Chapter Two

By joining our voices with the instrument of the art, we shall accustom ourselves to singing harmoniously until we have learned to sing correctly without it. Thirdly, we will clearly describe the odes or musical notes original: odas vel notulas; referring to the system of musical notation used to represent pitches by which every chant can be recognized, sung, and composed. However, because there are various types of instruments established by art, we will provide a single method and rule for dividing a string, lest the instruction become obscure through too much variety. From this, the name "monochord" from the Greek monos (single) and chorde (string) was adopted by the Greeks; afterward, by passing through other steps, we shall arrive at our intended goal.

A decorative initial letter R, likely a woodcut, marks the beginning of the primary instructional text, a common feature in 16th-century printing to guide the reader's eye to the start of a new section.

The regular monochord is subtly divided by Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 480–524 AD), a Roman senator and philosopher whose works on music theory were the standard textbooks throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance using numbers and measurement. But just as his method is useful and pleasing to theorists, it is equally laborious and difficult for singers to understand. However, because we have promised to satisfy both, we will provide a very easy division of the regular monochord. No one should think we found this with little effort; indeed, we discovered it with much sweat, reading the precepts of the ancients through many sleepless nights and avoiding the errors of the moderns. Any man, even one who is only moderately educated, will be able to understand it easily.

Therefore, let a string or cord of any length be taken and stretched over a piece of wood that has some hollow space the sound box or resonator of the instrument. Let the outermost place where the string is tied be marked with point a. Let the other location, placed in the region from which the string is pulled and twisted the tuning peg, be marked with point q. The total length of the string, q to a, should be divided into two equal parts, and at the point of equal distance, let it be marked with the letter b. Next, we divide the length of the string from b to a through the middle, and in the center of that division, we shall place d. The length b to d will be cut again, and f will be placed in the middle of that section. Understand that the same must be done for the other half of the string, namely b to q: for in the first division, the letter p will be shaped in the middle, and in the division of b to p, the letter l is placed equally distant from both. Between l and p, keeping the same rule of intervals, let n be inserted. If we divide f to n through the middle, we shall mark the letter i.

By this middle division, we will not proceed further into smaller parts until we have made other divisions; instead, we shall divide the whole length a to q into three parts. Measuring from letter a, m shall be placed at the end of the first third, and e at the two-thirds mark original: besse; a Latin term for two-thirds of a unit. Then, let e to q be divided again into three parts, and coming from letter q toward e, the sign of a square b original: b. quadruz; referring to B-natural, as opposed to the rounded "soft" B-flat shall be fixed at the two-thirds mark.