A direct, also referred to by some English speaking musicians by its Italian name guida, its French name guidon, its German name wächter, or its Latin name custos, is a musical symbol used in
music notation
Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proces ...
to indicate the first note on the next
staff of the following page. Similar to a
catchword
A catchword is a word placed at the foot of a handwritten or Printing, printed page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the bookbinder or pr ...
in literary works, the direct symbol assists musicians with knowing which note is coming next during a page turn. The symbol was first used in the 11th century; sometime in place of a
clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff. Placing a clef on a staff assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines or four spaces, whic ...
on the next line. It was later adopted into
mensural notation
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for polyphony, polyphonic European vocal music from the late 13th century until the early 17th century. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measur ...
of the 13th through 17th centuries. Though a less commonly seen symbol in modern notation, it is still used by some composers today. Some contemporary publications utilize the direct symbol to indicate a continuation rather than as a reference to a specific upcoming
pitch. In these cases the symbol's meaning is comparable to an
et cetera
''Et cetera'' (, ), abbreviated to ''etc.'', ''et cet.'', ''&c.'' or ''&c'', is a Latin expression that is used in English to mean "and all the rest". "&" is a ligature of "et." Translated literally from Latin, can mean , while can mean ; th ...
in writing. When a
mordent
In music, a mordent is an ornament indicating that the note is to be played with ''a single'' rapid alternation with the note above or below. Like trills, they can be chromatically modified by a small flat, sharp or natural accidental. The ...
is used the meaning of the symbol can alter slightly depending on variations in the music notation of the
ornament.
References
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Musical notation