Literally translatable as "Light and North music," this lovely title identifies Spanish guitarist de Ribayaz's collection of music for that instrument published in Madrid in 1677. This is the only work which this composer is known to have published. By the "light" in the "north," the composer presumably wishes to focus our attention on the North Star as the traditional heavenly guide for sailors and desert dwellers, navigating us as it were through the music, and shedding light by imbuing the spirit of living music into theoretical principles. The composer, of which little is known, may have been drawn toward this image by a journey he describes in the introduction: after his ordination as a priest, and years of service to various counts and the Spanish Court, he had traveled by sea to "remote and overseas provinces," a reference to Spanish colonies in the New World.

The complete title of the work is Luz y norte musical para caminar por las cifras de la guitarra española y arpa, tañer, y cantar a compás por canto de órgano; y breve explicación del arte. The collection includes a basic study course for playing the Spanish Baroque guitar and two-course harp, instructions on music theory and musicianship, and "Ecos del libro" (Echoes of the Book) which is an appendix of works in seventeenth-century Spanish dance forms (folia, jácaras, canario, passacalles, and so on) notated in tablature: guitar pieces by Gaspar Sanz (from whose 1674 Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española Ruiz de Ribayaz liberally quotes), harp pieces by Andrés Lorente and Juan del Vado, and other unsigned pieces most likely by Ruiz de Ribayaz.

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