Ortiz served the Spanish court in Italy for a number of years. Initially he was the master of song for the viceregal and later the master of music to the Duke of Alcala. Ortiz dedicated his "First book of Music" to the Duke and the hymns, psalms, Salves and Magnificat appearing in that work are all based on plainsong. Ortiz's main contribution in the annals of music history was his "Trattado de glosas" which was a theory of ornamentation. In the body of his work Ortiz included a number of written examples of ornaments and discussed how long these ornaments should be played; unfortunately, he did not discuss how embellishments were to be added to musical scores on sight or in an improvisatory manner. ~ Keith Johnson