Ut-Re-Mi

The simple tune you see below is one of the most influential pieces in the history of Western music, and for an entirely accidental reason. It is called "Ut queant laxis", and is ascribed to Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon) around AD 774. Its influence comes not from that time but from the early 11th Century when, a Tuscan Benedictine monk, used it as a mnemonic for his choir to learn pitch. Prior to this musicians had used small markings above the text called neumes to remind them whether the note went up or down, but there was no system of notation which actually allowed you to sing from sight; crucially, there was no way of communicating where the melody started. Guido's system, known as solfeggio, was based on the first syllable of each phrase in Ut queant laxis, because every chorister knew the piece by heart (mediaeval choristers typically had to learn by rote something equivalent to the entire output of Beethoven and Wagner, around 80 hours of music), and because each phrase started exactly one tone above the last. So by learning Ut-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La, with aid of a simple and familiar tune, it became possible to pitch any note correctly. With the exception of adding the seventh note, ti, and renaming ut to the more singable doh (the French used ut for a long time after everyone else had changed), Guido's tonic solfeggio has remained with us ever since. And yes, this really is the origin of the song sung on a hillside by Julie Andrews nearly a thousand years later. He did more than this. He devised a way of writing the tune down, based on a fixed reference point. He started by drawing a thin red line over the words. This line represented the pitch of the note F (he adopted the Greek system of alphabetically naming the notes, A-G); he wrote a small "f" on the line. A clef: this became, over time, the modern bass or F-clef. He chose F because it is in the middle of a man's natural singing range, and because it helped singers to mind the semitone interval between E and F in the Dorian mode (more or less equivalent to D minor); he then added a yellow line at C because the other semitone interval is between B and C. The C-clef is still used by violas. The G-clef, what we know as the treble clef, was added later (the treble clef is a stylised G). So Guido had taken a simple and well-known hymn tune and created form this a system of notation which allowed you to write down actual tunes. In 1028 he was summoned to the Vatican to demonstrate to the Pope the then incredible feat of a choir of boys singing a piece of music they had never heard before, from sight. By the time he died in around 1033, Guido knew that he had changed the musical landscape. Oh, and the hymn, Ut queant laxis, on which it was all based, is a hymn for vespers on the feast of St John the Baptist.



1. Ut queant laxis resonáre fibris Mira gestórum fámuli tuórum, Solve pollúti lábii reátum, Sancte Joánnes. 2. Núntius celso véniens Olýmpo Te patri magnum fore nascitúrum, Nomen, et vitae sériem geréndae Ordinae promit. 3. Ille promíssi dúbius supérni, Pérdidit promptae módulos loquélae: Sed reformásti genitus perémptae Organa vocis. 4. Ventris obstrúso récubans cubíli Sénseras Regem thálamo manéntem: Hinc parens nati méritis utérque Abdita pandit. 5. Sit decus Patri, genitaéque Proli et tibi, compare utriúsque virtus, Spíritus semper, Deus unus, omni Témporis aevo. Amen.

1. O for your spirit, holy John, to chasten Lips sin-polluted, fettered tongues to loosen; So by your children might your deeds of wonder Meetly be chanted. 2. Lo! a swift herald, from the skies descending, Bears to your father promise of your greatness; How he shall name you, what your future story, Duly revealing. 3. Scarcely believing message so transcendent, Him for a season power of speech forsaketh, Till, at your wondrous birth, again returneth, Voice to the voiceless. 4. You, in your mother's womb all darkly cradled, Knew your great Monarch, biding in His chamber, Whence the two parents, through their offspring's merits, Mysteries uttered. 5. Praise to the Father, to the Son begotten, And to the Spirit, equal power possessing, One God whose glory, through the lapse of ages, Ever resounding. Amen.