Declaration of Musical Instruments

that our affairs fare better when we attend to those of God than if we were entirely occupied with great diligence in what concerns ourselves. I do not know how those masters fulfill their duty to God who (having been paid for their labor) hide the secrets of Music from their disciples. If the "wicked servant" was punished by his lord because he did not freely share the talent A reference to the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14–30. that he had likewise received: does he who hides it, despite being well paid, think he will lack punishment? We see among a hundred players of the vihuela vihuela: a guitar-shaped string instrument tuned like a lute, prominent in Renaissance Spain, even if they have used it for twenty years, that two of them do not know how to transcribe into tablature original: "cifrar" - the process of writing music in a finger-position notation rather than standard staff notation. This lack comes from the greed of those who knew how to transcribe; they did not explain the method they used. What shall I say of those players who, while playing (especially if it is an accidental mode or tone), do not want their hand positions to be seen, lest they be stolen? What some masters could have explained fully in a month, they deferred until Judgment Day. Do you think the "barbarous" organ players we have in Spain (who, while the choir sings in one mode, play in another) are so for any reason other than the greed of their masters? I hold for certain that if the secrets which musicians achieve through the passage of time were shared in Spain as they are in other nations, Music would be in greater perfection in our lands than in foreign ones, because there are better intellects here. It is a pity (and those who have a Christian understanding should weep for it) that great secrets of music die in a moment and end together with the person of the musician for lack of sharing them. It is a sorrow, and no small one, to lose in an instant what cost thirty or forty years of continuous labor. Let such masters hear a rebuke given by Saint Paul, or better said, by God. "Knowledge," he says, "puffs up and makes a man proud; but charity edifies." 1 Corinthians 8:1: "Scientia inflat, caritas vero aedificat." Knowledge that is not set in charity turns into madness and ignorance. Charity can exist for a time without knowledge; however, knowledge without charity loses its name along with its being. To him who has charity, God will give knowledge, as He gave it to Cornelius Acts 10: A Roman centurion who received divine revelation and many others; but he who has knowledge without charity will profit nothing from that knowledge, and God will permit (his sins deserving it) either that he loses the knowledge he seems to have, or his wits through madness, or his soul, which would be the worst. Knowledge is not the cause of charity; rather, charity produces knowledge. Those who have knowledge without charity derive no utility. What benefit does a very tall tree full of leaves give if it never has fruit? A Christian is of less benefit, even if full of knowledge, if he does not give the fruit of charity. Seeing, then, that in Spain there are such high intellects, so many able men desirous of learning, and some of those who could teach them so worthy of rebuke and punishment: so as not to be one of them, I wished to take up this new labor of setting into an art (both for the playing and the method of composition) some instruments, in such a way that they may be understood by all (who wish to learn them), and not superficially or (as they say) "skimming the surface," and that they may know how to transcribe for them with ease and certainty, even if they know little of singing, and that they may have them as new instruments, and in a new manner, and