an ugly rude noise,
It seemyth the sobbyng of an old sow:
He wolde be made moch of, and he wyst how;
Well sped in spindels and tuning of travellys
A bungler, a brawler, a picker of quarrels.

Comely he clappyth a _payre of clavicordys_
He _whystelyth_ so swetely he maketh me to swet,
His _discant_ is dashed full of _discordes_,
A red angry man, but easy to intrete; etc.

[Footnote 15: 'Besy,' that is, 'busy,' meaning 'fussy,' a bad fault in
descant, as it is to this day in counterpoint.]

Further on we read--

For lordes and ladyes lerne at his scole,
He techyth them so wysely to _solf_ and to _fayne_,
That neither they sing wel _prike-song_ nor _plain_.

Skelton's main objection to this person is that he, being in reality
of very humble origin, presumed on his very doubtful musical abilities
to gain a footing amongst his betters. As he says, 'For Jak wold be a
Jentilman that late was a grome.'

Evidently 'Jak' had managed to make good his position as a fashionable
teacher of singing, in spite of the defects plainly mentioned in the
above verses. In the first verse, 'counter' is a musical term, here
used with the meaning of 'to embroider' the tale. 'Knack' is still
used in Yorkshire for 'affected talk.' 'Monachord' is the ancient
one-stringed fiddle called Tromba Marina, and is here used as a joke
on 'monachi' or 'holy water clarks.' In verse 2, '_rule_ and space' is
simply 'line and space,' _i.e._, on the musical staff. 'Solfyth too
haute' is 'Solfa's too high.' The 'my' which was 'too sharp' is the
Mi, the seventh note of the scale, mentioned above as the critical
point in Solfa. In verse 3, 'lewde lewte' means merely 'vulgar lute';
and 'Rotybulle Joyse' is the title of an old song. The 'payre of
clavicordys' is the clavichord, which in 1536 was a keyed instrument
of much the same kind as the virginals,[16] with about three and a
half octaves. It was used by nuns, and therefore had its strings
muffled with bits of cloth to deaden the sound.

[Footnote 16: It was the _German_ clavichord that had 'tangents' of
brass at the ends of the key levers. These tangents cut off the proper
length of the string, and made it sound at the same time. The Italians
called an instrument with a 'jack' action like the virginal by the
name clavichord.]

The last three lines quoted mention 'solfa' and 'fayne.' The latter is
'feigned' music, or Musica Ficta, which at this ti