A Paris, Chez Christophe Ballard, 1705, in-8 oblong sewn(12 x 19 cm or 4.72 x 7.48 inches), 176 pp. (include 3 leaves without numbering and several folding tables), covered with contemporary marbled paper .
Sixth edition of this famous work printed by the same printer and the same year as the fifth edition. The 'Principes Tres-Faciles pour bien Apprendre la Musique' passed throught seven edition and the first edition was published in 1694. Himself a tenor singer, the author begins with the rudiments of music and ends up with transposition. He gives his opinion on melodic ornamentation and publishes as examples a great number of dance-songs. He give also his opinion on the grace of the song and publishes as examples a great number of songs to be danced. The author was one of the first to establish a figured notation of musical time, in particular of the dances, more than one century before the descovery of the modern metronome (1816). That's the way why the tempo of the airs printed in this book are regulated by a pendulum, a precursor of the metronome. Rousseau evokes this work in his Dictionary of Music (chronometer article). Among airs to be played which are retranscribed in this work, are mainly dance musics : faggot, swing, chaconne, gavotte, gigues, minuets, pavanne, passacaille, passepied, rigaudon, sarabands, etc. In spite of its several edition this work is quite difficult to find on sale and exist today in anastatic reprint. The National Library in Paris does not have edition former to 1705. Unequal margins, some minor and slighly waterstains and some minor spots. Cfr. RISM, Ecrits et imprimés concernant la musique, B VI, p. 471 ; Brenet, les Musiciens de la sainte Chapelle
.