Octave species various available intervals could be combined in any order, even restricting species to just the diatonic genus would result in twelve ways of dividing the octave (and his 17th-century editor, Marcus Meibom, pointed out that the actual number is 21), but "only seven species or forms are melodic and symphonic" . Those octave species that cannot be mapped onto the system are therefore rejected . In chant theory beginning in the 9th century, the "New Exposition" of the composite treatise called "Alia musica" developed an eightfold modal system from the seven diatonic octave species of ancient Greek theory, transmitted to
Octave species Octave species In early Greek music theory, an octave species (εἶδος τοῦ διὰ πασῶν, or σχῆμα τοῦ διὰ πασῶν) is a sequence of incomposite intervals (ditones, minor thirds, whole tones, semitones of various sizes, or quarter tones) making up a complete octave . The concept was also important in Medieval and Renaissance music theory. Greek theorists used two terms interchangeably to describe what we call species: "eidos" (εἶδος) and "skhēma" (σχῆμα), defined as "a change in the arrangement of incomposite [intervals] making up a compound magnitude while the number and size of the intervals remains the same" ( (da Rios),