What Music Is in Particular, and Why It Is So Called

The Definition of Instrumental Music

Having divided Music (having first declared it in universal) and seen what each of its parts is separately, it remains now — since we must reason only of the Instrumental — to see first what it is. I say therefore that Instrumental Music is harmony which is born from sounds and from voices; the knowledge of what it consists in we can easily learn from its definition: for it is a speculative mathematical science, mistress of all melodies, which with sense and with reason considers sounds and voices, their numbers, proportions, and differences; and orders the grave and acute voices with certain proportionate limits in their due places.

Let no one marvel that I have said Music to be a speculative science: for I hold it possible that one may possess it in the intellect, even without exercising it with natural or artificial instruments.

The Etymology of the Word Music

But why it is so called and whence its name derives is not an easy thing to know: for some have held the opinion that it has its origin from the Greek verb maïesthai; and others — among whom is Plato in the Cratylus — from möan, that is, from seeking or investigating, as has been shown above. And some have held the view that it is called from mu — an Egyptian or Chaldean word — and from a Greek word; the one meaning Water and the other Sound; as if discovered through the sound of waters. Of this opinion was Giovanni Boccaccio in the books of the Genealogy of the Gods. And in truth it does not displease me: for it is in agreement with the opinion of Varro, who holds that Music is born in three ways — either from the sound of waters, or through the repercussion of the air, or from the voice — even though Augustine says otherwise.

Some others thought it was so called because it was found near the waters, and not because of the sound of the waters — moved perhaps by the fact that Pan, god of shepherds, was the first (as Pliny narrates) who, from his Syrinx transformed into a reed near the river Ladon in Arcadia, made the pastoral Bagpipe. Which the Poet affirms saying:

Pan primus calamos cera coniungere plures Instituit.

And although these opinions are good, nonetheless what seems to me most reasonable and what I most prefer is the opinion of Plato: that it is named from the Muses, to whom (as Augustine says) a certain omnipotence of singing is conceded. And the Poets wish them to be daughters of Jove and Memory — and they say well: for if man does not retain the sounds and the intervals of the musical voices in memory, he makes no progress; and this happens because they cannot be written down in any way — all the more so since every science and every discipline (as Quintilian holds) consists in memory, for in vain is it taught to us when that which we hear departs from our minds.

Toward the Speculative and Practical Division

And because we have said Music to be a speculative science, therefore — before we go further — we shall see, having regard to the end, how we may also call it Practical.