MEDIEVAL MUSICImportant things NOT covered in

your textbook!

Topics covered in this Powerpoint

The role of Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the creation of Gregorian chant.

The earliest Western music notations The earliest chant notations The three types of chant notes The invention of the musical staff The role of women in Medieval music-

making The social role of professional musicians More on the Notre Dame school

Did Pope Gregory I invent Gregorian chant?

NO. Chanting was already part of the worship celebrations of the early Christian church.

A popular legend states that Gregory I ordered that all liturgical music should be standardized throughout the Christian world, and that it should be written down.

Actually, the texts and the melodies of the liturgy were not standardized throughout Europe until the 12th century.

So when was “Gregorian” chant actually recorded in written form?

The most recent scholarship suggests that at the earliest, monks in what is modern-day France started to notate the chants in the 8th or 9th century.

For comparison, Gregory I was pope from 590-604 A.D.

Most of the surviving chant manuscripts date from the 10th-13th centuries, and musical notation became much more widespread throughout Europe.

So WHY did the chants get named after someone who lived hundreds of years before

they were written?

When the chants were beginning to be written down, there WAS a pope named Gregory – but it was Gregory II. Gregory I was much more famous, and it’s likely that early “historians” just attributed the musical innovation to the more famous pope. The Church even added to the legend, stating that a dove descended from heaven to dictate all the chants to the pope.

Greg the Great, taking dictation from a dove. Did NOT happen.

Then when did people begin to notate music?

People had experimented with music notation for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until the Medieval era that anyone came up with the concept of representing high sounds by placing symbols HIGHER on the page, and low sounds LOWER on the page.

What did previous attempts at music notation look like?

Left: Ancient Egyptian notation.Above: Ancient Greek notation.Red = lyrics. Green = notes!

Ancient Roman NotationFound in a Roman ruin. The text looks to be Greek.

Red = lyrics.

Green = notes.

Byzantine (post-Roman, Eastern Europe) Notation

This example was copied from an ancient example and put into a computer font. Red = lyrics.Green – notes.

These notes are actually starting to resemble the shape of some of the earliest “Gregorian” chant melodic notation.

So, WHO was the first person to write music down in notation that told you exactly HOW to

perform the music???

Monks.

Anonymous monks tinkered around with the existing notation systems and decided to go with the whole “draw shapes going higher when we have to sing higher, and draw shapes going lower when we sing lower, and keep them on the same level when we sing the same note” – thing.

Thank you, guys for your innovations. I have a hard enough time teaching kids how to read nice, neat modern notation. I would have gone insane teaching them Egyptian dots or Byzantine squiggles.

I couldn’t resist….

Lego Monks!!! Illuminating little Lego manuscripts in a little Lego scriptorium!!!

Moving on…

Neumatic Notation

You can clearly make out the up and down shapes of the notes. The language is Latin. The note-shapes are called “neumes.”Notice the blue arrow and the green notes above it. There are no lyrics underneath the notes, because the singers are singing the notes on the syllable “ah…” This is called a melisma.

The 3 types of neumatic notes.

Syllabic – One note per syllable.

Neumatic – Sing 2-4-ish notes per syllable.

Melismatic – Sing up to a bajillion notes per syllable. Melismas became such a popular compositional tool that it was very easy to lose track of the sacred text that was being sung because the singers were extending the vowels for so long. The Church actually, at times, had to issue decrees banning or at least limiting the length of melismas so that the listeners wouldn’t lose track of the text!

One really important monk with a name!

Finally, in the 11th century, someone came along who came up with a brilliant-yet-simple system of assigning those high-and-low notes to a system of lines or spaces, so that the performer would always have a good visual frame of reference.

His name?

Guido D’Arezzo

Ahem…Guido D’ArezzoGuido D’Arezzo devised the musical staff – that group of five lines and four spaces that you probably remember from general music class (were you ever quizzed on “Every Good Boy Does Fine?”) . If you’re totally confused – take a quick glance at pp. 32-33 in your text.

Anyway, he created a staff with 4 lines, and a clef. This allowed composers to tell performers, you will sing the pitch “E” whenever the neume (note) appears on this line. The space above it with always be the pitch “F” (which comes after E in the musical alphabet).And the space below will always be the pitch “D” (which comes before E in the musical alphabet.Speaking of musical alphabets…

Alas, there is no record of how impressive his abs were.

The Guidonian HandGuido also came up with this nifty visual aid to help musicians remember the names of the lines and spaces in his new staff notation.

It was copied out and distributed among the various monasteries, and made music-learning much more efficient for the monks and nuns. Hence the explosion of written chants.

An example of what written notation looked like after the invention of the musical staff

Left: a page of neumatic music written on the 4-line staff that Guido D’Arezzo invented.

Above: detail from the same manuscript. Blue arrows show the lines of the musical staff.

You mentioned nuns. So where were the ladies in all this?

St. Paul (one who wrote the Epistles) said in Corinthians I 14:34

“Mulieres in ecclesiis taceant…”

Or, “Let your women keep silence in the churches.”

Which was taken quite literally.

But we know that Medieval women did make music anywayNuns like Hildegard of Bingen lived in abbeys, separate from the monks and the general public, and they did in fact make music to worship in the privacy of their own religious communities.

But if you could time travel and drop in on a medieval Mass, you would hear all the music performed by men.

The highest vocal parts were taken by young boys whose voices had not yet changed. This tradition persisted in all Catholic churches until the 20th century.

And in fact, this past December, I happened to catch Christmas Mass being celebrated by the current pope on TV. And there was not a lady to be found in that choir. And yes, there were soprano and alto voices to be sure, but they belonged to boys, not ladies.

I will refrain from editorializing.

Do we have a record of women making music outside of the

sacred realm?YES – Medieval women certainly did make secular music.

Aristocratic women would make music as a hobby. They may from time to time, have presented some music among their peers in an intimate gathering, but they would have NEVER performed publicly. And certainly not for money.

Paid female performers

Certainly, there were women among the traveling troupes of jongleurs, but they were assumed to be prostitutes. Some of them surely did trade sex for money, as times could be very tough on the road (going “on the road” is still a huge challenge for anyone today who does not have superstar status). And many musicians (of both sexes) surely knew how to pick the pockets of their audience.Professional musicians (who did not belong to religious orders) were a tight-knit group, and just like the blacksmiths and tailors of the time, taught their trade to their children. So it made sense for them to make a life with someone who understood that life well. This phenomenon continues to this day in many branches of the performing arts – theater, music, dance and even circuses are often family affairs.

Professional musicians, then and now.

A recurring theme throughout all of music history if the artist struggling for public recognition. Notice the striped and parti-

colored clothes of these jongleurs. Bright, clashing colors and stripes were reserved for Medieval social outcasts such as Jews, executioners, prostitutes, those with a known criminal history, the mentally ill, and um…. musicians.

Like me :D

hmm…I DO have a lot of stripes in my closet…

For more on the fascinating history of colors and stripes in clothing, check out the works of Michel Pastoreau. His books are on Amazon. He’s amazing!

The Notre Dame Style of Organum

The most important thing about the Notre Dame School is the invention of the rhythmic modes.

Before this time, composers did not indicate how long notes were to be held, so the choirmasters took educated or stylistic guesses and their rhythms were passed down over hundreds of years.

Then along came Leonin and Perotin…

Leonin

NO! NO! NO!Google Images!!! What good are you??? I’m trying to teach a serious class here!!!

Leonin and Perotin

Leonin: NOT a cat-person Perotin looks depressed that he doesn’t get to be on Magic cards

Meow?sigh…

Leonin began using measured rhythm, called rhythm modes to specify to performers exactly how long to hold their notes. Perotin, his successor, made the practice even more widespread.

Rhythmic Modes

Here are the six Notre Dame rhythmic modes.

The composer would choose which one to use based on which mode best fit the text.

If you were to count these rhythms aloud, they would all subdivide into 3, the number of the Holy Trinity.

1 2 3 1 2 3

1 2 3 1 2 3

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 456 1 2 3 456

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 1 2 3

END