Evidence for the Traditional View of the Transmission of Gregorian Chant
David G. Hughes
The numerous musical variants in the manuscripts of classical Gregorian chant are mostly trivial, having little effect on melodies. They more readily understood as mishearings than misreadings. few substantive always regional. Many involving replacement E or B by F C, using special neumes such salicus trigon suggest that at one time microtones were used chant-a hypothesis supported some theoretical evidence. taken together show was fully fixed with respect to pitch before its dissemination throughout Carolingian Empire and beyond, hence any period improvisational recreative performance must have occurred prior time.
Journal of the American Musicological Society