Upon this he
suspended four strings of equal length and thickness, etc., fastened
weights in the above-mentioned proportions to each of them respectively,
and found that they gave the same sounds that the hammers had done; viz.
the fourth, fifth, and octave to the gravest tone." [3] However this may
be, it would appear that the lyre had at first four strings only:
Terpander is said to have given it three more, and an eighth was
subsequently added.
We have unfortunately no specimens of Greek or Roman, or even of Early
Christian music. The Chinese indicated the notes by words or their
initials. The lowest was termed "Koung," or the Emperor, as being the
Foundation on which all were supported; the second was Tschang, the Prime
Minister; the third, the Subject; the fourth, Public Business; the fifth,
the Mirror of Heaven. [4] The Greeks also had a name for each note. The
so-called Gregorian notes were not invented until six hundred years after
Gregory's death. The Monastery of St. Gall possesses a copy of Gregory's
Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a chorister who was sent from Rome
to Charlemagne to reform the Northern music, and in this the notes are
indicated by "pneumss," from which our notes were gradually developed, and
first arranged along one line, to which others were gradually added.
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