Sam,

H's development pre-dates Bach and came about from Guido D'Arezzo's method of teaching singing. D'Arezzo, an 11th century monk, used syllables from a Gregorian chant that corresponded to stepwise scale movement. His hexachord involved the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la: D'Arezzo's method was very revolutionary in its day and proved to be very effective! (I guess it's easy to see what these syllables eventually became )

D'Arezzo moved Ut, the tonic, to notes equivalent to our C, F or G depending on the pitch of the chant he wanted to teach. (This would be classed as a movable "Do" system today.) When considering the starting place of F, the 4th note (Fa) was Bb, but when G was the key note, the 3rd note was B. I seem to recall that this slight difference in sound for what theoretically (from an 11th century perspective) should have been the same note, led to H. I also seem to recall that this slight difference was thought of as "soft" (Bb) and "hard" (B) and that H developed from this.

Regards,
Noel

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2025