A Ground in Gamut

A Ground in Gamut

What is a Gamut? If you look up the term "gamut" in various encyclopaedias, you will always come across the term "Guidonian hand". What is that again?

From the Middle Ages to the early modern period, the Guidonic hand was an aid to orientation in the tonal system; it served as a visual object and as an aid to memory. Each finger limb is assigned to a certain pitch of the hexachord system. Such an aid may already have been used by Guido of Arezzo (c. 992-1050), who wrote instructions for learning chorales and reading music. The hand as a visual object appears in some writings even before Guido's time; however, the final form is only found from the 12th century onwards, for example in Sigebert of Gembloux (1030-1112). The system is considered to be one of the first methods of what later became known as ear training, but in terms of teaching content it goes far beyond the objectives of this younger subject.

Probably most of them did not become particularly clever. This beautiful piece of music from Purcell's individual pieces is relatively easy to play and therefore leaves room for some ornamentation. I play it live on my Kurzweil PC-88, using keyboard splitting to put the lower notes on the pedal (midi channel 2).

I tried it with some sample sets, the Mascioni organ in Giubiasco fits best.