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

Sat May 24 17:00:19 PDT 2014

Indeed, Nicolas, this is the point: the two treatises should not be equated, because when it comes to laying out a scale (ie showing where the semitones lie) Musica Enchiriadis uses its daseian notation, but when it comes to polyphony it uses A-G as placeholders (the A-G sequence is used not only to go up but also to go down!). I think the primary achievement of the Dialogus is to build octave equivalence into the system – a legacy with us today. As well as make a single system which all modes could be laid out on. (Indeed, this concept is borrowed from as much of Boethius as these medieval theorists wanted, or could understand, or could be bothered with.) So Hucbald has it too: but he does not have octave equivalence, or even same pitch equivalence: Hucbald is happy to call c trite diezeugmenon or paranete synemmenon, and C parhypate hypaton. Hucbald recognises and octave, but he does not have names for the notes of the scale which would make this clear.
f

(Dr) Fiona McAlpine
Honorary Research Fellow
School of Music
University of Auckland

Le Béguinage
42 Horns Rd
RD 1
Oxford 7495
North Canterbury
NEW ZEALAND
________________________________
From: Nicolas Meeùs [nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be]
Sent: Thursday, 22 May 2014 07:13
To: Fiona McAlpine; art samplaski; smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Seven-letter scale notation (was re: scale degrees)

I do not think that the usage of the letters A-G in the Musica Enchiriadis really can be equated with what the 11th-century Dialogus [of pseudo Odo] did. Is not it so that the Musica Enchiriadis sequence starts at A and continues as far as necessary, and repeats it for a second voice, but without giving clear indication as to where the semitones are found? This is not utterly different from earlier usages [e.g. by Boethius] were the alphabet was extended to as many letters as needed. The main difference in the Enchirias is that the same lettering is used for the second voice.

The unique achievement of the Dialogus is that it shows the organization of the musical system itself, i.e. of all pitches available to make music; so doing it repeats a point already made by Hucbald, that all music [that they knew] could be made to correspond to one single systematic scale. Their aim was not to laying out modes, but to show that all modes could be brought back to the same [diatonic] scale.

Nicolas Meeùs
Université Paris-Sorbonne (emeritus)

Le 20/05/2014 08:28, Fiona McAlpine a écrit :
Perhaps we should just get rid of Pesudo-Odo, as if he is a person, & refer to the C10th treatise Dialogus de Musica. In fact the C9th/early C10th Musica Enchiriadis uses the letters A-G as a repeating sequence; not, however, for the purpose of laying out a mode in a scalar way, but as pitch indicators in a diastemmatic-syllabic diagram to show organum at the octave, in a way that the Musica Enchiriadis' tetrachordal notation never could have.

(Dr) Fiona McAlpine
Honorary Research Fellow
School of Music
University of Auckland

Le Béguinage
42 Horns Rd
RD 1
Oxford 7495
North Canterbury
NEW ZEALAND
________________________________
From: Smt-talk [smt-talk-bounces at lists.societymusictheory.org<mailto:smt-talk-bounces at lists.societymusictheory.org>] on behalf of Nicolas Meeùs [nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be<mailto:nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be>]
Sent: Tuesday, 20 May 2014 08:30
To: art samplaski; smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org<mailto:smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Seven-letter scale notation (was re: scale degrees)

My mistake, I meant c1000. Ps Odo predated Guido by about a generation, 25 years.
Nicolas

Nicolas Meeùs
Professeur émérite
Université Paris-Sorbonne

Le 19/05/2014 18:35, art samplaski a écrit :
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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