Introduction to Music: Musical Eras Instructor: Anthony Johnson Course: Music 100

Medieval Period: Music and Church: Plainchant Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance is difficult; the usage in this article is the one usually adopted by musicologists. Singing at this time gave special meaning to words and words denoted concepts in both prayer and doctrine, this was a giant step in a direction away from just speaking them . From todays standards we know very little abut their lives or music, due to the fact that the only musicians to write music down were monks and clerics and had no reason to want to preserve popular music. All musicians were in holy orders, and many of the musicians were trained in the churches as choirboys. Yet popular musicians were an exception they were called minstrels or joungleurs. In history music served the basic aim in religion bringing humans into a beneficial contact with unseen spirits, with deities, or with a single God. By providing words with special emphasis, force, mystery, and even magic.

Music and Church Services: Liturgy Music of the early ages was not free of choice by the minister, it was fixed by a higher authority. This was true in even the smallest parishes. Liturgy This is what was called the higher authority. They are a whole set of services set according to the calendar. This specifies how worship should be conducted during summer, winter, fall, spring, as well as Sunday or during the week. The largest of world religions have a very complex set of liturgies that involve singing and chant. Large portions of all services were sung, each prayer was assigned its own music, in traditions built over the years built through small traditions and adjustments to a traditional prototype.

Plainchant: Plainsong: This was the official music of the Catholic church. This type of music was also know as Gregorian Chant. It was also known as plainsong because of the unaccompanied, monophonic ( one-line) music for voices Plainchant share 2 characteristic features It is typically nonmetrical: there is no established meter, therefore the rhythm is free, with no distinct beat driving the music. It is not constructed in a major/minor system, but what was known as a medieval modes. Not the scale we are using in todays music of the West where we center around C or A It is centered around 4 notes D,E,F,G. These new scales were called modes

Modes: They were Greek in origin Built on the note D, the mode is called: Dorian we go D to D in the key of C Built on the note of E, the mode is called: Phrygian we go E to E in the key of C Built on the note of F, the mode is called: Lydian we go F to F in the key of C Built on the note of G, the mode is called: Mixolydian we go G to G in the key of C The major difference in these modes and our modern usage is the arrangement of half steps and whole steps, This gives the music of the Medieval Period a very different sound and in reality gives the music a richer sound as well as being subtler in nature.

Gregorian Recitation and Gregorian Melody This style of music revolves around a single pitch that is repeated over and over again except for small, formulaic variations at the beginnings and endings of phrases The most popular type of recitation is called an Antiphon: These were usually workday little pieces, with easily recognizable melodies.

Music at Court Over the many years od courtly status, power was gained at the expense of the church. Where later the in the middle ages courts joined the monasteries and cathedrals as major supporters of music The most important thing to know: Songs preserved from the 12th and 13th centuries of “Age of Chivalry”. The post composers of theses songs were performed by themselves and called. Troubadours: In the South of France. Trouveres: In the North of France Minnesingers: In Germany These songs again were simple, just a tune in many cases and known as the pop music of the time. The music was also unaccompanied. They were also based on poems most of the time: The most popular poem used was the Alba. The Dawn song: the knights loyal companion that kept him awake during his all night watch, and to warn him to leaves his lady’s bed before rest of the castle awakes. Lastly the pastourelle: a seduction dialogue between a knight on horseback and a country maid.

Further Styles Estampie Provençal estampida, courtly dance of the 12th–14th century. Mentioned in trouvère poetry, it was probably danced with sliding steps by couples to the music of vielles (medieval viols); its after dance was the saltarello. In musical form the Estampie derives from the sequence, a medieval genre of Latin hymn. Like the sequence it has a series of repeated melodic phrases (aa, bb, cc, . . . ); phrase endings in the repetitions are often varied..  Organum   originally, any musical instrument (later in particular an organ); the term attained its lasting sense, however, during the Middle Ages in reference to a polyphonic (many-voiced) setting, in certain specific styles, of Gregorian chant. 

Further Styles Motet style of vocal composition that has undergone numerous transformations through many centuries. Typically, it is a Latin religious choral composition, yet it can be a secular composition or a work for soloist(s) and instrumental accompaniment, in any language, with or without a choir.  Ars Nova in music history, period of the tremendous flowering of music in the 14th century, particularly in France. The designation Ars Nova, as opposed to the Ars Antiqua of 13th-century France, was the title of a treatise written about 1320 by the composer Philippe de Vitry. Philippe, the most enthusiastic proponent of the “New Art,” demonstrates in his treatise the innovations in rhythmic notation characteristic of the new music. Chansons is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular.

Questions & Discussion 1-The early history of Western music was dominated by: The Christian Church 2-Another term for Gregorian chant is: Plainchant 3-The medieval modes were traced back to ancient: Greece 4-Which is not a medieval mode? Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Grecian 5-A Latin religious choral composition, that is secular in composition or a work for soloist(s) and instrumental accompaniment, in any language, with or without a choir. Motet