrote the words themselves in the spaces, dis­jointing each syllable to place it in the position the note should occupy. A third system was by points, accents, hooks, and strokes, written over the words, and they were intended to represent to the singer, by their position, the height of the note, and by their upward or downward tendency, the rising or falling.of the voice. . It was, however, scarcely possible for the writer to put down a mark so correctly, that the singer could tell exactly which note to take. It might be one or two higher or lower. To remedy this, a red line was drawn over, and parallel to the words of the text, and the marks were written above and below it. A further improvement was the use of two lines, one red and the other yellow, the red for F, the yellow for C, as it only left three notes (G, A, and B) to be inserted between them.8,
Such was the notation before the time of Guido, a monk of Arezzo, in Tuscany, who flourished about 1020. He extended the number of lines by drawing one line under F, and another between F and C, and thus obtained four lines and spaces, a number, which in the Rituals of the Romish Church has never been exceeded.
The clefs were originally the letters F and 0, used as substitutes for those red and yellow lines. The Base clef still marks the position of F, and the Tenor clef of C, although the forms have been changed.
Guido, in his Antiphonarium, gives the hymn TJt queani laxis* (from the
• Specimens of this notation, -with red and yellow lines, will be found In Martini's Storia della Musica, vol. i. p. 184 j in Burney's History, vol, ii. p. 37 ; in Hawkins's History, p. 947 (8vo. edition); and in Kiesewetter's p. 280, Also of other systems mentioned above.
b Hymn for St. John the Baptist's day, written by Paul the Deacon, about 774.
UT queant laxis
REsonare flbris,
MIra gestorum
FAmuli tuorum: SOLve pelluti, LAbii reatum,
Sancte Johannes. SI was not the settled name for B until nearly the end of the seventeenth century; and, although it was proposed in 1547, Butler in his Principles of Musick, 1636, gives the names of the notes as Ut, re, mi, fa, so], la, pha. In 1173, Gio. MariaBononcini, father of Handel's pseudo rival, used Do in place of Ut, but the French still retain Ut.