MUSICAL SENSATIONS FROM THE TIME OF LORE

By: Chris Cabena and Alexis Basel

KEY POINTS IN MEDIEVAL MUSIC

The traditions of Western music can be traced back to the social and

religious developments that took place in Europe during the Middle

Ages, the years roughly spanning from about 500 to 1400 A.D.

Because of the domination of the early Catholic Church during this

period, sacred music was the most prevalent. Beginning with

Gregorian Chant, sacred music slowly developed into a polyphonic

music called organum performed at Notre Dame in Paris by the

twelfth century. Secular music flourished, too, in the hands of the

French trouvères and troubadours, until the period culminated with

the sacred and secular compositions of the first true genius of

Western music, Guillaume de Machaut.

GREGORIAN CHANT

The early Christian church derived their music from existing Jewish and Byzantine

religious chant. Like all music in the Western world up to this time, plainchant was

monophonic: that is, it comprised a single melody without any harmonic support or

accompaniment. The many hundreds of melodies are defined by one of the eight

Greek modes, some of which sound very different from the major/minor scales our

ears are used to today. The melodies are free in tempo and seem to wander

melodically, dictated by the Latin liturgical texts to which they are set. As these

chants spread throughout Europe , they were embellished and developed along

many different lines in various regions and according to various sects. It was

believed that Pope Gregory I (reigned 590-604) codified them during the sixth-

century, establishing uniform usage throughout the Western Catholic Church.

NOTRE DAME AND THE ARS ANTIQUA

Sometime during the ninth century, music theorists in the Church began

experimenting with the idea of singing two melodic lines simultaneously

at parallel intervals, usually at the fourth, fifth, or octave. The resulting

hollow-sounding music was called organum and very slowly developed

over the next hundred years. By the eleventh century, one, two (and much

later, even three) added melodic lines were no longer moving in parallel

motion, but contrary to each other, sometimes even crossing. The original

chant melody was then sung very slowly on long held notes called the

tenor (from the Latin tenere, meaning to hold) and the added melodies

wove about and embellished the resulting drone.

T H E T R O U V È R E S A N D T H E T R O U B A D O U R S

Popular music, usually in the form of secular songs, existed during the Middle

Ages. This music was not bound by the traditions of the Church, nor was it even

written down for the first time until sometime after the tenth century. Hundreds

of these songs were created and performed (and later notated) by bands of

musicians flourishing across Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, the most

famous of which were the French trouvères and troubadours. The monophonic

melodies of these itinerant musicians, to which may have been added improvised

accompaniments, were often rhythmically lively. The subject of the overwhelming

majority of these songs is love, in all its permutations of joy and pain. One of the

most famous of these trouvères known to us (the great bulk of these melodies are

by the ubiquitous "Anonymous") is Adam de la Halle (ca. 1237-ca. 1286).

TYPES OF INSTRUMENTS USED

Woodwind Instruments - Musical instruments which were

blown like trumpets or bagpipes

String Instruments - Musical instruments which were

played with a bow or plucked

Percussion Instruments - various forms of drums and bells

were used during the Medieval times

The Harp

Lute

The Fiddle

The Rebec

The Psaltery

Chittarone

Cittern

The Dulcimer

INSTRUMENTS USED

The Flute

The Trumpet

The Pipe

The Shawm

Recorder

Flageolet

The Bagpipe

The Crumhorn

The Gem

Cornett

Strings

Woodwind

sPercussion

• The Drum• Cymbals • The Triangle • The Tambourine • The Tabor • Timbrel • Bells

SOURCES

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/middle/index.html

http://

www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-music/

medieval-musical-instruments.htm