Jean Denis was clearly not a man of letters, and the language and syntax of the Traité de l'accord de l'espinette are frequently problematical, far more so than in other French musical treatises of the period. Sentences amble on at great length, often changing tense and subject along the way. Misprints, errors of grammar, and tangled constructions abound.

Topics in the Traité frequently change without the appearance of a new paragraph, resulting in blocks of text that sometimes extend unbroken for several pages. For the sake of clarity, these long units have been broken down into paragraphs of more reasonable length. Similarly, exceptionally long sentences have generally been broken down into shorter ones, without (it is hoped) compromising their sense. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected and translated without comment. Archaic punctuation has been modernized, and quotation marks and parentheses have been added where they are clearly called for by the context. Occasional editorial insertions in the text are enclosed in square brackets.

Throughout the entire translation, the word espinette has been translated as ‘harpsichord’ rather than ‘spinet’. In numerous French sources of the seventeenth century (such as the inventories of builders' shops), the terms espinette [spinet] and clavecin [harpsichord] are employed in contexts that clearly suggest a distinction between the two instruments. Nevertheless, the French also tended to use the word espinette in a general way to refer to all quilled instruments, much as the English employed the word ‘virginal’.