Step 1

• Listen to the 3 examples below to answer the following questions

1. Share your overall impression of the music of Medieval times.

Medieval music definitely has its time and place, but overall I do quite like it. I probably wouldn't choose to listen to church or secular chants in my free time, but I do think that it is a very beautiful type of music. 

1. How does Medieval music sound similar to the music of Ancient Times?

The tones of Medieval music are very similar to the music of Ancient Times, very serene and calming. The earlier versions of Medieval music, before the development of organums, are quite similar to Ancient music in terms of tempo and type of song i.e. monophony. 

1. How does Medieval music sound different from the music of Ancient Times?

The influence of the Church on music in the Medieval age removed much of the accompanying instruments that were present in Ancient Times. The Medieval Era also gave way to more variation in music, with the first versions of polyphony being used and taught, something that was not present in Ancient music. 

A.  Middle Ages Part 1

B.  Middle Ages Part 2

C.  Middle Ages Part 3

 

Step 2

• Compare and Contrast Musical Elements of Ave Maris Stella (Sacred) & Trotto (Secular)

1. Mood

Ave: Happy, celebratory, but composed and serene.

Trotto: Another happy, celebratory song, but with more casual gusto. 

1. Tempo

Ave: Fast

Trotto: Fast

1. Rhythm

Ave: Simple rhythm with melismas usually at the ends of phrases. 

Trotto: More complicated rhythms, a polyphony, the pipes(?) playing a more complicated rhythm while the drums took the main beat and had variations from time to time. 

1. Purpose

Ave: A celebratory chant for Easter, representing the ascension of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

Trotto: Sounds like a song for dance and feasting, perhaps to celebrate the return of a king or a lord to his castle. 

Step 1

• Use the resources below as well as those of your own choosing to answer the following questions

1. Provide approximate dates for the Middle Ages punctuated with notable world/historical events

The Middle Ages ranged from the 5th century to the 15th century. Beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and holding such events as the Crusades and the Black Death, eventually giving way to the Renaissance, or the Age of Discovery.  

1. Describe various characteristics that distinguish sacred music from secular music during the Middle Ages

Sacred: church controlled (obviously), tune and polyphony most important, composing only for monks and clerics (most did not preserve popular secular music), controlled by the rules of the liturgy, each prayer had its own music, official music of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was called Plainchant (Gregorian chant was early type), modes and reciting tones, elaborate melody saved for important events, antiphons, melismas, and sequences

Secular:  troubadours/trouvères (aristocratic poet-musicians), knights, princes, and kings could all be troubadours (Richard The Lion Heart was a troubadour), female composers, some composed words only and left the music to be written by jongleurs (they played while troubadours sang), improv or singing to drones, estampie, polyphony moved away from church, ars nova, isorhythm, chanson 

1. Describe the 5 parts of the Ordinary of the Mass(latin names for each section and their basic translations)

1) Kyrie: Lord Have Mercy Upon Us..., 2) Gloria: Glory be to thee..., 3) Credo: I believe in God the Father..., 4) Sanctus: Holy, Holy, Holy..., 5) Agnus Dei: O Lamb of God... The words in the mass that are not from the Ordinary are called the Proper. 

1. Distinguish between syllabic, neumatic and melismatic chant style

Syllabic: a style of chant where each syllable in a musical phrase is given its own note.

Neumatic: style of plainsong where each syllable is sung as two to four notes. A symbol called a neume is used to differentiate which notes are used for each syllable.

Melismatic: a style of chant where there are several notes sung on each syllable.

1. Provide a few nuggets of trivia regarding the history of Guido D'Arezzo

Life Span: 991/992- after 1033

Bio: Guido D'Arezzo was an Medieval Italian music theorist who is credited with inventing modern music notation. This system replaced the neumatic style of notation. He wrote the Micrologus, which was the second most distributed musical treatise in the Middle Ages. Guido was a Benedictine monk from the city-state of Arezzo, although his early career was spent at the monastery of Pomposa. He noticed that the monks there had trouble learning Gregorian chants. He gave them a new teaching system, but when he ran into hostility at the abbey, he moved to Arezzo. He created teaching methods with staff notation and used the "ut-re-mi-fa-so-la" mnemonic. He also created the Guidonian Hand. The Micrologus contained all of Guido's teachings and attracted Pope John XIX, who invited Guido to Rome. He remained there for some time, but moved back to Arezzo due to his declining health. 

1. Provide a few nuggets of trivia regarding the Guidonian Hand 

The Guidonian Hand is a mnemonic system that attaches notes to areas on the hand. It existed before his time but it wasn't refined until the 12th century when Guido D'Arezzo used it to help monks at the abbey learn to sight sing quicker. Guido used this system to teach hexachords and the first Western use of Solfege. Each portion of the Guidonian hand represents a specific note within the hexachord system. In a lesson, the instructor would point to a certain spot on their hand and then the students would sing the notes that matched with it. This system is similar to the hand motions that are used with solfege. 

1. Explain the various features of this Cool Resource

The resource is a virtual example of the Guidonian hand. There are different hexachords that you can choose to listen to, and the matching spot on the hand will light up with a different color. There is also an animated example of a Kyrie with the note progression playing while an arrow is pointed at each spot on the hand based on the hexachords. There is also a written explanation of the source and history of the Guidonian hand. 

1. Describe your observations regarding the use of this Guidonian Hand Demonstration

It is definitely something that would seem to be overly complicated today, but it must've been revolutionary to singers and musicians back then. I can see the similarities between this system and the hand positions used in solfege. 

 

Step 2

• To what extent does pitch vary throughout this Gregorian Chant?

The pitch does vary quite a lot, but usually by very small intervals.

Step 3

• Describe similarities and differences between the Gregorian Chant above and the music of Hildegard

It had much of the same tones as the Gregorian Chant but seemed happier than it as well. The Gregorian chant had a broader range and more melismas, while the Hildegard piece had a narrower range and less melismas. 

 

Step 4

• How do changes in pitch reflect changes in mood in this organum by Leoninus

The lower pitches signified something more melancholy, while the higher pitches seemed more celebratory and happy.

 

Step 5

• Describe musical elements in terms of what is represented and what is not in this example by Guillaume de Machaut

Present elements: pitch, rhythm, tempo (a faster one for most of the piece), harmony (instrumental accompaniment) , melody (vocals), mood (solemn but not necessarily sad), language (sung words), style (the whole song had a bouncy style to it), dynamics (mix of softer and lower dynamics), timbre (mix of multiple instruments and multiple vocals created a serene sounding tone), form (went back and forth between areas of just instruments, and instruments and vocals), texture (mix of multiple instruments and multiple vocals), expression (on certain notes, usually at the beginning of phrases).

 

(Musical Elements; Pitch, Rhythm, Dynamics, Tempo, Texture, Timbre, Form, Purpose, Harmony, Melody, Expression, Mood, Language, Style, etc.)

• Bonus Video:  Orlando Consort describes Guillaume Machaut as the "James Taylor" of his day.

Step 1

• Provide a brief description of this Neume Notation; observations, patterns, etc.

There are definite similarities between a few of them, you can see that certain groups of symbols evolved into notes, such as groups of two symbols turning into two eighth notes and so on. Although there are similarities, there are also many differences, the technique if note writing has definitely been refined over the centuries. 

• Describe differences between Medieval Notation Neumes & Modern Notation Notes in terms of shapes, lines and colors

The first thing I noticed actually had nothing to do with the notes, but rather had to do with the lyrics. It is evident that many of the letters common in Old and Middle English were still in use here, even when the song is put into a different notation form. Six lines on a staff as opposed to five. The pitch geography remains the same, or at least similar in both the old and new one. No clearly marked measures. Also, the older notation doesn't include stems on every note. There is also text in the middle of the page in the Medieval one, which is generally not the case in modern music. 

• Demonstrate 3 Chant Styles using the template found in this Neume Project

Edited PDF

 

Step 2

• Provide a brief narrative on Sumer is a Cumin In; history, trivia, manuscript, significance, text, etc.

(Image of manuscript below) Sumer is Icumin In is a medieval round written in the 13th century to celebrate the arrival of summer. It is written in the Wessex dialect of Middle English. The composer is unknown, but it is believed to be written and composed by W. de Wycombe. This round is the oldest known musical composition that contains a six part polyphony. 

 

Step 3

• Use this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to answer the following questions

1. Is this an example of a sacred Gregorian Chant or a secular Estampie?

Since the scene depicts monks, it is probably some rendition of a sacred Gregorian Chant. 

1. What is the language of this text?

It sounds as if it is in Latin. 

1. Is the texture monophonic, heterophonic, homophonic or polyphonic?

The texture is monophonic because it only has one melody.

1. Bonus trivia; Describe the Church Mode and use of Organum

• The Church Mode (also called the ecclesiastical mode or Gregorian mode): any one of the 8 medieval modes made of whole and half tones by medieval theorists. Was probably used in early Christian vocal music. 
• Organum: The Organum is the earliest genre of polyphonic music. There is also the parallel organum (or counterpoint melody) which sung closely parallel to the chant melody. Eventually these organa evolved to have fixed rhythms, changing notes, and multiple melodies. 

Step 1

• Use this Leuven Chansonnier resource(reading, video & image tour) to check out a NEWLY DISCOVERED 15th Century Songbook

• Sang through one of these at a lecture held at the Amherst Early Music Festival 2017, heard for the first time in 600 years!

THIS IS SO COOL! Now I need to book a trip to Belgium. 

Use the following resources to provide responses for each topic

1.  Benjamin Bagby-Bio & Background

Benjamin Bagby is a descendent from a Germanic clan that came from Jutland, Denmark, to England in the seventh century. His family branch then moved to Virginia nearly a thousand years later, and Benjamin was born near the Great Lakes. He first became enamoured by the epic Beowulf when he was 12 years old. He moved back to Europe as an adult, where he created the medieval music ensemble Sequentia, a group that was based in Cologne, Germany, for 25 years. Both Bagby and Sequentia now reside in Paris, France. Bagby is a singer, harper, director, teacher, and writer. His is on the faculty of the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he teachers in the master's program for medieval music performance practice. Bagby and Sequentia have also produced musical reconstructions of the Icelandic writing Edda (I want to read the Edda). His most recent with Sequentia is about early medieval songs about the apocalypse. 

2.  Beowulf-Time, Authorship, Duration, Bardic Traditions

Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem which is believed to have been written in the early eleventh century. Although it is untitled, it has been called Beowulf after the name of the main character. Some scholars do not agree with the dating of the poem, some say it could have been written as early as the sixth century, but nevertheless, the story has its roots in the art of the scop or creator. The scop was a bardic storyteller and reciter at various types of gatherings, and their services were vital to the culture of tribal society in early medieval England. 

The scop would re-tell the story of Beowulf, using both song and speech, and perhaps accompanying himself with a six-stringed harp (known from contemporary accounts). His audience would be very receptive to the finest details of sound, meaning, metre, rhythm, timing, and mood. The performance could last between five and six hours, and would never be exactly the same; such is the nature of live storytelling. 

It is difficult to re-vocalise a medieval text because the written source only represents one version (not guaranteed the best version) of a text from an oral tradition. There are many reasons behind the attempt: powerful, intact (mostly non-European) bardic traditions; instrument makers who have carefully reconstructed 7th century Germanic harps; and from scholars who have shown active interest in turning written words back into oral poetry meant to be absorbed by ear/spirit instead of the eye/brain. The primary motivation is the language of the piece itself, which possesses a chilling, magical power that no modern translation can live up to. 

3.  The Harp & Music-Features, Details

The six stringed harp that Bagby used was built by Rainer Thurau in Germany. The instrument was based on the remains of a harp found in the grave of a 7th century Alemannic nobleman in Oberflacht. It is comprised of a thin, hollow corpus with no soundholes. There are also strong indications that it also had six gut strings, a tailpiece and a free-standing bridge. The bardic instrument is the key piece of evidence because it provides six tones. The tuning that was eventually used was formed by a careful study of early medieval modal theory, and they eventually came up with a gapped octave of three perfect fifths and two perfect 4ths. The resulting tones are a musical matrix, where the singer can weave their own rhetorical shapes and the sophisticated metrics of the text. Anglo-Saxons were very attuned to this web of sounds and syllable lengths, which was an aural event combined with the story being told. The harp is a fairly quiet instrument, but to the ear of the bard it possesses endless variations of gestures, melodic cells and repetitive figurations which end up inspiring the shape of the vocals. The performer may move anywhere from straight speech to full song, and the instrument acts as a constant point of reference; a symbol of the scop and his near magical role in the community. 

4.  Performance Excerpt-Musical Elements

Homophony (although it seems like the harp and voice trade off being the melody), the harp usually starts the phrase and then Bagby begins singing, very intricate stringwork, the vocals are a lot louder than the harp, but you can still hear it. 

5.  Performance Interview-5 interesting takeaways

1. Bagby said that as the scop he can make commentary on the story, not just tell it. Drops out of music for this part usually.
2. The screen text is a barebones translation of the text being sung. They didn't want a lyrical read translation to distract from the music and singing. 
3. Anglo-Saxon irony and sarcasm.
4. The pacing came from came from a long period of time; first he had the mode and then adapted his playing and his singing afterward. Not a matter of creating melodies, everything he plays comes from his head, he didn't physically compose anything. 
5. Bagby never found himself fitting into the mold of classical music, was inspired by a performance of medieval Japanese storytelling with a stringed instrument. 
6. Ideas of both compacted and drawn out time.
7. Many old Germanic languages are very similar; Old Icelandic and Old English have very strong similarities. Frisian (language of the Northern Netherlands) very similar to Old English.
8. First instance of the word naked was found in Beowulf.
9. Beowulf teaching a lesson to young aristocratic men.
10. Ben Bagby is a very humble man.