Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING… IN PERFECT MONODY

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ear 600, that is, and up pops another Pope. Step forward… Gregory I. He, as well as despatching St Augustine to Thanet with the words, 'Mmm, Gus, baby, I've got a cute little job for you… go get your brolly…', he it is who decides to get together a school, the Schola Cantorum, in Rome, to have another go at sorting the whole music business out.

Allegedly, it was also around now that a new breed was formed, the mcmagerius brandius or 'brand manager', as they came to be known. Or at least, it was the first known time that anyone used the phrase 'Let's make sure we're all singing from the same hymnsheet.' Greg One, as the numberplate on his horse and cart read, also published

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o. We're officially off the mark. PLAINSONG. Beautiful, generally single-note stuff. Music has arrived, thanks to a mixture of Saints Ambrose and Gregory. The next chap who gets a look-in with regards to the 'Important people in Music History' Stars in Their Eyes Special is a man called Guido. No, not Fawkes.

Sorry to rush but I do have rather a lot of centuries to cover. I've taken the liberty of moving on a few hundred years, if that's OK? King Canute is now boss of Britain Pic, and paddling is in. Bigtime. And just as Mr and Mrs Khayyam put a small ad in the Persian Post announcing the birth of little Omar, the musical world was getting to grips with a new system invented by a man called Guido d'Arezzo. He it was who laid the groundwork for another mythically talented musician, the great aforementioned 'Julie of Andrews'.

As his name suggests, Guido spent a lot of his life in the Italian city of Arezzo, some 30 kilometres north of Lake Trasimeno. He was a Benedictine monk who had moved from his native Paris.

Guido's method invented a series of words to go with the notes, or in the words of Queen Julie herself, 'One shalt commence at the very outset, indeed a goodly place wherein to begin. When one dost peruse, one surely inaugurates the process by means of the initial three symbols, ABC, when thou singest, thou leadest with "Do re mi"'. Er, etcetera.

But, to be fair… it more or less sums it up. So next time you're talking about The Sound of Music, maybe drop into the conversation, 'Ah, yes, the old tonic solfa system, as pioneered by Guido d'Arezzo in the eleventh century. Or was it Steps?'

In fact, old Guido was a busy little sausage. In this same year, just as the Chinese were putting the finishing touches to their pleasant albeit lethal mix of charcoal, sulphur and potassium nitrate - aka gunpowder - and the weird sounding poem on everyone's lips was Beowulf (well, either that, or they were all drunk), our man in the music world was also developing that cute litde five-line thing that all music is now written on, called 'the stave', also known as the staff. This thing. With this litde thing, musicians need never get lost again. Unless they were male and driving with their girlfriends, of course. Anyway, the stave was from year 1000.

It was left to sad music students hundreds of years later to make up mnemonics like 'All Cows Eat Grass', 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour', and my personal favourite, 'Guinevere Eats Cordelia's Aardvaark for Dinner'", to remember the notes. Guido needed someone to work on his PR though, because most people have never heard of him. Maybe add a power initial to his name… let's see, Guido G. d'Arezzo. That would have done it. That would have made them sit up and take notice. No doubt had he been living today, he would have been called something like the Guid-o-stave, just to make sure his name survived the years.

Guido d'Arezzo died in 1050. Just forty-eight years later, there came another musician working in a similar world - days spent in prayer and thought. This person, too, would make a significant contribution to music - maybe not in quite the same tangible and enduring way as Guido and his five famous lines, but important all the same. This person, born in 1098, really did move music on to new heights, made sure it got noticed. But the truly shocking thing about this particular composer, arranger, poet and dreamer is… she was a woman! fi Which is, of course, the spaces downwards on the treble clef. 'All Cows Eat Grass3 is the spaces upwards on the bass clef, and 'Every Good Boy Deserves Eavour' is the mnemonic for the lines upwards on the table. Glad to have cleared that up.