these views were upheld was not sufficiently convincing to gain universal acceptance; and the outlines of the science communicated to students generally received some modifications from the minds of individual teachers.[1] Much of the course was taken up with treating of the constellations and the zodiac, not without a tincture of astrology, and some primitive observations on meteorology were included.[2]
4. Music as known to us is virtually a modern creation; and that of the Greeks would doubtless impress us as a wild and disorderly performance, adapted only to the ears of some semi-barbaric people of the East. Their most extended scale did not range beyond eighteen notes;[3] in order to obtain variety their only resource was a shift of key, that is, a change of pitch, or the adoption of a different mode, that is, of a gamut in which the semitones assumed novel positions; and their harmony was restricted to the consonance of octaves. Time was not measured according to the modern method, but there was a rhythm fixed in relation to the various metres of poetic verse. Their usual instruments were the pipe or flute, the lyre, a simple form of organ,[4] and, of course, the human voice. Practically, therefore, their music consisted of melody of a declamatory or recitatival
- ↑ Thus M. Capella states that Mercury and Venus revolve round the sun; and Isidore of Seville says the crystalline sphere runs so fast that did not the stars retard it by running the opposite way the universe would fall to pieces; Etymolog., iii, 35.
- ↑ See Themistius, Or., xxvi (p. 327 Dind.); cf. Boethius (?), De Discipl. Scholar., iii.
- ↑ Graduated from about A below treble stave to E in fourth space (A to E´´ = La_{2} to Mi_{4}), but there seems to have been great variety in pitch.
- ↑ Cassiodorus often alludes to the organ of his time, especially in Exposit. Psal. CL, where he describes many instruments. See Daremberg and Saglio, sb. voc.
