Cadential Accidentals in the "Buxheim Organ Book" and Its Concordances: A Mid-15th-Century Contex for "musica ficta" Practice

Scholars of Renaissance music face challenges when interpreting pitch notations. There is confusion over how musicians adjusted pitch. An essay is presented that examines the notational practice found in the "Buxheim Organ Book", an 18th-century manuscript, in order to understand the guidelines followed by its scribes. These techniques are placed into the wider context of notational practices of the Renaissance. Trends are examined through the patterns found in accidentals through computer-aided analysis.