Talk:Gregorian chant/Archive

message: For all that I know, groups such as Era, Enigma (musical project) and Gregorian (music group) have produced rather sucessful songs with Gregorian chants in them. Since I don't know that much about it, could anyone write about the topic regarding Gregorian chants in modern music? --Andylkl (talk) 12:22, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
:I have a very limited experience with this type of fusion music. However, it seems that Gregorian modes i and iii are preferred. These are treated as jazz minor modes with the fifth as dominant, and with either a flattened second (mode iii) or a sharpened sixth (mode i) to give them the Gregorian feel. Plagal modes don't seem to be used very much (dominant is stuck on the fifth), and major modes, v and vii, are avoided probably for sounding too normal. This makes Gregorian music simpler than it really is, and gives the impression that it is a mediaeval kind of minor-mode jazz. --Gareth Hughes 18:42, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gregorian chants in modern music

message: When the caption for the sound file says "mode iii Gregorian chant", does that mean musical mode, and specifically Phrygian mode? (if so, we should link one or both).  Secondly, shouldn't it be "mode III" rather than "mode iii"? -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 12:51, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
:I fixed it.  Pange Lingua is indeed in Phrygian (at least the version set by Josquin--there's a couple variants of the tune).  I think capital III is correct.  Thanks for pointing this out. Antandrus  (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mode

message: Re: Mak's question about early notation and heightened neumes: The early neumatic notation didn't specify pitches; it's what I learned to call cheironomic notation, although cheironomy is only one of several theories concerning the origins of the neumes.  They showed the contour of the melody for each syllable, so that relative pitch was indicated within any given neume (e.g., a torculus meant go higher than the first pitch, then go lower than the first pitch), but two neumes on adjacent syllables wouldn't have been placed higher or lower to indicate a higher or lower starting pitch for the next neume.  That said, I have my dates wrong; If I'm interpreting Grove right, the earliest extant notated chant, using unheightened neumes, comes from the 9th through 11th centuries; pitch-specific heightened neumes and staff notation are 11th and 12th, while square notation kicked in during the 13th. I'll update the article.  Peirigill 18:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's an image from commons of what I was thinking of for very early neumes. Unfortunately the page at commons has very little info about it. Would this be useful for the article? All I can say about it is that it's a Jubilate deo. Mak (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh!  How'd I miss that?!  That's perfect for cheironomic neumes.  I know I've run into "Jubilate deo universa terra" before... IIRC, Apel reproduced an old Offertory verse with that text that's over-the-top melismatic.  Chances are good that there's a chant in the modern books that corresponds to it.  I'll dig through the ol' Liber and Graduale; I'm sure I can find some info on this chant for the caption.  Thanks! Peirigill 20:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: this might be the same in more readable form. Mak (talk) 20:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's basically the same text (Psalm 66: 1, 2, 16) but the older version is missing the phrase "[omnes] qui timetis deum," and except for the phrase "& narrabo vobis," the chant contour of the cheironomic neumes doesn't match the square notation.  Since the two chants use the same particular psalm verses, they're almost certainly related, but until someone can verify the actual source of the image, I think it's better just to identify it as a sample of unheightened neumes without speculating on the source.  Peirigill 07:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oof, I'm a doof, the melodic contour looked a lot more similar when I was looking at it before... wishful thinking. Mak (talk) 17:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Heightened neumes

message: Just one observation about your recent edits, Mak (thank you!).  While it's true that women in religious orders did sing Gregorian chant back in the day, and even women in the laity are no longer proscribed from doing so nowadays, traditionally it was restricted to men and boys, with women singers in religious orders being the exception rather than the rule.  That seems important.  I put the details about women singing down in the "Performance practice" section, and left it out of the lead, with the idea that the lead should summarize rather than go into a lot of detail.  Also, strictly speaking, your changing "male clergy" to "clergy" doesn't really make things more inclusive, since women were not (and still aren't) clergy in Roman Catholicism.  I still lean towards including the gender restriction in the lead with the caveat of "traditionally," but if that's too much of a "weasel word," I'll defer.  Peirigill 22:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, good points, however, how much did lay people sing Gregorian chant in the early days? (i.e. 10th-15th centuries) I don't think they sang it very much at all in this period. The choirs you are most likely thinking of were, I believe, made up of men and boys who had taken some sort of orders, as opposed to later church choirs (who sang polyphony) which were made up of singers who more frequently hadn't taken orders. I was more thinking about people who have taken vows, um, the name for which I forget right now. My point is, the main people who sang Gregorian chant during the period when women/the leity weren't allowed, were people who had taken orders, both men and women, making the women who sang it in convents, etc. a part of the general rule "people who had taken religious orders sang it". Mak (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll need to double-check, but the fact that boys could sing suggests to me that they didn't need to have ordained - heck, they hadn't even been confirmed!  While nuns might have sung the Office, Mass remained the exclusive province of men, at least for the chants performed by deacons and priests.  The key issue here, though, is the use of Gregorian chant outside of monasteries and convents, in regular churches with lay congregations.  Women would not have been allowed to sing in the choir there, whether lay or religious.  The question is, which is the exceptional case: the women-only communities, or the lay congregations?  I'm inclined to say that women singing chant was the exception, not the rule.  A quick Google search seems to support this - [] - but I'm going to check my texts at home and double-check. Peirigill 23:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In regards to the boys, I was thinking about neophytes, sent to become monks by their fathers who had too many kids. I'm not sure about lay choirs singing chants (if it was the whole congregation, I think women have always been included) vs women-only communities. I'm not so sure google is the way to find out in this circumstance, either. I think the way it was worded was misleading, however, since women have never been categorically excluded from singing chant, only from performing in mixed company. Mak (talk) 00:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems relevant, taken from Women in Music, ed. Carol Neuls-Bates: "Although early Christians preached the spiritual equality of all people, they denied women full participation in religious life, initially excluding them from the priesthood.  Women were important as singers, however, both as members of the congregation and in choirs through the fourth century.  After the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire with the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313, the Church began to perfect its organization and standardize practices.  Congregational singing was gradually abandoned, beginning in the second half of the fourth century, and all musical portions of services were entrusted to professional choirs of men and boys.  Two accounts here describe the participation of women as singers before they were officially silenced."  Oddly, Grove doesn't even seem to address the issue in the "Plainchant" article.  Peirigill 02:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that interesting quote. I'm not that surprised by Grove leaving it out, lately I've noticed more and more Grove leaving out important contributions of women, or leaving anything which has to do with women and music to the Women in Music article. But, for this article specifically, and even more specifically the lead, how is this: "Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or Religious(this is apparently the word) in their chapels."? I'd say that the use of Gregorian chant in monastic settings is pretty important, so I think that both that and choral/lay-church use is important. I didn't realise how early the switch to professional choirs was, which was part of my problem. Mak (talk) 02:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Works for me.  Howzabout "members of Religious orders" instead of "Religious" to emphasize the lay/religious distinction? Peirigill 07:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, technically the word is Religious, but I wasn't very happy with that either. Mak (talk) 15:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Women as chant singers

message: You note that chants that seem to have a final of A or B are transpositions of Dorian or Phrygian modes. What about ending on C (what is sometimes called Ionian)? Is it unknown in the Gregorian repertoire? I would guess by analogy that it would be classified as Lydian but I don't know. Rigadoun 17:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question; I'll have to check. Peirigill 19:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apel lists four chants that end on a C.  Three are classified as Mode 6 (Hypolydian) and one as Mode 8 (Hypomixolydian).  It makes sense that they're plagal, since the authentic modes transposed up a fifith or a fourth (depending on whether B's or B-flats are needed) would result in notes higher than than gamut.  All the chants ending on B are Mode 4, and the chants ending on A (the largest group, including the Iustus ut palma group) include Modes 1, 2, 3, and 4.  I've revised the article to talk about transposition in terms of finding a mode with the same hexachords, to avoid bogging down in details. Peirigill 21:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ending on C?

message: Smith2006 added:
"A certain similarity to Jewish chant of the Temple is also stressed by researchers. The structures of both sorts of chant have many similarities and thus point to a common origin."
This issue has come up before, but it doesn't appear to reflect the most recent scholarship.  Please note Hiley's discussion (footnote #4 in the article), which I summarized in the preceding section ("Development of plainchant prior to Gregorian") as follows: "It has long been thought that early Christian singing derived directly from Jewish psalmody, but recent analysis suggests otherwise, on the grounds that many early Christian hymns did not have Psalms for texts, and that the singing of Psalms did not take place in synagogues for several centuries after the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE."
Also, please note Grove: "Most liturgical and music historians had long assumed that the early Christian liturgy was adopted from Jewish ritual practices. Now, however, it appears that for all the obvious general influence of Judaism upon Christianity – Christianity after all originated as a Jewish sect – it is often a mistake to trace Christian liturgical usage to specific Jewish practices."  (James W. McKinnon: 'Christian Church, music of the early', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 20 June 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com>)
I'm also skeptical of the claim that the Jewish chant of the Temple resembles anything, since that chant isn't extant, having essentially perished with the Destruction of the Second Temple.  Music in the synagogue was different and didn't include psalmody until centuries later... about the same time the Christians were starting their practice of psalmody.
There are some clear liturgical connections, such as the threefold "sanctus" coming from Jewish practice, but I've already cited that.
Smith2006, can you cite a source more recent than 1995 that documents that Jewish chant is still "stressed by researchers," or that establishes a musical connection between Jewish Temple chant and early Christian worship?  All the recent sources I have say that the Jewish/early Christian musical connection is no longer considered reliable scholarship.  Peirigill 19:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Relationship between Jewish and early Christian chant

message: There's a contradiction between "Its melodic features include characteristic incipits and cadences, an underlying structure of hexachords that allows B-flat as the only standard accidental" and "The B-flat was an integral part of the system of hexachords, and not an accidental."  It's not an accidental, in the sense that there was no "flat" per se.  B and B-flat were both B's, one hard and one soft, depending on the hexachord.  The flat sign is itself just a softened "B".  However, it is an accidental in the sense that it's an alteration of a pitch, which is more or less the definition of "accidental."  What's a good way to resolve this? Peirigill 22:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I think I've got it resolved.  Peirigill 02:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: B-flat

message: I'm uncomfortable with the recent edit from "Gregorian chant was transcribed by an early form of musical notes called neumes, which evolved into our modern musical notation" to "Gregorian chant was transcribed as a series of neumes, an early form of musical notation."
*Since "neume" is a term that's probably unfamiliar to most readers, I think some brief explanation should be made of what a "neume" is.
*Neumes aren't just any old form of early notation.  They're the form that evolved into modern Western notation, which makes them more historically relevant.
I'd like to see these particular edits reverted.  What do you think? Peirigill 22:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't object to mentioning the evolution, I just couldn't find a way to say it that didn't sound awkward. The preposition by is incorrect as used in the first example. You could say "it was transcribed by using an early form of musical notes. That might be the easiest fix. But really, it's an early form of musical notation, not just music notes. If this is changed, then the sentence becomes awkward when musical notation is mentioned again. I'm sure there's a way to fix it though so everyone's happy. Any ideas? -- MarkBuckles 04:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotcha.  Howzabout "Gregorian melodies were transcribed using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern five-line staff would develop"? Peirigill 00:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. And howzabout wikifying "five-line staff" like this: five-line staff? MarkBuckles 04:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done! Peirigill 07:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits to "neumes" in lede

message: "Certain classes of Gregorian chant have a separate musical formula for each mode"—What type of musical formula does this refer to? Tony 12:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It refers to recitation tones for the direct psalmody of the Offices.  The intonation of a Psalm depends on the musical mode of its antiphon.  (There are also the (rarely used) tonus peregrinus and the obsolete (no longer used) parapteres tones, not associated with any mode, which can be omitted from a survey article.)  There are also more complex recitation tones associated with the modes for the psalm verses in Introits (and in earlier times, in Offertories and Communions), and more complex tones yet for Responsory verses. There are also tones for the Magnificat, Benedictus, the Invitatory Psalm "Venite exultemus," and a few other minor chants, though these are not always mode-specific.  Peirigill 19:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You could clarify the relationship between Palestrina and the aesthetic standards of the late sixteenth century by saying something like "by making the chants conform to the contemporary aesthetic standards exemplified by the Renaissance melodies of Palestrina," but that gets unwieldy.  I'm just going to excise the clause. The details are explained in the Rhythm section anyway. Peirigill 18:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Attempt made. Peirigill 18:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  query 

message: Can we move the huge audio file thing from the beginning of the article to underneath the image? Seems very obtrusive currently. MarkBuckles 23:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know.  The syntax for media files allows you to put the sound file on the "right," but no matter what I try, the sound file stays on the left edge of the page.  I'll ask on the Technical Help page.  Maybe there's a way to put both the pictorical image and the media file together in a large "userbox."  I had hoped to add the sound file in order to make the image not just a pretty picture but a demonstrable musical artefact, to borrow Makemi's phrase, but if the sound file is offputting, it can be removed.  Peirigill 19:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I created an infobox. Let me know if you think it looks okay. The file is also still a redlink - is the sound file yet to be acquired? MarkBuckles 22:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The link has been fixed. Mak (talk) 22:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The box looks great!  Is there a way to "un-bold" the text explaining the media?  Also, I had intended to bold only the vowels in "seculorum amen" to highlight the not-so-immediately-obvious "EVOVAE."  Can that be restored?  Peirigill 00:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, got it. -- MarkBuckles 03:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Top of article

message: The sentence describing who sang Gregorian chant has been changed to read "women and men of religious orders".  I think this was partially changed earlier, but I didn't notice until the link was changed. The problem I have with this is that I specifically wanted to include Religious who are not members of official orders, such as hermits and anchorites who I think would have sung chants as part of their life of devotion, or at least it can't be ruled out that they would have. Mak (talk) 19:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikipedia entry on religious orders seems to include hermits and anchorites: "A religious order is an organization of people who live to achieve a common purpose through a form of promised or vowed life. The members of such orders, termed religious as a group, are usually distinct from both the laity and the clergy. They are sometimes termed monks, hermits, anchorites, or nuns if they live apart from general society (and if Christian) sing the divine office..."  It doesn't look to me like Sarabil's edit excludes anyone, but I don't know enough about Catholic orders to say for sure. Peirigill 20:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ...Continued wording of lede

message: :"Not every Gregorian chant fits neatly into Guido's hexachords or into the system of eight modes. For example, there are chants—especially from German sources—whose neumes suggest a warbling of pitches between the notes E and F, which is not part of the hexachord system.[29] Similarly, the modal classification of certain chants is ambiguous. The eight Gregorian modes do not apply to other plainchant traditions, such as Ambrosian and Old Roman chants.[30]"
Not sure what this sentence means "Similarly, the modal classification of certain chants is ambiguous." Is this saying something different than the first sentence of the paragraph? If so, it's not clear to me right now. If not, recommend striking it. 
Should also probably add an "also" or something to the last sentence as it seems to be changing topics: the rest of the paragraph is about Gregorian chant while the last sentence sort of an addition. Am I understanding this correctly? MarkBuckles 05:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point about the second sentence.  I'll give the last sentence some context. Peirigill 06:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another prose question

message: (That was weird... I thought I just posted this, but it didn't seem to register, so if i somehow end up double-posting, I apologize!)
Unlike song titles, the convention for chant titles (in Hiley, Apel, and Grove, for example) is to use italics but not quotation marks.  I've standardized the chant titles accordingly.  Names that are labels rather than titles, like "Kyrie 55" and "Credo," I've left without italics or quotation marks.  Any objections? Peirigill 08:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Format for chant titles

message: From the Dissemination and hegemony section
:Gregorian chant eventually replaced the local chant traditions of Rome itself. In the tenth century, virtually no musical manuscripts were being notated in Italy.
This confuses me a bit. Is what's really meant that no new chants were being written by Italians? Were there really no manuscripts being copied out for church use in Italy? that seems very unlikely to me. Even if they were importing the musical ideas, I would think that copyists would still have to be at work to make enough copies to keep up with the demand for performance copies. Mak (talk) 01:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IIRC, the musical manuscript tradition was weak in Italy at that time, even though the chant traditions themselves were going strong.  Consider that the first notated scores of Ambrosian, Old Roman, and Beneventan chant date from the 12th century (11th at the very earliest).  The real action was in the north and west, impelled by the Carolingians and the German Holy Roman Emperors.  There may well have been a thriving manuscript tradition in Italy at the time, but musical notation wasn't involved.  Don't forget that notation itself was still fairly new - Guido's Micrologus wasn't until about 1025 - and most chants were still transmitted orally.  The Italian chant traditions were also primarily local phenomena, unlike the "international" dissemination of Gregorian.  The local communities in Rome, Milan, and Benevento/Montecassino didn't need to have lots of copies, because only a small group of local performers needed their particular chants.  Charlemagne et al. wanted everyone in their dominion using a unified Gregorian across large distances, so manuscripts were much more needed.  Still, it probably deserves a citation; I'll see if I can dig up where I got that info. Peirigill 18:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok, makes sense for the notated bit. I have no idea why, I had it in my mind we were talking about a completely different century. It might still be good to have a source, but don't sweat it. I wasn't even thinking about article size when I added 18 words and a template, but I can see how it would all add up. For the record, it was an honest question, not in any way meant to be an attack, but rather a request for information, which you fulfilled admirably. I just didn't get it, because in my addled pate I was thinking about the 13th century, rather than the tenth. Mak (talk) 19:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also for the record, "big Mak attack" was nothing more than a pun.  :) Peirigill 20:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A little bit of confusion