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Guido of Arezzo [Aretinus]

(b c991–2; d after 1033). Music theorist. His fame as a pedagogue was
legendary in the Middle Ages and he is remembered today for his
development of a system of precise pitch notation through lines and spaces
and for propagating a method of sight-singing which relied upon the
syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. His Micrologus is the earliest comprehensive
treatise on musical practice that includes a discussion of both polyphonic
music and plainchant. It was used throughout the Middle Ages in
monasteries, and from the 13th century also in the universities. Next to the
treatise of Boethius it was the most copied and read instruction book on
music in the Middle Ages; its text is preserved in at least 70 manuscripts
from the 11th century to the 15th.
1. Life.
2. Writings.
WRITINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLAUDE V. PALISCA
Guido of Arezzo
1. Life.
The main events of Guido's career can be reconstructed from his letter
dedicating the Micrologus to Bishop Theodaldus, and from his letter to his
friend, Brother Michael of Pomposa. These two documents, however, lack
dates. The date of Guido's birth can be narrowed down to the period 990–99
through the explicit of a manuscript of the Micrologus, now lost, but which
stated that its composition was finished at the age of 34 in the papacy of
John XIX (who reigned between 1024 and 1033). Smits van Waesberghe's
conclusion that the work dates from around 1028–32 would put his birthdate
between 994 and 998. Hans Oesch's dating of the Micrologus at 1025–6, on
the other hand, would place the birthdate around 991.
Guido was educated in the Benedictine abbey of Pomposa on the Adriatic
coast near Ferrara. While at Pomposa he built up a reputation for training
singers to learn new chants in a short time. He and a fellow brother, Michael,
drafted an antiphoner, now lost, which was notated according to a new
system. These innovations attracted attention from other parts of Italy,
whereas at Pomposa they drew the envy and scorn of their Benedictine
brothers.
Around 1025 Guido moved to Arezzo, where there was no monastery. He
came under the protection of Theodaldus, Bishop of Arezzo between 1023
and 1036. The bishop assigned him the task of training singers for the city's
cathedral. The Micrologus was dedicated to and commissioned by him
(fig.1). Probably not long after its completion Guido was called to Rome by
Pope John XIX, who had seen or heard of the antiphoner and its unique
notation as well as of Guido's novel teaching methods. He was accompanied
on this visit, which took place probably around 1028, by Dom Peter of
Arezzo, Prefect of the Canons, and Abbot Grunwald of Arezzo (Abbot

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perhaps of Badicroce, 15 km to the south).

Because of ill-health and the damp heat of summer Guido left Rome with a
promise to return in winter to explain further his antiphoner and its notation
to the pope and the clergy. He then paid a visit to Abbot Guido of Pomposa,
who counselled him to avoid the cities, where almost all the bishops were
accused of simony, and settle in a monastery, inviting him to return to
Pomposa. However Guido apparently chose a monastery near Arezzo,
probably that of Avellana of the Camaldolese order. Several Camaldolese
manuscripts are the oldest exhibiting the Guidonian notation.
Guido of Arezzo
2. Writings.
(i) Chronology.
The chronology of Guido's writings is uncertain. The Prologus and Regulae
rhythmicae were both intended as guides to the use of the antiphoner which
contained the new notation. Guido apparently drafted it together with his
friend Michael in Pomposa, for in the Epistola to Michael he spoke of
‘nostrum antiphonarium’ (‘our antiphoner’). Both the Prologus and Regulae
rhythmicae describe the new notation, of which, on the other hand, there is
no trace in the Micrologus. The Epistola, written immediately after the trip to
Rome, mentions all of these previous works. The date of the trip to Rome,
which must have taken place before Pope John XIX's death in 1033, is thus
the key to dating all Guido's works. The Micrologus must have been written
after 1026, because in the letter dedicating it to Bishop Theodaldus, Guido
praised him for having ‘created by an exceedingly marvellous plan the
church of St Donatus’, which was commissioned from the architect
Adabertus Maginardo in 1026 and completed in 1032. The antiphoner was
at least started in Pomposa but it and its prose and verse prologues were
probably not finished until 1030.
(ii) Prologus in antiphonarium.
In this prologue to his antiphoner Guido lamented the time young singers
spent learning chants by heart and pointed out the advantages of a system
of lines identified as to height of pitch, permitting the sight-singing of
unknown chants. ‘So that you may better detect these levels [of pitch], lines
are drawn close together, and certain levels of notes become these same
lines, while certain others fall between the lines, in the intermediate distance
or space between the lines’ (GerbertS, ii, 35b). Further, he proposed that
‘whichever lines or spaces you wish are preceded by certain letters of the
monochord [e.g. A to g] and also colours are marked over them’. How many
lines are to be drawn and identified or coloured Guido left unspecified. He
himself, he said, used two colours: yellow for C, red for F. The reason for
calling attention to these two steps of the gamut is that below C and F fall
the semitones, the location of which had always presented a problem in
reading diastematic neumatic notation. Thus the singer is liberated from
having to use a tonary – a repertory of chants arranged by mode – to locate
the starting tones and finals.
Both the key-letters and coloured lines, separately or in combination, are to

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be found in manuscripts from central Italy from the 11th and 12th centuries,
showing the influence of Guido's antiphoner, which is itself lost. The
coloured lines disappeared in the 13th century, while the key-letters survive
to the present day in the guise of F, C and G clefs.
(iii) Micrologus.
This work is addressed to singers, and its object is to improve their skill in
using the new notation and in singing both familiar and unfamiliar chants at
sight. Guido encouraged the use of the monochord for learning the precise
distance of intervals. He recognized a gamut of 21 steps, as shown in ex.1,
including two forms of b in the upper two octaves, which extends upwards by
the 5th the gamut set forth in the Dialogus (usually attributed to Abbot Odo
but probably – according to Huglo – written by an anonymous Lombard).
Guido derived the intonation of this gamut by both a conventional division of
the monochord and a new one which reduced the number of measurements
to five, a method adopted as the mensura Guidonis by a number of Guido's
successors, notably Johannes Cotto.

Guido preferred the designations ‘modes’ or ‘tropes’ to ‘tones’, and the terms
‘protus’, ‘deuterus’, ‘tritus’ and ‘tetrardus’ to the numbering from one to eight,
although his four modes divide into eight through the authentic–plagal
distinction. The chief determinant of modality for Guido was the final note of
a chant and the relationship of all previous notes to it, particularly the initial
note and the endings and beginnings of a chant's distinctiones or phrases.
He spoke in some detail about the allowable descent and ascent from the
final, and wondered at the diversity of appeal of the modes, ‘one person
being attracted to the lame hops of the authentic deuterus, another to the
joyfulness of the plagal of the tritus, one by the volubility of the authentic
tetrardus, and another by the sweetness of the plagal of the tetrardus’
(chap.xiv).
One of the most original chapters in the Micrologus is that on the
composition of melodic lines (chap.xv). Here Guido compared the parts of a
melody to those of verse, the individual sounds being analogous to letters,
and groups of them to syllables, while groups of syllables make up a neume,
parallel to a ‘part’ or foot in poetry; several neumes make up a ‘distinction’,
which, like the end of a line, is a suitable place to breathe. The end of each
part of a melody is marked by a held note or pause, shorter or longer
depending on the structural level of the part, being shortest for the ‘syllable’,
longest for the ‘distinction’. It is in this connection that Guido made a
suggestion that has given rise to controversy, when he said that ‘it is good to
beat time to a song as though by metrical feet’.
Guido advocated arranging neumes in a composition so that their lengths
are equal or in simple ratios to each other, varying the number of units as
the poet juxtaposes different feet in a verse. Lengths of phrases or
‘distinctions’ should also bear such relationships to each other. Like the
boundless multitude of words created out of a few syllables, all chant is
made by joining only six intervals either in upward or downward sequence,

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that is arsis or thesis, with the intermixture of single and repeated notes.
How these various kinds of motion are combined forms the subject of
Guido's theory of motus, and their permutations are demonstrated in a
diagram that challenged the ingenuity of medieval illustrators (fig.2). These
considerations led Guido to suggest a mechanical method of melodic
invention or improvisation (chap.xvii) through lining up with the rising steps
of the gamut the vowels a e i o u as shown in ex.2.

Guido's chapter on diaphony or organum (chap.xviii) is one of the most

important documents for the history of counterpoint. He regarded the parallel
organum in 5ths and octaves described in Musica enchiriadis as rough,
admiring the ‘softer’ effect achieved by suppressing the semitone and
diapente as simultaneous sonorities and preferring the diatessaron, ditone,
tone and semiditone, in that order. To avoid the tritone in organizing by
parallel 4ths Guido devised a set of rules for oblique motion, while for
achieving cadence he adopted a method of converging towards the unison
or occursus through the 3rd or 2nd.
(iv) Regulae rhythmicae.
The full title in some manuscripts of the didactic poem, Regulae rhythmicae
in antiphonarii prologum prolatae, suggests that it was a poetic form of the
prologue to his antiphoner. At the same time it expounds briefly some of the
doctrine in Micrologus: that is, the gamut, the intervals, the modes and their
finals, with the addition of a subject missing in the treatise, namely a
description of the notation by coloured and lettered lines.
(v) Epistola de ignoto cantu.
It was only in the letter to his friend Brother Michael that Guido took up the
method of teaching the reading of new melodies by means of the syllables
ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, derived from a hymn to St John (see Theory, theorists,
fig.2). Although the text of the hymn Ut queant laxis is found in a manuscript
of c800 (I-Rvat Ottob.532) and by an old tradition is ascribed to Paulus
Diaconus, the melody in question was unknown before Guido's time and
never had any liturgical function. It is probable that Guido invented the
melody as a mnemonic device or reworked an existing melody now lost. The
function of the hymn melody was to supply easily remembered phrases of
melody or ‘neumes’ (as he referred to them) for each step of the central part
of the gamut, namely the notes CDEFGa. Guido introduced the hymn in the
Epistola with these words: ‘If you wish to learn some note or neume … you
must observe the same note or neume at the head of some very well-known
melody, and for every note you wish to learn have at hand such a melody
that begins by the same note, as this melody does that I use in teaching
boys …’ (GerbertS, ii, 45a; ex.3). He then explained that in this melody six
different notes begin the six different phrases of the melody, so that each
phrase can serve as an aid to a singer wishing to read a particular neume.
The Ut queant laxis melody could be used in two ways: by a singer hearing

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an unwritten melody and wishing to notate it, when he would match the
order of tones and semitones in the appropriate phrase of Ut queant to the
unwritten phrase; or in learning an unknown written melody, in which case
he must match the notated neumes to the familiar phrases of the Ut queant
and thereby derive the sound of the unknown neumes. ‘Hearing some
unwritten neume, consider which phrase [of the hymn] most agrees with the
end of the neume, so that the last note of the neume and the first of the
phrase [of the hymn] are unisons …. On the other hand, if you wish to begin
to sing some written melody, you must be very careful that you end each
neume properly so that its end fits the beginning of the phrase [of the hymn]
whose first note begins on the note with which the [unknown] neume ends’.

Whether Guido went beyond this application of the hymn's stepwise rising
series of melodic incipits to devise a method of solmization cannot be
established from known documents. However, among the manuscripts
containing the Epistola five of the oldest, dating from the 11th century to the
12th, present a second text set to the hymn: ‘Tri-num et unum Pro nobis
miseris De-um precemur Nos puris mentibus Te obsecramus Ad preces
intende Do mine nostras’. In one of these manuscripts (F-Pn lat.7211, 12th
century) the scribe added a simpler melody to these syllables and finally
superscribed over the pitch letters of ex.1 the syllables of the Tri series
starting on Γ, C, F, G, c, f and g. Johannes Cotto (c1100) observed that the
Italians used other syllables than the ut series, and this was still
remembered by Ramis de Pareia, who cited in Musica practica (1482),
chap.vii, the syllables tri pro de nos te ad do. To have initiated a method of
solmization with one or the other set of syllables would have been quite
consistent with Guido's constant search for effective devices to train the eye
and ear. Similarly, the so-called Guidonian hand may have been adopted by
him as an aid to training singers (see ..\Frames/F006218.htmlSolmization,
figs.1 and 2). Although the hand occurs in pre-Guidonian manuscripts as a
method of finding the semitones of tetrachords, it does not take its
well-known form showing the solmization syllables until the 12th century.
Sigebertus Gemblacensis (c1105–10) in his Chronica (PL, clx, 204)
nevertheless credited Guido with assigning ‘six letters or syllables to six
notes … and he set them out on the joints of the fingers of the left hand
throughout the diapason so that their upward and downward ascents and
descents would impress themselves on the eyes and ears’.
(vi) Commentaries.
Guido's writings, particularly the Micrologus, became the subject of
numerous commentaries beginning in the 11th century. Apart from those in

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the treatises of Aribo and Johannes Cotto, the most important of these are
anonymous: Liber argumentorum and Liber specierum, both probably of
Italian origin, from between 1050 and 1100; Metrologus, probably of English
origin from the 13th century; and the so-called Commentarius anonymus in
Micrologum, edited by C. Vivell in 1917, which Smits van Waesberghe has
shown to have been written in Liège either by a native author or one of
Bavarian origin between c1070 and 1100. A compilation usually illustrated
with elaborate charts of the hexachord system and consisting essentially of
the poem Regulae rhythmicae, the prologue to the antiphoner, and the
Epistola passed in the 16th century as the Introductorium of Guido.

See also Musica enchiriadis; Notation; Organum; Solmization.

Guido of Arezzo

WRITINGS
[Prologus in antiphonarium], ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe: Tres tractatuli
Guidonis Aretini, Divitiae musicae artis, ser.A, iii (Buren, 1975); ed. and
trans. Pesce (1999); also ed. as Aliae regulae, GerbertS, ii, 34-7; Eng.
trans. in StrunkSR
Micrologus (near or in Arezzo c1026 but not before 1026 or after 1032),
GerbertS, ii, 2; ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe, CSM, iv (1955); Eng.
trans. in Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises,
ed. C.V. Palisca (New Haven, CT, 1978); Ger. trans., ed. M.
Hermesdorff (Trier, 1876)
[Regulae rhythmicae], ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe: Guidonis Aretini
‘Regulae rhythmicae’ (Buren, 1985); ed. and trans. Pesce (1999); also
ed. in GerbertS, ii, 25–33
[Epistola ad Michaelem], ed. and trans. Pesce (1999); also ed. as Epistola
de ignoto cantu, GerbertS, ii, 43–50; partial Eng. trans. in StrunkSR;
Ger. trans., ed. M. Hermesdorff (Trier, 1884)
Guido of Arezzo
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘The Musical Notation of Guido of Arezzo’, MD,
v (1951), 15–53
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘Guido of Arezzo and Musical Improvisation’,
MD, v (1951), 55–63
J. Smits van Waesberghe: De musico-paedagogico et theoretico Guidone
Aretino (Florence, 1953)
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘Guido von Arezzo als Musikerzieher und
Musiktheoretiker’, GfMkB: Bamberg 1953, 44-7
H. Oesch: Guido von Arezzo (Berne, 1954) [contains useful bibliography]
J. Smits van Waesberghe, ed.: Expositiones in Micrologum Guidonis
Aretini (Amsterdam, 1957)
C.-A. Moberg: ‘Die Musik in Guido von Arezzos Solmisationshymne’, AMw,
xvi (1959), 187–206
M. Huglo: ‘L'auteur du “Dialogue sur la musique” attribué à Odon’, RdM, lv

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(1969), 119–71
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘Wie Wortwahl und Terminologie bei Guido von
Arezzo entstanden und überliefert wurden’, AMw, xxxi (1974), 73–86
E.L. Waeltner and M. Bernhard: Wortindex zu den echten Schriften Guidos
von Arezzo (Munich, 1976)
C.V. Palisca: introductions to Guido: Micrologus, and John: On Music,
Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music (New Haven, CT, 1978), 49–56,
87–100; latter repr. in Beyond the Moon: Festschrift Luther Dittmer, ed.
B. Gillingham and P. Merkley (Ottawa, 1990), 144–62
K. Berger: ‘ The Hand and the Art of Memory’, MD, xxxv (1981), 87–119
S. Fuller: ‘ Theoretical Foundations of Early Organum Theory’, AcM, liii
(1981), 52–84
T. Russel: ‘ A Poetic Key to a Pre-Guidonian Palm and the Echemata’,
JAMS, xxxiv (1981), 109–118
J. Chailley: ‘ Ut queant laxis et les origines de la gamme’, AcM, lvi (1984),
48–69
M. Huglo: ‘Bibliographie des éditions et études relatives à la théorie
musicale du Moyen Age 1972–1987’, AcM, lx (1988), 229–72
K.-J. Sachs: ‘ Tradition und Innovation bei Guido von Arezzo’, Kontinuität
und Transformation der Antike im Mittelalter: Freiburg 1987, ed. W.
Erzgräber (Sigmaringen, 1989), 233–44
F. Reckow: ‘Guido's Theory of Organum after Guido: Transmission,
Adaptation, Transformation’, Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of
David G. Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 395–413
D. Pesce: Guido d'Arezzo's ‘Regulae rhythmicae’, ‘Prologus in
antiphonarium’, and ‘Epistola ad Michaelem’: a Critical Text and
Translation with an Introduction, Annotations, Indices and New
Manuscript Inventories (Ottawa, 1999)

For further bibliography, see Organum and Discant.

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