By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Gamut
“Gamut” means a full range, most generally heard in an expression like, “He experienced a full gamut of emotions from grief to joy” or “Her interests ran the gamut from stamp collecting to surfing.”
The word comes from the Medieval Latin for the Greek letter “G,” which was originally the lowest note in the Medieval musical scale. This musical scale was developed in the 11th century by the musician Guido d’Arezzo, a medieval monk who developed a system of designating musical notes by syllable names. He studied and taught singing at the Benedictine Abbey of Pomposa. A thousand years after they were written, his theories still affect modern systems of notation and music education.
The development of a comprehensive music notational system enabled composers to write their music on paper. Before the method of musical notation, songs and pieces had to be learned by ear from person to person. This greatly limited how widely music could be spread to other regions or countries. The development of music notation made it easier to expand the range of songs and musical pieces to a larger number of people in a wider geographic area. Without the humble monk’s system, Western music may not have developed or preserved the music of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi or any of the great composers we know today.
