Terms #3

Question 1

Plainchant

Answer 1

• The Earliest notated repertoires of medieval music are monophonic
• the monophonic scared music of the Christian church that date from the last quarter of the 9th century
• the first notated secular monophonic songs are found in manuscripts written about a century later

Question 2

Liturgy

Answer 2

• The origins and evolutions of plainchant are linked to the development of the Christian liturgy–that is, the body if texts and actions prescribed for Christian worship services
• Christianity originated as a sect of Judaism, and the earliest Christians preserved many of the traditions and practices of Jewish worship: the offering of prayers, the singing of hymns, and the systematic recitation of singing of psalms and other passages from the Holy Scripture

Question 3

Eucharistic Mass

Answer 3

• the celebration of Holy Communion is a distinctively Christian practice but also has Jewish roots
• it is a ritualistic reenactment of the Last Supper, Christ’s celebration of the Jewish feast of passover with his disciples the day before his crucifixion

Question 4

Chant Types

Answer 4

• Roman
• Ambrosian
• Gallican
• Mozarabic/ visigothic

Question 5

Pope Gregory I (590-604)

Answer 5

-(Saint Gregory the Great) had been responsible not only for promoting the diffusion of the Roman Liturgy, but for composing the chants himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit

Question 6

Pope Gregory II (715-731)

Answer 6

-also a strong promoter of Roman primacy

Question 7

Metz (france), St. Gall (eastern Switzerland)

Answer 7

• Charlemagne established several singing schools to teach the chant to choirmasters
• the most important of these singing schools were located in Metz and St. Gall

Question 8

Memory

Answer 8

• memory was a skill cultivated far more intensively in medieval times than in our own
• the monks and clerics who transmitted these chants sang them on a regular basis
• they viewed them not merely as a repertory of songs but as objects of intense devotion

Question 9

Chant Transmission

Answer 9

• oral (memory)

- notation

Question 10

Neumes

Answer 10

• Early chant notation was based on signs known as neumes that indicated the pitches or groups of pitches in a chant melody
• derived from the greek word “neuma” meaning “gesture”
• most of the signs do infact point, or gesture, in the direction of the pitches that they represent, either singly, or in groups of two, three, or four

Question 11

Diastematic or Heightened neumes

Answer 11

-In later manuscripts (beginning in the 11th century), diastematic or heightened neumes are drawn on one or more staff lines to indicate pitches precisely. By the 13th century, nearly all chant manuscripts contain diastematic notation.

Question 12

Non-diastematic or non-heightend neumes

Answer 12

-In the earliest manuscripts (10th century), the neumes are non-diastematic or unheightened, meaning they have no staff lines and do not indicate specific pitches.