marked) is _becarre_; the German word for major
also comes indirectly from this, for _dur_ means "hard."

An explanation of the modern German names for notes will be
easily understood in this connection. In the German nomenclature
the letters of the alphabet stand for the notes of the scale
as in the English, with the exception of B. This B, or "round"
B, in the German system stands for B[flat], which is more
logical than our English usage, since our flat is merely a
slightly modified form of _b_. The German B natural is our
letter _h_, which is merely a corruption of the square _b_,
[illustration], which by the addition of a line in time
became our [natural]. The Germans have carried the flatting
and sharping of tones to a logical conclusion in their present
nomenclature, for by "sharping" the sound of a single letter it
is raised a semitone from its normal diapason, thus F becomes
_Fis_, G _Gis_. On the other hand, in order to lower a tone,
the letter representing it is "flatted," and F is called _Fes_,
G _Ges_, the only exception to these rules being the B which
we have already considered.

In France the Guidonian system was adhered to closely, and
to this day the _becarre_ is used only as an accidental, to
indicate that the note to which it refers has been flatted
before. The _naturel_ (which has the same shape) is used
to designate a note that is natural to the key; thus the
distinction is made between an accidental and a note that is
common to the key. In F major, for instance, B[natural] is
_si becarre_, A[natural] would be _la naturel_. Our modern
sharp is merely another form of the natural or square B
([natural]) which gradually came to be used before _any_ note,
signifying that it was raised or sharped a half-tone; the flat
lowered it a semitone, and after a while the natural received
its present place between the sharp and flat. The first instance
we have of the sharp being used is in the thirteenth century,
when (in the Rondels of Adam de la Hale) it takes the form
of a cross [x] (the German word for the sharp still remains
_kreuz_). The French word _diese_ (sharp) comes from the Greek
_diesis_, a term used to indicate the raising of the voice in
the chromatic scale.

And now we have to speak of notation and its development.
Thus far we have found only two ways in which musical sounds
were indicated by the ancients. First, we remember the invention
of Aristophanes of Alexandria, his accents, high, low