At 12:07 PM +0100 10/31/07, Hans Swinnen wrote:
In the 12th century or something when introducing a 7th note to the
already existing hexachord, there was a babylonic confusion about
the name. We know that the first syllabe of each verse came out the
hymne for St Johannes (Ut..., Re..., Mi..., etc.) where indeed every
sentence started a tone above the previous. But what about the new,
seventh note? A solution was found at the end of the hymne: Sanctus
Iohannis has lent his initials to name the Si.
But..., a second problem arised by introducing the musica ficta:
should it be a high or a low Si? Therefore we invented two new
signs: a rondinum and a quadratum. The quadratum looks like a h,
our natural sign, later even transformed to a sharp, while the
rondinum stand for a lowered (b). This system has evolved to other
steps of the scale.
The names C-D-E... (or originally A-B(H)-C...) were invented later.
Hello, Hans, and you are very close to the truth in these matters.
First, the chronology. Guido d'Arezzo invented both the hexachord
system and staff notation in the early 11th century, probably around
AD 1030. And he composed the hymn tune which generated the six
syllable names for the notes in the hexachord. (The hymn itself,
which is to say the poetry, had been around for about a century at
the time.) His particular genius was to have taken different ideas
that had been kicking around for 2 centuries or more and put them
together in a new way, and his motivation was to find a way to teach
the choirboys who were under his care all the chants of the Mass and
Holy Office, a way that was better than teaching them each chant by
ear. He succeeded brilliantly, and wrote that the training period,
using his system of hexachordal analysis, was dramatically reduced
from 10 years to 2 years, and his trained choristers could sightread
a new chant from staff notation. This opened up the future
possibility of using choirboys in polyphonic music while their voices
had not yet broken. The secret of the hexachord's successes was
always knowing where the halfsteps were on the staff, between "mi"
and "fa" in each of the three hexachords.
But Guido's system already incorporated the letter names of the
notes. His "gamut" (which represented all the notes used in chant
for men's and boys' voices, and NOT all the theoretically possible
notes) named each note with its letter name PLUS the solfege
syllables that note could have in each of the three hexachords. So
the note A=440 hz could serve as "la" in the natural hexachord, as
"mi" in the soft hexachord, or as "re" in the hard hexachord, and was
named "Alamire." (A nom de guerre adopted by one of King Henry
VIII's spies, who like Henry was a musician!)
Guido's system, devised for teaching purposes, was so successful that
it was still in use at the early 17th century, some 600 years later,
and was used in Thomas Morley's "A Plaine and Easie Introduction to
Practicall Musicke" late in the 16th century. So while I do not know
for sure where or when the syllable "ti" or "si" was added, it was
probably no earlier than the 17th century and certainly not as early
as the 12th. And you may be perfectly correct about the origin of
S.I., although it could equally well be an urban legend.
Incidentally, Guido's system was the original "Movable Do" (actually
"Movable Ut") system, and only much later did the "Fixed Do"
syllables which you identify as Italian replace the letter names
which Guido had used.
Which leaves the matter of B and H (or more properly b and h). There
was a reason that Guido needed to use three overlapping hexachords,
and that reason was the note "b." It was the ONLY variable note used
in the chant of his time, and so was considered unstable. Thus his
natural hexachord (c d e f g a) avoided B entirely; the soft
hexachord (f g a bb c d) used the lowered form of B; and the hard
hexachord (g a b c d e) used the raised form of B. (Remember, the
key to the use of the hexachords was that there was ALWAYS a halfstep
between "mi" and "fa," the two notes at the center of the 6-note
pitch set.)
Thus, the lowered form of B was indicated by a lower case b, which
indeed did develop into our flat sign. And the raised form of B was
indicated by a squared-off lower case b, which evolved into our sharp
sign, our natural sign (much later in history), and apparently to the
Germanic use of H for the raised B. Originally it was simply a
"hard" or raised form of b indicated by a squared off b without the
extra strokes that it eventually gained.
The use of musica ficta came much later in history, of course, and
only once polyphony became common. (The only time it would have come
up in chant was when "una nota super la ..." (one note above "la" in
any hexachord) "... semper est canendem fa" (was altered to be a
halfstep above "la," generally when it was the highest note in a
phrase and the melody stayed in the original hexachord rather than
mutating to a higher one. And for a few centuries ficta were not
notated in music at all, but added by singers according to various
rules. Eventually, of course (meaning basically the 16th century),
chromatic alterations became quite common, and that's when the
ancient signs were updated to our flats, sharps, and eventually
naturals.
(Thus, the 5th note in the melody used for "Greensleeves" would have
been sung lowered--a Bb if the melody starts on D--by rule as "una
nota super la.")
Like I said: monks with feathers.
John
--
John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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