F ALL THE arts, music has had the unique privilege of being the only one included in every major system of learning and education during the entire course of Western Civilization. From the very beginning, it has been regarded as a liberal art. As a "discipline" it has often been considered the basis of all true knowledge. In the past the other arts did not share this distinction. The visual and plastic arts constituted, during antiquity and medieval times, the corpus of the artes mechanicae, with emphasis on the manual skill essential to their execution. They were not learned and taught in schools and universities. Their secrets were kept in custody by the practicing artists themselves or by certain professional groups. Hugo of St. Victor (12th century), in an interesting specimen of scholastic etymology, derives "mechanicus" from "moechanicus" (adulterer) to provide "proof" of the lowly birth of artes meckanicae.l In the fifteenth century, the artes mechanicae first acquired a new interpretation and status. However, the Renaissance, rather than considering them as artes liberales, which was their