From The Archives 7: Gregorian Chant & Early Musical Notation

Fun fact: The phrase "run the gamut" has its origins in early music notation (middle ages) because there used to be a limited number of notes, and each of them had a name. The lowest note was ut and the highest note was gamma, so the entire range of notes (from high to low) was gamma to ut. Eventually, "gamut" was the term used to encompass the full musical range, and somewhere along the way, we started to use the phrase "run the gamut" in scenarios other than musical ones. And now you know why!

Really old music is less interesting to me than more modern music, buuut, it was really good to learn about it in the class Western Art Music Tradition with my fave professor.

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October 2016

            Gregorian Chant was the start for musical notation in Western Europe in order to make music easier to remember and to standardize the music that the Roman Catholic Church approved of. Gregorian Chant was written with neumes that each stood for a beat, and at the beginning, didn’t always indicate pitch. It is guessed that they did not use the notated chants for practice, but that most were remembered orally and the notation was used as a reminder, and also to be able to send to different areas. Since early neumes generally all stood for a beat, it is often unknown in pieces as to whether they had a rhythm or followed the beat-by-beat pattern. 

Gregorian chant was also largely focused on the Mass and the different pieces of the Mass. Pieces like the Kyrie or Gloria were part of the Ordinary, meaning that the same text would be used for every Mass. With something like the Kyrie with very few words in it, it was melismatic, with moving beats giving more than one beat to a syllable. Other pieces like the Introit or Gradual were part of the Proper, which would be different on any given day. Because of this, there is a lot more variability in what they would sound like.  The Christian liturgical year would lead to the birth of Christ, the celebration of his birth, lent and his death, and then his resurrection.

That early notation served as a basis for later cleffing, staff, and rhythmic and key signature notation based off their modes. Notation like ligature neumes showed longer lengths of time to be held than one beat and helping the process of creating notation that had different note lengths and rhythms. Binaria were two connected notes, ternaria were three connected notes, and so forth. There is some thought that rhythmic modes were used in place of a similar beat to each neume, and 6 modes outline those different rhythms. For example, mode one consisted of a long-short-long-short pattern. 

Organum was a form for early polyphony with a chant and a transposed version of the chant melody at the same time. This was known as organum purum or organum duplum. Organum triplum was when there was two voices over the tenor/chant. And quadruplum was when there was four voices total. Leonin wrote organum purum and is said in the Anonymous 4 writings to have written the Magnus Liber, and while not a lot is known for sure about it, it is quite possible that he created new rhythmic notation and the rhythmic modes. Perotin however, has been recorded more accurately towards different pieces, even though a lot about his life is still unknown.  He wrote in the various different types of organum. And also contributed to the Magnus Liber. 

Cantus firmus (“borrowed song” or “fixed tune”) allowed for polyphony to be created on top of pre-existing chant. Chant would be used as one voice while other voices were newly written to intersect with the music of the chant or to be a moving-voice on top of the slower-moving melody of the chant. Cantus firmus was used in motets, but since motets were used for both secular and religious music, motets later lost the chant pieces and would be written from entirely new material. Conductus was polyphony that was not based on chant, but with a tenor that was completely written new in a 2-4 part piece that could either be religious or secular.

Ars Nova (“new art”) in the 1300s brought about more rhythmic notation and written secular music largely, centering in France. Guillaume de Machaut was a French poet, musician, and composer who pioneered ars nova techniques and oversaw the making of collections of his music that have survived to this day. Some new styles of music were the virelai, rondeau, and ballade, known as forms fixes and each following a set structure.