[1] Today, the term is often loosely applied to all unnotated inflections (whether they are actually recta or ficta notes; see below) that must be inferred from the musical context and added either by an editor or by performers themselves.
[1] However, some of the words used in modern reference books to represent musica ficta, such as "inflection", "alteration", and "added accidentals" lie outside the way many Medieval and Renaissance theorists described the term.
[2] Throughout the period that incorporated musica ficta, singers sight read melodies through a series of interlocked hexachords that formed the backbone of the solmization system—a method that eventually became the modern system of tonic sol-fa.
The signs b mollis and b durum were not notated with any regularity in vocal sources of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and although the principles that singers used to supply the missing information were discussed in theoretical treatises, the explanations are far too cursory to enable modern musicians to reconstruct the old practices with any degree of accuracy.
[18] Today, editors usually show their recommendations for ficta in Medieval and Renaissance music by placing an accidental sign above the note in question.