NEW-INVENTED METHOD OF FACILITATING THE LEARNING OF MUSIC
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES.
DIBDIN, of Crawford, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, do send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing
date at Westminster, the Ninth day of April, in the forty-eighth year of His
reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Charles Dibdin, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said Charles Dibdin, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England and Wales and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my "NEW-INVENTED
METHOD OF FACILITATING THE LEARNING OF MUSIC;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Charles Dibdin, under my
hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one month next and imme-
diately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Dibdin, do hereby declare that my Method of Facilitating the
Learning of Music consists principally in substituting the letters of the
alphabet for the characters hitherto used for designating the notes named by
certain letters of the alphabet, or perhaps it would be better to say in restoring
the writing or expressing of music by characters. The notes at present used
in music are the semibreve which is equal to two minims, the minim which'

page_text: comma.
is equal to two crotchets, the crotchet which is equal to two quavers, the
quaver which is equal to two semiquavers, and the semiquaver which is equal
to two demisemiquavers. The substitutes intended for these are the period,
the colon, the semicolon, the comma, the semi-comma, and the demisemi-
In the present notation the notes are placed on lines and spaces,
and by that means describe the scale, which consists of the first seven letters
of the alphabet five times repeated, so that a character must be resorted to
to explain a letter. The substitutes are intended to be the letters themselves;
This will completely do away the cliffs, and the following arrangement is what
I prefer―The first seven letters are to be large Roman capitals, the second
seven large Italic capitals, the third seven small capitals, the fourth seven
small or lower-case Roman, and the fifth seven small Italic. For the sharp and
the flat will be used the acute and the grave accents, and there is no necessity
at all for the natural; for unless a letter be accented, it will be played natural
of course. What are called the bars in music are intended to be called
divisions, and instead of the single and the double bar, it is intended to use
an mi dash, and a section §; for an indefinite pause, a double m dash =;
and for a definite pause, a triple m dash The rests will be represented
by points without letters. Instead of a repeat will be used an index, thus .
In place of the bind, if the distance from letter to letter is short, will be used.
a hyphen -, and, if long, a half parenthesis . A slur will also be expressed
by a half parenthesis ; a half bracket will be the direction as to how
many letters go to a syllable in singing, and a brace will be placed at
The time of
the beginning of the lines as it is used for triples in poetry }.
2
the air, which at present is marked thus C, to signify four crotchets in a bar,
now to be called a division, or to signify three minims, or C 8 to signify
six quavers, are to be or four semicolons, or three colons, ; or six
commas. The distinctions of measure, as they relate to time from slow to
fast, or as they relate to expression from soft to loud, are intended to be
expressed by common English words, as slow for adagio, quick for allegro,
soft for piano, loud for forte, &c. The appogiature, which is signified in
common notation by a small note, will now be expressed by a small letter,
appropriate to the type in which the music is printed, just as the type called
English requires long primer, pica, bourgeois, &c. Various graces will be
understood by words such as beat, shake, turn, trill, &c.
EXPLANATION OF THE SCALE.
On this scale are placed sixty keys, which go on in successional half tones,
F

page_text: placed in sevens, the first seven being large Roman capitals, the second seven
large Italic capitals, the third seven small Roman capitals, the fourth seven
small or lower-case Roman, and the fifth seven, or rather six, small Italic.
By means of the five-and-twenty short keys, the whole scale is so separated
that the notes are a half tone from each other. The shut keys which repre-
sent the flats and sharps in music are now to be considered as the grave or
acute accents, according to circumstances. To shew this I shall describe by
way of specimen the seven letters and their appropriate accents, which are
destinguished by small Roman capitals:-the short key to the right of A is its
acuto accent, the short key to the left of A is its grave accent, the acute accent
of B is C, because no short key to the right interferes, the same short key
to the left that made the acute accent of A makes the grave accent of B,
our third letter is C, of which the short key to the right is the acute accent,
and B itself is the grave accent. D has a regular acute and grave accent
right and left; E has its grave accent in the short key to the left, and its
acute accent in the letter F to right; F has its grave accent in E to the
left, and its acute accent in the short key to right, and G, like D, has its
acute and grave accents in the short keys to the right and left. It is possible
more by pasting printed letters on the keys of
the instrument which would wear off as the pupil became perfect.
to facilitate the learning still
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Dibdin, have hereunto put my
hand and seal, this Ninth day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sight
CHARLES (L.s.) DIBDIN.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Ninth day of May, in the
forty-eighth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the
said Charles Dibdin came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery,
and acknowledged the Instrument aforesaid, and all and everything therein
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Instrument
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the
forty-fourth year of His said Majesty's reign.
Inrolled the Ninth day of May, One thousand eight hundred and eight.