Estimated reading time 2 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you want to know more about medieval chant? Gregorian chants are essentially medieval church songs that have a mysterious yet serene quality to them. Also, they played a pivotal role in developing modern musical notation. Keep reading to discover early music via beautiful medieval Gregorian chants.
This article uses musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Discover Early Music Via Medieval Gregorian Chants: Why Are They Called “Gregorian?”
This type of medieval chant got its name from Pope Gregory I:
- He is credited with collecting and categorizing Gregorian chants.
- Plainchant is monophonic, meaning that all the monks sang the same melody in unison.
- The big, echoey sound of the monasteries and cathedrals combined with the Latin text lends a mystical quality to these simple tunes.
The melodies have a flowing sound because the rhythms are controlled by the poetical meter of the Latin text combined with the melismatic neumes.
Discover Early Music Via Medieval Gregorian Chants: How Is it Linked to the Development of Sheet Music?
Plainchant and political ambition lead to the development of Western music notation:
- In the late first millennium, Charlemagne wanted to unify his empire.
- He knew that to do this he had to unify the culture of the different people who lived under his rule.
- Since the church was central to the lives of the people, this meant that the liturgy had to be unified.
However, since the entire mass was sung, Charlemagne’s people had to unify the music in order to unify the liturgy.
Mobile users: for best results reading the examples, rotate your screen 90o to the right.
The picture above shows a medieval music manuscript:
- The four lines and three spaces on the medieval staff allowed the monks to graph out the notes as higher and lower sounds.
- For the first time, this allowed them to be able to sing melodies they had never heard before.
- How did they do this? They were able to sing from sheet music using solfege syllables.
The melodies often followed the rhythm of the Latin text:
- However, in the picture above, when you see the “notes” these are called neumes.
- Neumes allowed the monks to add melismatic ornaments to the melody.
- In other words, the neumes made it so they could have more than one note per syllable of text.
Video: Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos
Even though these medieval melodies are hundreds of years old, they became trendy in the 1990s. For example, the video (above) was a top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart in 1994.
Final Thoughts on “Discover Early Music Via Beautiful Medieval Gregorian Chants”
Takeaway points:
- Medieval chants are monophonic, stepwise melodies.
- Pope Gregory I is credited with codifying the plainchant repertoire.
- Medieval chant played a pivotal role in developing modern musical notation.
Have fun listening!
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- Explore J.S. Bach’s Hypnotic Choral Music in Less Than Four Minutes
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