A Briefe and Short Instruction of the Art of Musicke by Elway Bevin

A Briefe and Short Introduction (1631) is one of about a dozen late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English music instruction books that go beyond the basics for beginners, and it is the last of the writings dealing with the art of singing and elementary counterpoint to be published in a modern edition. The topic most extensively treated in the book is the composition of 'all sorts of canons' on a plainsong which goes beyond anything found on canon in other English theoretical writings. Bevin's legacy in this treatise is the exposition of the art of canon in a systematic arrangement suitable for students of this discipline, with a thorough presentation of procedures and techniques that occupied the attention of many musicians in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.