incipits

Incipit is a term derived from Latin incipit, meaning "it begins." In scholarly use, an incipit is the opening words or opening musical notation that identify a text or composition. In music, an incipit consists of the initial notes, chords, or syllables with which a piece begins. It is commonly used for anonymous, unsigned, or undated works, especially in medieval and Renaissance repertoires, where full titles are not always given. A musical incipit can be presented as a short staff notation fragment or as a textual phrase. The incipit acts as a practical shorthand for cataloging and reference, and it appears in scholarly catalogs and concordances.

In textual scholarship, the incipit refers to the first words of a manuscript or printed work and serves as an identifying cue. The practice dates from manuscript transmission, when distinctive opening phrases helped readers locate copies. Incipits may be used in conjunction with explicit (the closing words) to define a text's boundaries.

In modern libraries and databases, incipits remain a common metadata element for music manuscripts, chant fragments, and early printed books. They enable researchers to search for pieces by their opening material when full titles are absent or uncertain. The term remains a standard technical word in musicology, philology, and bibliographic cataloging.