The full gamut

How the word gamut moved from medieval music to modern-day usage

Hello, music-loving friend,

I'm back in Switzerland after seven weeks in Australia (and it feels like my head and heart are still halfway between here and there, Dubai maybe).

In my last week I was sitting in the car with my brother and father (crossword puzzle aficionados, both of them) and we found ourselves discussing the word gamut. (Five minutes beforehand we were talking about the best place to get fish and chips, just so you know.)

Gamut is usually defined as ‘a range of different things or people’. This sounds right to me, but I have no idea of its origin. So imagine my surprise when I find out that its original meaning is very pertinent to this here newsletter. The word actually comes from the medieval Latin word ‘gamma ut’, which was used to refer to the lowest note of the medieval musical scale.

A scale is a series of musical notes arranged in a specific order, and with a pattern of intervals between them. And an interval refers to the distance or space between two pitches, or notes, a bit like measuring the gap between two steps on a staircase. Intervals can be small, like stepping from one key to the next on a piano, or larger, like skipping several keys.

(For more on intervals and how notes move, go to How to read the ups and downs of a melody.)

In a scale, the pattern of intervals remains the same regardless of the pitch of the starting note. What this means is that no matter which note (pitch) a particular scale starts on, it will always follow the same pattern and this means it will sound the same, even if the starting note is not the same.

A good way to get your head around this is to imagine three people singing Happy Birthday. One person might start singing on a low note, another a bit higher, and a third person higher still. Regardless of the pitch (or note) they start on, they will all sing the same melody and pattern of notes. And this means the song will be recognisable as Happy Birthday.

Scales form the basis of melodies, chords, harmonies, and every single song or piece of music you’ve ever heard. They’re like the building blocks, providing a framework for organising the notes and creating a sense of tonality, or a home base, if you like. (Stay tuned for more posts on scales, because this is just the tip of the iceberg!).

Now, to return to medieval times: ‘Gamma’ was the greek letter used to represent the lowest note recognised in medieval music. In the early 11th century, Guideo d’Arezzo, a medieval monk and music teacher from the Benedictine Abbey in Pomposa, near Ferrara in Italy, came up with the idea of giving the notes in a scale an actual name. This was pretty radical at the time, and revolutionised how music was played and written. Naming the notes meant that now scales and the melodies created from them could be written down and shared easily instead of relying on oral tradition.

Guido called the first (and lowest) note in the scale ‘ut’, followed by Re, Mi, Fa, Sol (or S0) and so on. Eventually Ut was changed to Do, giving us the familiar Do a Deer we all know and love from the Sound of Music.

Do, a deer, a female deer
Re, a drop of golden sun
Mi, a name, I call myself
Fa, a long, long way to run
So, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow So
Ti, a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do, oh, oh, oh

‘Ut’ became the first syllable of the medieval hymn ‘Ut queant laxis’, one of the first hymns to be written down using Guido’s method. For more on Guido and the hymn go to Ut queant laxis, and to hear a version of the hymn, watch the video below).

Eventually, the meaning of the word gamut expanded to represent all the notes within a scale, and from there, give or take a century or two (or three), to our modern definition of ‘a range of different things or people’.

How this happens comes down to the way language naturally evolves—called a semantic shift—with words taking on broader or more general meanings as they’re applied to different situations. Someone sees similarities between using gamut for all the notes in a scale and how it can be applied to other things that can be found in a range, and so it goes.

Until here we are, the original usage lost in the mists of time. Unless you’re a classical musician, in which case there’s a chance you might still hear it used (or use it yourself) to refer to the range of pitches available in a particular piece of music. Not quite the same as the original but pretty close, right?

It just goes to show how dynamic languages are, and I think it’s entirely appropriate to include music as a language here, too. It may not adhere to the same rules and structures as other languages, but it’s a powerful form of communication, a universal language that transcends any cultural and linguistic barriers.

Just ask Guido.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If there's anything else you're curious about or would like me to explore further, let me know! You can comment on this post or send me a message at katepainediscoveringmusic@substack.com

Thanks, Kate ❤️

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