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The focus of this collection of essays is on how music was taught and learned in the Western European art tradition between the Middle Ages until approximately 1650. Five key questions are posed: 'What were the pedagogical methods used by various teachers?'; 'What did the student learn?'; 'Who were the teachers, and who were the learners?'; 'When and where was music learned?'; and 'Why was music learned?'. In other words the basic concerns are method, repertory, identity, place and rationale. These concerns permeate the five parts of the book: Medieval Pedagogy, Renaissance Places of Learning, Renaissance Materials and Contexts, Music Education in the Convent, The Teacher. Each part comprises several chapters, and additionally there are three essays of a broader nature referred to as 'perspectives'.
James Harr introduces the reader to Medieval Musical Pedagogy in the first of the 'perspective' chapters. He notes that training in instrumental performance (especially keyboards and the lute for aristocratic amateurs) was mostly an individual practice, often a father-son relationship. However, a much large number of children learned to sing, and generally this preceded learning to read. It is here that the Guidonian Hand, named after Guido d'Arezzo, makes its entrance. It was essentially a visual aid for learning the Gamut by associating a syllabic note name with each of the joints of the thumb and fingers. As Susan Forscher Weiss explains, 'The inscribed palm . . . of the left hand was an aid in learning that emphasized sight, sound, and memory' (p. 207).
The thinking of d'Arezzo is explored in a subsequent chapter by Dolores Pesce, who examines what Guido actually said about solmisation syllables in his writings.
But as Susan Boynton points out in 'Medieval Musical Education as Seen through Sources Outside the Realm of Music Theory', whilst treatises upon musical theory can tell us much about the character of musical learning, they do not provide much insight into the social and institutional setting of musical training. For this, the most important sources include monastic customaries. These provide detailed descriptions of teaching methods and show that the musical...