The Persecution, Flight, Victory And Defeat of One Benedictine monk.

Approximately 1000 years ago a Benedictine monk, Guido of Arezzo, fled from a monastery in Pomposa.

What had he done to displease everyone there so much that he was in danger to the point that he had to run away?

If you look for information about Guido of Arezzo and you are not a musician, prepare to fry your brain from reading so many musical terms. Hopefully, you will understand that this monk came up with some solfeggio syllables, put notes on lines and spaces, and came up with square note symbols. These facts are usually written with a lot of reservations, claiming that he didn’t actually invent Do and Ti, he did not come up with 10 lines – just 4, and the notes were square, not round, and we don’t know if he invented them or took over from someone else.

In fact, Guido of Arezzo is Prometheus, who stole fire of music literacy from the "elitists": he gave ordinary people the opportunity to communicate with a music text without intermediaries.

Who are the "elitists"? These are people who are naturally endowed with musical abilities. People who don’t consider themselves musicians are still influenced by the spirit of the "elitists," willingly and unwittingly. They believe they don’t have the special gifts that skilled musicians possess. They simply accept that they don’t fit the proper dress code for making the transition to a new caste, to become one of the elite. On the surface, everything seems innocent enough and natural: some are just born with a better musical ear – so the others have to deal with it!

However, dividing up people on this basis is not as harmless as it seems at first sight. Guido was a teacher from God. He figured out how to develop any person’s hearing. It would seem that he improved the approach to teaching music and he should be thanked for it, right?

But instead he gets anger, cruelty and persecution. Why? Why, after his death, doesn’t music science mention what he really did: created the opportunity for everyone to have access to musical records, which resulted in the most powerful development of professional music?

Below is my brief summary of one of the musicologist’s essays,* which expresses what the professional musical brethren are trying not to let the public know:

Guido received his education in a monastery in Pomposo. There he began his career of a singer and a teacher – a very successful teacher indeed. He introduced all sorts of innovations into the practice of teaching music. He completely rewrote the existing musical texts using lines and spaces that he invented.

Thanks to these innovations, the usual time required for learning the repertoire of the song -- 10 years, was reduced to two, and unfamiliar music could be performed from the page.

Guido's methods attracted attention because of the high speed and ease with which beginners learned to sing notes. In the Pomposite abbey, Guido’s innovations provoked envy and ridicule of others.

In 1025, Guido was forced to move to Arezzo (located in Tuscany) as a result of the intrigues of ill-wishers. There Guido lived and worked until the end of his days.

In the first quarter of the 11th century, Guido received an audience with Pope John XIX in Rome. We can rely on this information because Guido wrote about it himself: he enthusiastically tells about their meeting in the "Letter." John XIX, after hearing about the achievements of Guido, called him and got acquainted with the improved method of music notation.

Guido describes the reaction of the Pope in this way: "The Pope was extremely pleased with my arrival, talked for a long time and asked about various things; as a kind of miracle, he kept twirling our Antiphonary and constantly repeating the rules listed at the beginning of [the book], he did not give up, that is, he did not literally get out of the place on which he sat until he learned a version that was unfamiliar to him, the arbitrarily chosen version, and then , which he could scarcely believe [in the retelling of] others, he suddenly discovered in himself. What more? "

After Guido had taught the Pope to sing from sheet music with his system during the very first lesson, the notation he developed was recommended by the church for general use.

Guido didn’t like the fact that the singers spent a lot of time learning the songs by drills with a teacher mocking their voices, while no one at all could master anything by oneself "even if they exercise day and night for even a hundred years."

As a consequence, instead of praising God, they compete among themselves, which seemed to him "a grave error in the holy church and a dangerous disagreement."

The notation introduced by Guido allowed people to learn music unknown to the students "independently, without a teacher," that is, directly "from notes."

Guido gives the lines and spaces between them their exact pitch values.

As the basis for voice development, he encourages the use of precise pitch with a musical instrument (monochord).

Guido and his

The system Guido creates, by his own admission, focused on verbal and speech syntax. In his treatise he describes his new method of saltimization -- another of Guido’s innovations for teaching students. Simply put, he translates sounds into syllables that are convenient for building speech to a specific pitch. He develops the hearing of students through speech (syllables) and the support to the exact height (monochord)

Guido teaching with monochord

The length of Guido's notes in rhythm ties the note to the text of the verse.

He has notes on lines and between them, which graphically helps the eyes follow the direction of the melody.

*Source: Yu.N. KHOLOPOV, R.L. Novel of Guido Aretinsky in musical science and practice

Guido’s innovations put the elite caste of musicians under fire. Unfamiliar music finally was able to be performed straight from a sheet, without a teacher.

Those for whom music is the source of existence do not want anyone to simply read music without their presence. Even if it's the Pope! The intercession of the Pope temporarily relaxed the jaws of the clan, which considered itself rightfully the only important people in the development and dissemination of music.

And things didn’t change a bit so far!

Selectivity, elitism, clannishness over the course of centuries gradually occupied a separate place in the society of free masons, which enslaved the whole world. Great names in music will unite in history in Masonic Lodge No. 176. Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Mozart, Ludwig Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, George Gershwin, Jan Sibelius, Franz Liszt will take pride in having a place there. And this is not even a complete list of composers and musicians.

As soon as Guido passed away, music elitists gradually began to delete and distort everything that could help non-musical "plebes" translate musical notation into sound. And this process of separating people from music notation continues silently to this day!

Guido’s idea to use his hand, whose fingers he used to demonstrate the lines and spaces of the musical notation immediately was perverted after his death. Someone painted a hand with incomprehensible symbols in the form of "signs for the elite" and called it the "Guidonian hand." Markings on the hand will return the students "to the true path" -- back to drilling and reciting the music by ear block after block.

'Guidonian hand' - Guido, in fact has NOTHING to do with the marks on his hand. This modification is another attempt to destroy his initial invention.

Regardless of their efforts, Guido's idea of visual perception of music still broke loose and gave life to a multitude of musicians whose musical hearing developed with the ability to read musical texts and play a musical instrument.

In the footsteps of Guido, the generations of the elitists gradually reduced all his efforts to zero. They wrote many treatises and interpretations, taking the followers away from the initial message of the reformer: the visibility of the notes. Guido’s written materials for 1000 years were used only by scholars and their translation from Latin would never become widely available in any language of the world for 1000 years.

Guido’s desire to give access to the musical language to any person would be ridiculed, forgotten and gradually allowed to fade before the growing pride of those with special music ears. They will raise Mozart's flag and thereby set an unseen bar for the others, separating everyone from the castes close to the top.

And the more music occupies all the most important corners of people’s life and soul, opens people's hearts to love and a sense of happiness and delight, the more elitists will strive to stand between the musical text and the person. Willingly or unwittingly, their goal is to increase the suffering of people and be the only power to control music’s influence on others. Suffering will grow in the first place for the right to be the best and different from all others. Without learning to be in harmony through music literacy, to unite like the sounds of music, everyone will be exposed to skills to stand out above everyone. This will result in a constant struggle that will suffocate love and sow misery and loneliness.

The idea of being chosen, having a special purpose of "divine" origin will flare up and disappear in different parts of the world in the form of epidemics. "To each his own" they will write on the gates of the concentration camp "Auschwitz." Billions of people will be subjected to persecution, torture, extinction for not fitting themselves into the "elite" at birth.

Sincerely yours,

Hellene Hiner softmozart.com