Guidonian hand
In Medieval music, the Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone; it does not have the depicted form until the 12th century. Sigebertus Gemblacensis in 1105–10 did describe Guido using the joints of the hand to aid in teaching his hexachord. The Guidonian hand is closely linked with Guido's new ideas about how to learn music, including the use of hexachords, and the first known Western use of solfege.
The Stenographers' Guild
Pitman Shorthand was introduced in 1837 with the release of the inventor's book, "Stenographic Sound Hand". It reached Madras in 1886 when a commercial school run by the Pachaiyappa Charities began teaching the language. The Stenographers' Guild was formed fifty years later under the initiative of N. Subramania Iyer, a reporter at the Corporation of Madras, and S. Sivaramakrishna Iyer and P. Ramanuja Iyer, shorthand writers of the High Court of Madras, who convened a meeting in Panagal Park attended by about 40 shorthand writers from the Courts, Police, Government and newspapers. The Guild was inaugurated by C. Rajagopalachari, at the time Chief Minister of Madras, on September 26, 1937. It was to be two more years before the Guild was to be registered as a society. Its aim was to train shorthand writers.