Claudio Monteverde (1567–1643) was born in Cremona, a town made famous by the great makers of violins. Monteverde was one of the first great innovators in music, and he brought new ideas and vast changes into music as an art. His teacher, Marc Antonio Ingegneri, Chapel Master at the Cathedral, taught young Monteverde all the tricks of counterpoint and of the great polyphonic masters, and also gave him lessons on the organ and the viol. He must have been a very talented pupil, for he could play any instrument, and at the age of sixteen, published his first book of madrigals,—_Canzonette a tre voci_ (Little Songs in Three Voices). The last song in this book has these charming words: “Now, dear Songs, go in peace singing joyously, always thanking those who listen to you and kissing their hands, without speaking.” Evidently, little Italian boys were brought up to say nice things! Even in this first book of madrigals and the four books that followed, Monteverde tried experiments in harmony and wrote music that sounded harsh to 16th century ears. He was trying to create a style that would combine the best points of the old school of polyphony (many voices) with the new school of monody (one melody), and this is why he is called the originator of the modern style of composition, which is, melody and accompaniment. Since his time there have been many originators of new styles in music, and when first heard they have usually been received with harsh words by the many and liked by the few. Monteverde was severely criticized in a book that appeared in Venice, in 1600, on the short-comings of modern music, (and they are still writing “on the short-comings of modern music” today!). The book was written by the monk, Artusi, who liked the old-fashioned music and believed that Monteverde’s work was against all natural musical laws. But if we search we will find that music grows through experiments that are made by the composers, who “go against natural laws,” then after the natural laws are broken, comes a learned theorist who shows that no law was broken at all, and so we go on stretching the boundaries of “natural law,” and music goes on changing all the time. This is what we mean by the growth of music.