Medieval Music

Question 1

Define syllabic

Answer 1

One note per syllable-almost every syllable has one note

Question 2

Neumatic

Answer 2

1-6 notes on a single syllable

Question 3

Antiphonal

Answer 3

When two groups or choirs respond to each other

Call and answer between two choirs or groups

Question 4

Cantor

Answer 4

The leader of the choir, the “call” to the choir’s answer

• sings the first canticle verse of or half of the first psalm
• sets the “tempo” and pitch

Question 5

Responsorial

Answer 5

Call and answer between a soloist and the choir (the choir and the soloist respond to each other)

Question 6

Boethius

Answer 6

• Middle Ages music theorist
• music is a science of numbers
• eaaaaarly notation (see neumes)

Question 7

Neumes

Answer 7

Early musical notation
Basically just dots??? No staff yet
-conveyed pitch through placement of dots (???) but not rhythm

Question 8

Guido of Arezzo

Answer 8

• ELEVENTH CENTURY
• Italian monk
• musical staff!!!! (Lines and spaces)

Question 9

Hildegard of Bingen

Answer 9

• one of the first female composers (!!!)

- writer and composer (religious poems, prose that she started setting to music in the 1140s)

Question 10

Troubadours et Trouvères

Answer 10

• poet composers
• southern France
• langue d’oc (Occitan)
• spread to northern France
• northern France
• Old French

-many born from noble blood

Question 11

Minnesinger

Answer 11

German minstrel

Question 12

Vielle

Answer 12

Medieval bowed instrument (like a fiddle)

-predecessor to the viol and violin

Question 13

Hurdy-gurdy

Answer 13

• crank rotated
• player changes pitches by pressing levers
• other strings play a drone (think bagpipes)

Question 14

Types of organum?

Answer 14

• parallel
• free or oblique
• melismatic

Question 15

Parallel organum

Answer 15

Parts moved in parallel 4, 5, 8

-begin and end in unison

Question 16

Free/oblique organum

Answer 16

Oblique motion (one part stays solid and the other moves)
Contrary motion (parts move in opposite directions)

Question 17

Melismatic organum

Answer 17

-bottom part holds the notes of a gregorian chant
-melismatic passages sung over top
(Later medieval, 12th century)

Question 18

Define organum?

Answer 18

2+ voices singing different notes in agreeable combinations

Usually move in perfect intervals

Question 19

Leonin and Perotin

Answer 19

Notre dame cathedral or the first Schola Cantorum

-some of the first composers to start putting their names on their compositions

Question 20

Motet

Answer 20

• choral
• unaccompanied (a Capella)
• sacred (Latin text)
• eaaaaarly polyphony
• performed in catholic services

Question 21

Ars Nova / Ars Antiqua

Answer 21

Nova-14th century

• “New Art”
• new notation (duple/simple time instead of triple/compound time)
• supported by Phillip de Vitry
• mainly a French movement

Antiqua-13th century
-“Old Art”

Question 22

Phillipe de Vitry

Answer 22

• French dude

- treatise on Ars Nova (new notation techniques)

Question 23

Guillaume de Machaut

Answer 23

• the Mass Ordinary

- one of the first polyphonic masses

Question 24

Mass Ordinary

Answer 24

plainchant) 
Kyrie-prayer of mercy
Gloria-praises of god
Credo-confession of faith
Sanctus-song about gods holiness
Agnus Dei-asking god to take away the sins of the world and grant peace and mercy