It was much more difficult to sing from the tablature, than to follow a voice or instrument, as it is far more perplexing to read the Chinese language than to speak it, on account of the great multiplicity of characters. However, if we could find Greek music now, we should be able to read it, contrary to the general opinion, which is, that the ancient notation is utterly lost. But though we can perhaps decypher it as exactly as the Greeks themselves could have done, yet to divide it into phrases, to accentuate, and to give it the original and true expression, are things, at present, impossible, and ever will remain so. For it is with the music of every country as with the language; to read it with the eye, and to give it utterance, are different things ; and we can arrive at no greater certainty about the expression of a dead music, than the pronunciation of a dead language. nunciation of a dead language. It is astonishing, however, that the ancient Greeks, with all their genius, and in the course of so many ages as music was cultivated by them, never invented a shorter and more commodious way of expressing sounds in writing, than by sixteen hundred and twenty notes; nor ever thought of simplifying their tablature, by making the same characters serve both for voices and instruments. It will perhaps be said that this distinction of tablature still subsists with us, for the lute, and for some other instruments; but this distinction is almost abolished. And yet, notwithstanding the great simplicity of our tablature, compared with that, of the ancients, it must be owned that the modern characters are so numerous and difficult to understand, and retain in the memory, that a student in music has the voice and ear formed long before the eye is able to read them. And it may be affirmed, that the attention to the rules of music is more difficult than the execution.
Ancient Musings of Historical Roots of Music
