In
Medieval musicThe term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century...
, the
Guidonian hand was a
mnemonicA mnemonic device is a mind memory and/or learning aid. Commonly, mnemonics are verbal—such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something—but may be visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Mnemonics rely on associations between easy-to-remember constructs which can be...
device used to assist singers in learning to
sight singSight-reading is the reading and performing of a piece of written music, specifically when the performer has not seen it before. Sight-singing is often used to describe a singer who is sight-reading.-Sight-reading:...
. Some form of the device may have been used by
Guido of ArezzoGuido of Arezzo or Guido Aretinus or Guido da Arezzo or Guido Monaco or Guido d'Arezzo was a music theorist of the Medieval era...
, a medieval
music theoristMusic theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony , melody,...
who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone, it does have the depicted form until the 12th century. Sigebertus Gemblacensis (c1105–10) did describe Guido using the joints of the hand to aid in teaching his hexachord. The Guidonian hand is closely linked with Guido's new ideas about how to learn music, including the use of
hexachordIn music, a hexachord is a collection of six pitch classes including six-note segments of a scale or tone row. The term was adopted in the Middle Ages and adapted in the twentieth-century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory.-Middle Ages:...
s, and the first known use of
solfegeIn music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
.
The idea of the Guidonian hand is that each portion of the hand represents a specific note within the hexachord system, which spans nearly three
octaveIn music, an octave , is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon which has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." It may be derived from the...
s from "Γ
ut" (that is, "
GammaGamma uppercase Γ, lowercase γ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Gimel . Letters that arose from Gamma include the Roman C and G and the Cyrillic letters Ge Г and Ghe Ґ.In Modern Greek, it...
ut") (the contraction of which is "gamut", which can refer to the entire span) to "E
la" (in other words, from the G at the bottom of the modern bass clef to the E at the top of the treble clef). In teaching, an instructor would indicate a series of notes by pointing to them on their hand, and the students would sing them. This is similar to the system of hand signals sometimes used in conjunction with solfege.
There have been a number of variations in the position of the notes on the hand, and no one variation is definitive but, as in the example below the notes of the gamut were mentally superimposed onto the joints and tips of the fingers of the left hand. Thus "gamma
ut" (two Gs below middle C) was the tip of the thumb, A ("A
re") was the inside of the thumb knuckle, B ("B
mi") was the joint at the base of the thumb, C ("C
fa ut") was the joint at the base of the index finger, and so on, spiraling around the hand counterclockwise past
middle CC or Do is the first note of the fixed-Do solfège.In Western music, the expression "Middle C" refers to the note "C" located exactly between the two staves of the grand staff and near the top and bottom, respectively, of the bass and soprano voices...
("C
sol fa ut") until the D a ninth above middle C ("D
la sol") (the middle joint of the middle finger) and the E above that ("E
la") (the back of that joint, the only note on the back of the hand) were reached.
This device allowed people to visualize where the half steps of the gamut were, and to visualize the interlocking positions of the hexachords (the names of which—
ut re mi fa sol la—were taken from the hymn
Ut queant laxisUt queant laxis or Hymnus in Ioannem is a plainchant hymn to John the Baptist written by Paulus Diaconus, the eighth century Lombard historian....
). The Guidonian hand was reproduced in numerous medieval treatises.
The medieval hexachordal system (c = Middle CC or Do is the first note of the fixed-Do solfège.In Western music, the expression "Middle C" refers to the note "C" located exactly between the two staves of the grand staff and near the top and bottom, respectively, of the bass and soprano voices...
)
| Note |
| |
la |
|---|
| d" |
|
la |
sol |
| c" |
|
sol |
fa |
|
| |
|
mi |
|
| |
fa |
|
| a' |
|
la |
mi |
re |
| g' |
|
sol |
re |
ut |
| f' |
|
fa |
ut |
|
| e' |
|
la |
mi |
|
| d' |
|
la |
sol |
re |
|
| c' |
|
sol |
fa |
ut |
|
|
| |
|
mi |
|
|
| |
fa |
|
|
| a |
|
la |
mi |
re |
|
| g |
|
sol |
re |
ut |
|
| f |
|
fa |
ut |
|
| e |
la |
mi |
|
| d |
sol |
re |
|
| c |
fa |
ut |
|
| B |
mi |
|
| A |
re |
|
| Γ |
ut |
|
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