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Music in The Middle Ages

The document discusses the evolution of music during the Middle Ages, highlighting the significance of monophonic music, particularly Gregorian Chant, and the emergence of secular music through minstrels and troubadours. It also covers the development of polyphony and the advancements in musical notation initiated by monks. Additionally, it lists various medieval musical instruments used during this period.

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7 views6 pages

Music in The Middle Ages

The document discusses the evolution of music during the Middle Ages, highlighting the significance of monophonic music, particularly Gregorian Chant, and the emergence of secular music through minstrels and troubadours. It also covers the development of polyphony and the advancements in musical notation initiated by monks. Additionally, it lists various medieval musical instruments used during this period.

Uploaded by

vargascevallosdilan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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MUSIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES (DARK AGES following the decline of the Roman Empire)

V-XVI CENTURIES

INTRODUCTION

The History of Music starts with the Middle Ages because it was then when the earliest forms
of musical notation were found. Music notation can be dated back to the Catholic Monasteries
and this forms the basis of modern music score printing. Mediaeval music encompases the
sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Age Period.

Obviously, the music which was composed and performed in the monasteries was religious. In
castles and palaces non-religious or secular music was promoted and it mainly consisted of
only instruments or both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying
the voices).

A. MONOPHONIC MUSIC (monophonic melody happens when a group of singers (e.g., a


choir) sings the same melody together at the unison (exactly the same pitch)

The earliest mediaeval music did not have any kind of notational system. The tunes were
primarily monophonic (a single melody without accompaniment) and transmitted by oral
tradition.

1. Religious music: Gregorian Chant, playsong or playchant (Canto Gregoriano o canto


llano)
- Mediaeval monasteries played an important role in the Middle Ages because they
were the big cultural centres at that time. They had important consequences for
mediaeval culture as a whole. Monasteries encouraged literacy, promoted
learning, and preserved the classics of ancient literature, including the works of
Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, and Aristotle.
- Monks lived a simple life of work, prayer and devotion and they organised their
days around prayers. Benedict (c. 480-c. 547) set the basis for this pattern of daily
prayer in his Rule for Monasteries. (The seven “hours”: matins and lauds; prime;
vespers; etc.). The monks used to pray by singing.
- Pope Gregory The Great:
At the end of the 6th Century (VIth), Pope Gregory I The Great was responsible for
making a compilation of the songs used by the Church for their prayers in different
territories. He codified and unified them, establishing uniform usage throughout
the Western Church. They became the official pieces of the Catholic Church. His
name has been applied to this music, and it is known as Gregorian Chant.

Characteristics:

- It is monophonic in texture, so has no harmony (just one voice) and it is sung in the
Latin language.
- No complex rhythms are used. The rhythm is based on the prose of the prayers.
- The chant moves up and down by steps and small leaps. The melody is very
free-flowing.
- It is sung “a capella” without music accompaniment.
- Melodies are often melismatic- syllables are held out over multiple notes but we
can also find syllabic melodies. Syllabic chants mostly have one note per syllable.
- They are anonymous chants.

2. Secular music: The Minstrels and Troubadours


- Secular/ Profane music form minstrels and troubadours has been known to us
since the 12th and 13th Centuries (XIIth and XIIIth).
- The troubadours belonged to the nobility, they used to compose poetry (verses)
and added melody to it in order to perform it.
- The themes used by troubadours in their music compositions were secular: love,
honour or war were popular; especially those on the subject of heroic deeds.
- Compositions were made in the vernacular language, the language of the common
people (Old Occitan at first).
- The rhythm was more lively than Gregorian Chant’s rhythm.
- They used melody accompaniment with instruments.
- One of the best-known Spanish troubadours was the Galician Martín Codax (13th
Century, XIIIth), who was author of songs like Cantigas de Amigo. King Alfonso X
the Wise, also collected many of the cantigas devoted to the Virgin, which have
been kept in Cantigas de Santa María is a collection of over four
hundred monophonic pieces in Galician-Portuguese (composed and compiled in
the court of King Alfonso X “the Wise”) in honour to the Virgin Mary.The poetry of
most of these pieces is narrative and usually recounts miracles performed by the
Virgin Mary throughout the known world.

B. POLYPHONY

- Polyphony is the superposition of several voices at the same time.Polyphony emerged


around the 12th century with different music experiments by composers Leonin and
Perotin, both working at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
- The organum is a type of mediaeval polyphony that consists of two musical voices or
melodies. One melody is a Gregorian or plainchant melody, and the other is an
additional new melody added in parallel at the interval of a perfect fourth or fifth.
- The discantus (from Latin “song apart”) is a particular style of organum in which the
two melodies are not parallel, moving in contrary motion.

C.MEDIEVAL MUSICAL NOTATION

- The monks were the first ones to develop a system of musical notation.
- From the 8th century onwards, the first music notation was the use of dots over the
lyrics to a chant, with some dots being higher or lower, giving the reader a general
sense of the direction of the melody. These signs were called neumes.
- The next development in musical notation was the drawing of one or two lines, each
representing a particular sound or note (C and F) in two different coloured inks: usually
red for F, and yellow or green for C. This was the beginning of the musical staff.
- In the 10th and 11th centuries, the monks Hucbaldo and Guido D’Arezzo added more
lines to indicate the pitch of sounds more accurately: the four-line staff (tetragrama)
- At the beginning, musical notes were indicated by the letters in the alphabet. Starting
with LA as A. This musical notation is still used in some countries like England and
Germany. (Anglo-saxon notation)
- In the 11th century, Guido D’Arezzo was also responsible for the names of the musical
notes as we know them today (Latin notation). For this, he used the hymn in honour of
John the Baptist: “Ut queant laxis”. The initial syllable of each musical phrase matched
the order of the scale.

- From the 12th - 13th century until the early 17th century mensural notation was used
(square black and white figures) to represent different durations. In the 16th century
our present musical system was created. Later on, in the 18th century the name of the
note UT was changed to DO (DOMINUS).
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SugtS3tqsoo

D. MEDIEVAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

STRING INSTRUMENTS: Harp, Lute, Psaltery, Vielle,Rebec, Hurdy-Gurdy

WIND INSTRUMENTS: Bagpipe/Zampogna, Recorder, Buisine or añafil,Shawm, flute, Panflute,


organ

PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS: Square tambourine or adufe, frame drum, tambourine or timbrel,


cymbalum, castanets
MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE INSTRUMENTS

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