la-mans Je-sus vo-ce mag-na a-it:
in ma-nus tu-as, Do-mi-ne, com-men-do spi-ri-tum me-um.
Et in-cli-na-to ca-pi-te e-mi-sit spi-ri-tum.]

CHAPTER XV.

THE CHANGES IN MUSICAL NOTATION.

The entire movement of musical thought since three or four tones began
to be put together into scales, melodies and unities of various kinds,
has been in the direction of classification. This is shown very
conclusively in the history of musical notation, which, at the end of
the period just now under consideration, had reached a form nearly the
same as we now have it. The early notation regarded tones as
individual, and wholly without classification of any kind. The first
musical notation of which we have any authentic knowledge was that of
the Greeks already noted in chapter III. Their scale consisted of two
octaves and one note, their so-called "greater perfect system," and
the tones were named by the first fifteen letters of the Greek
alphabet. This, however, was only a beginning of their system, for the
variety of pitches required in their enharmonic and chromatic scales,
and in the various transposition scales was so great that they
required sixty-seven characters for representing them. These
characters were written above the words to which they applied, and
they had additional marks for duration, especially in the later
periods of Greek music. Besides this they had an entirely different
set of characters for the same tones played upon the cithara, so that
a word to be sung without accompaniment had one mark above it for the
pitch of the note, while if accompanied even by the same tone upon the
instrument, a second character was written for the instrumental part.
The system was wholly without classification, except that the letters
were applied from the lowest notes upward, the same as we now have
them. There was nothing to assist the eye in forming an idea of the
movement of the melody, and as the forms of the letters were very
similar in some cases there is no doubt that mistakes of copyists were
numerous. This, however, is a matter of little concern to us, since no
authentic melodies of the classical period have come down to us. The
example of Greek characters given on p. 69, in connection with the Ode
of Pindar, sufficiently illustrates the nature of this notation,
although the interposition of the staff between the musical notes and
the words deprives the illustration of a part of its value.

The Romans ha