Re: More questions on scales

"Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:Fjkxj.31703$6h7.17605@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The Greeks used letter names like Alpha Beta, Chi, and so on for their 
> notes. The lowest note was Gamma, and the highest was Ut, and that is 
> where we get the word "Gamut" - when something "runs the Gamut" it is
akin 
> to running the entire length of the scale.

Gamut does apparently come from Gamma and Ut but...

....the Greeks didn't have Ut.

I think it was Guido d'Arezzo (11th century)  who took the first syllables

of lines of the "Hymn to St John"

*Ut queant laxis,
*Re-sonare fibris
*Mi-ra gestorum
*Fa-muli tuorum
*Sol-ve polluti
*La-bii reatum
Sanc-*te Ioannes.

to form the Solfa syllables.  Ut is clearly Latin - and the only one which

is a whole Latin word!   :-)    The word "gamut" originates significantly 
later I believe, and it seems odd to me that they coined it partly from 
gamma.

In the latin system Ut (now Doh) Re Mi ....  are associated with our
CDE... 
Though i don't at this moment know why Ut/doh became C - though why not?

The moveable Doh system (our tonic Solfa) is much more recent (19th 
century?).

I don't know what the mode was of the first piece Guido used this on, but
it 
wouldn't have been major, as that only came along several centuries later.

Dave
-- 
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
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