MAKING MUSIC

The cobbles of Arezzo,

their order and community,

were sermons for the pious

monk named Guido Monaco

as he walked along the road.

While wondering what God

may be saying to him

Guido’s mind strayed to ways

whereby he might follow

the example of the stones, their fit,

permanence and community,

to create order and stability

for the music in his church.

Music had no written record,

was passed from generation

to generation in Christendom

for a thousand years

by laborious recitation,

endless repetition.

It travelled from one place to another

by father’s voice to son

who journeyed with it,

its glories shackled by

the boredom of rote learning

its accuracy blunted

while the liturgy and the chanted words

were written, unchanging yet open to exegesis

but not to the distorting caprice

of imperfect memory.

From the sermon in stones Guido took away

a vision in which the music of the chants

was secured like the cobbles

in the ordered pavement

as were the words written

in the chants, a dream of system,

permanence and metalanguage

where notes and cadences

high and low and in between

were written down as were the prayers.

His contemplations

led Guido to write basic notes

above the lines of chants

He assigned letters

to the syllables of music,

each for a different pitch,

tracing their passage

on four horizontal lines.

The sequence of neumes

hung like small black birds along the lines.

Guido then used his antipher

of lines and neumes

in his church in Arezzo

praising God for its wonder and order.

At the pope’s request,

Guido took his music to Rome in 1020,

winning John XIX’s endorsement.

Although Guido’s music was not popular

Rudolf of Moustier-sur-Sambre

brought it to choristers in Belgium:

though they did not know Italian

they learned to sing

as from Arezzo

using Guido’s system

of annotation.

Asked why he wept so often

Rudolf replied it was from joy

as, he said, he had found a ladder into heaven.