Lesson 1 Plainchant and monophony

Plainchant and Secular Monophony

Part I -  The Emergence of Plainchant

Often called Gregorian chant by its supposed creator, Pope Gregory I (590-604).  Plainchant continued to develop long after his death.  Plainchant is heavily linked to the Mass and the texts of the Christian worship services.  

Plainchant notation looked very different from what we know as standard notation today.  As evidenced in this excerpt:

Notation of plainchant varied greatly from region to region.  As seen here, there was no standard notation practice. 

Part II - The Elements of Plainchant

Plainchant is pure melody with no harmony, accompaniment, or added voices.  In other words, all voices sing the same one line in unison.  

There are five key elements to understand plainchant:

• Liturgical function
• The relationship of words and music
• Mode
• Melodic Structure
• Rhythm

First of all, All chants were sung during the Christian Mass, there are five main chants that are sung during every Mass, They are:

1. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Credo
4. Sanctus
5. Agnus Dei

These five Mass parts make up every service and are found in every Mass.  Every other part, such as the Sequence, Offertory Psalm, and Lord's Prayer, are only sung during special services, such as Easter or Christmas Mass.

The relationship of words and music, is inseparable.  Back in the early days of music, it was believed that all of the parts of the Mass were to be sung in order for the prayers to be heard by God.  

There are  three basic types of plainchant, Syllabic, Neumatic, and Melismatic.  These three types served three very different functions as well.  Syllabic plainchant is that were each syllable would have a separate note.  Notice how every syllable is on a seperate note in the chant.  This is for punctuating and articulating the importance of a text.

 Here is a neumatic chant, where some syllables are punctuates with seperate notes and others are drawn out for effect

Finally, here is a Melismatic chant, where each syllable would be drawn out over several notes.

 Part III - Secular music

With all of the Music of the day being sung only during the mass and only in Latin, people began to take the melodies of the chants they heard during Mass and set their own words to them. These songs were not sung in Latin, but in the tongue of the people.  Whereas all of the songs for the Mass regardless of in what country they were sung were in latin, a secular song would be in the tongue of the people, but used the same melodies as the chants from the Church.