Page:Shakespeare and Music.djvu/83

Rh was used by nuns, and therefore had its strings muffled with bits of cloth to deaden the sound.

The last three lines quoted mention 'solfa' and 'fayne.' The latter is 'feigned' music, or Musica Ficta, which at this time was the art of dislocating the 'Mi,' so as to change the key. It was seldom that more than one flat was found in those days, and this would move the Mi from B to E, thus constituting 'fayned' music.

This account will give a general idea of the kind of songs and singing that were to be found in 1500.

Popular songs, 'Rotybulle Joyse,' with a burden of 'Rumbill downe, tumbill downe,' etc., accompanied by a 'lewde lewte'; clavichord playing; solfaing; singing of both 'prick-' and 'plain-' song, with Musica Ficta; besides the delectable art of 'whysteling'; seem to have been matters in ordinary practice at the beginning of the 16th century. Add to these the songs in three parts, with rounds or catches for several voices, and we have no mean list of musicianly accomplishments, which the men of Shakespeare's day might inherit.

In Shakespeare, besides the songs most commonly known (some of which are by earlier authors), there are allusions to many kinds of vocal music, and