Guido of Arezzo invents musical notation

1025

An Italian Benedictine monk devised a four-line staff and a system of solmization using the first syllables of a Latin hymn to St. John, producing ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la. Choirs could now learn chants without memorizing every note from a master. Western music suddenly had a portable written form. Pope John XIX summoned Guido to Rome, astonished that a new singer could master unfamiliar hymns in days.