Today’s question is the eighth of the 10-question music theory quiz that’s currently under construction for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. We cast our minds back to the Italian city-state of Arezzo just about a millennium ago, and ask:
What did Guido do?
Guido d’Arezzo was an 11th-century Benedictine monk who is celebrated for an important contribution to the history of music. What did he do?
- Invented the clarinet
- Revolutionized musical notation
- Was the first to combine voice and instruments in the same work
- Wrote the melody that became the song Greensleeves
Until Guido d’Arezzo introduced the earliest version of modern staff notation, the music performed in churches and monasteries throughout medieval Europe was recorded using neumatic notation, in which symbols called neumes played approximately the same role as the notes of written music today. However, the neumatic system was comparatively imprecise and clumsy with regard to specifying the pitch and timing of the music to be performed. Another of Guido’s accomplishments was the assignment of particular syllables to the notes of the scale, which eventually gave rise to the sol-fa system of today. The syllables he used — ut, re, mi, fa, so and la — remain in use today, except that ut is often replaced by do for its rounder sound, and ti (or si) has been added as the seventh degree of the scale. The original set came from the first syllable of each of the first six lines of the medieval hymn to John the Baptist, Ut queant laxis, which was chosen because the corresponding notes of the melody are the first six notes of the major scale, in order. The clarinet was invented near the start of the 18th century by the German instrument-maker Johann Christoph Denner, who adapted it from the earlier chalumeau. The use of voice and instruments together goes back at least as far as classical Greece, and probably to almost the dawn of music itself. The melody of Greensleeves is believed to have originated in England in Elizabethan times; a persistent tradition that it was composed by Henry VIII for the purpose of wooing Anne Boleyn appears alas to be false.