[Smt-talk] Seven-letter scale notation (was re: scale degrees)

[art samplaski]

A couple of digests ago, Nicolas Meeús wrote:
> --[Pseudo] Odo, /c/1100, apparently was the first medieval author to suggest the 
> notation with seven letters, cycling at the octave, which is still in 
> use today, and which for a long time was in use in parallel with the 
> tetrachordal/hexachordal naming of the degrees.


A question, and a possible correction.

 

Has the dating on "Odo" been revised? I had always thought he predated

Guido of Arezzo by a few years. (The online NGD2 entry on modal theory

still lists him as such, as of 10 min. ago...:)

 

Guido definitely uses the seven-letter notation system in both the _Regule

rithmice_ and the _Micrologus_, using an analogy to the 7 days of the week

that I believe is also used by Ps-Odo--no access just at the moment to check.

No idea if that analogy is original with Ps-Odo or was some sort of common

coinage--if anyone has info one way or another on that I'd love to hear it.:)

 

Art Samplaski

Ithaca, NY 
 		 	   		  
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