G

1. The fifth (DOMINANT) degree of the C major scale. In France, Italy, Spain, and Russia, Sol. SOLMIZATION is the practice of singing scales beginning with Sol, the lowest note of the GUIDONIAN HAND.

GUIDO D'AREZZO (C. 991-C. 1033), an Italian monk and musical educator, is famous for many important innovations in teaching music. One was the naming of the scale notes Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, establishing standard names for each degree. Another was developing the four-line music staff for notation. Finally, he pioneered the GUIDONIAN HAND, a way for choir directors to indicate the notes to be sung by assigning different scale tones to different parts of the hand.

2. G, gauche in m.g. (main gauche, left hand). 3. G. (G.O.), grand orgue (great organ).