Printed plainchant in Mexico, 1556-1589: the first music printed in the Americas

Seventeen years after the press reached Mexico City it was printing music. A 1556 Augustinian Ordinarium carries plainchant notes in red and black; a 1568 doctrina set wholly in Mixtec carries them too; and by 1584 and 1589 the Mexican presses were making choirbooks of three hundred and of 132 folios. The purpose was liturgical and evangelising, and one book says so: Sahagún's 1583 psalmody was arranged as songs for Indians to sing in the dances held in the churches.