MUSIC THEORY IN THE MONASTERY

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CHAPTER 4

• MUSIC THEORY IN THE MONASTERY

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The eight church modes

• These derive their names, but not the scale
  patterns, from the ancient Greek tonoi. They
  were arranged in pairs with an authentic and
  plagal (derived from) form belonging to each
  pair.
• The range and the final note determined the mode
  of a chant melody.

3
The development of chant notation

• The notation of musical pitch in the West first
  appears in northern Europe around 900. The
  earliest chant melodies were written in
  calligraphic signs, called neumes, moving left
  to right across the page. The earliest
  manuscripts served only as memory aids the
  vertical position of the neumes was not
  sufficiently differentiated so as to show the
  pitches (relative distance from one pitch to the
  next).

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Guido of Arezzo (c991-c1033)

• Author of Micrologus (Little Essay c1030) gives
  pratical instructions to church musicians for
  singing plainsong and polyphony.
• Guido was instrumental in the development of
  three important innovations 1) the musical
  staff with pitch letter names 2) a system of
  hexachords that isolated the half-step and
  facilitated sight-singing and 3) a musical hand
  that made it possible for singers to sing
  instantly and accurately the intervals of a
  chant.
• Guidonain hexachords natural (beginning on C),
  soft (beginning on F), hard (beginning on G)
• The first syllables of each phrase proceed ut,
  re, mi, fa, sol, and la. It is from these
  syllables that our present system of do, re, me,
  fa, sol, etc. took its point of departure.

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Hymn to St. John the Baptist that Guido used to
Identify the Steps in His Hexachord

• The first syllables of each phrase proceed ut,
  re, mi, fa, sol, and la. It is from these
  syllables that our present system of do, re, me,
  fa, sol, etc. took its point of departure.

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Guidonian scale

• Starting on G and ending on e, with notes
  identified in the various hexachords.
• This scale of two octaves and a sixth served as
  the basic scale in the West until the late
  fifteenth century, although chromatic notes were
  increasingly added to it.

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An ancient and a modern representation of the
Guidonian hand

• The hand was used as a sort of palm pilot
  computer in the Middle Ages and students used the
  various joints and tips as a template for
  remembering not only the intervals of the scale,
  but also the days and months of the year,
  moveable feasts of the church year, the rotation
  of the planets and stars, and fundamental
  mathematical calculations.