Galin Pierre, *1786 Samatan, †31 August 1821 Bordeaux, French mathematician and teacher. Drawing on the guidance of J.-J. Souhaitty (Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre le plain-chant et la musique, 1665) and J.-J. Rousseau (Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique, 1742), he created a simplified method for teaching the basics of music, known as the “meloplast,” which involved marking successive notes of the scale with numbers; together with a system of additional specifying symbols, this replaced the staff and musical notes. From 1817, he taught music courses using this method, which gained many supporters and promoters among Galin’s students, including A. Lemoine, and especially A. and N. Paris and E. Chevé. They developed Galin’s idea, formulating a method that eventually became known as the Galin-Paris-Chevé method.
Exposition d’une nouvelle méthode pour l’enseignement de la musique, Bordeaux 1818, Dutch edition 1821, revised edition, ed. A. Lemoine titled Méthode du méloplaste, Paris 1824, 2nd edition, Lyon 1835
