Medieval Music: Texture, Gregorian Chants, and Troubadours
Medieval Music
Texture is the way in which different voices (melodies) in a musical piece are arranged. There are four main types of textures:
- Monophonic (Monophony): A single voice (melody) without any accompaniment. It is the oldest type of texture. Example: Gregorian chant.
- Homophonic Texture (Homophony): Several voices (melodies) that sound simultaneously with the same rhythm, even the same notes. It is the simplest type of polyphony. Example: Protestant Chorale.
- Polyphonic Textures (Polyphony): Several independent voices or melodies sounding simultaneously with different rhythms and even different starting points, forming vertical chords. A key feature of Renaissance polyphony is that contrapuntal voices enter successively, imitating each other.
- Melody with Accompaniment: Emerged in the Baroque period and is a texture of modern music. It consists of a main melody accompanied by other voices in the form of chords.
Types of Gregorian Chants
According to the way of singing, there are three types:
- Direct Song: Only one person sings.
- Antiphonal Singing: A dialogue between a soloist and a choir.
- Responsorial Singing: A dialogue between a soloist and a choir.
According to the relationship between music and text, there are three types:
- Syllabic: One note per syllable.
- Neumatic: Two or three notes per syllable.
- Melismatic: Melodies adorned with more than four notes per syllable.
Melisma: Singing many notes on one syllable. The melisma is typical of flamenco.
Gregorian chant: Religious, monodic, vocal or a capella male chorus, text in Latin, anonymous authors, liturgical character.
Troubadour song: (Secular) voice + instrument, in the vernacular text, defined rhythm, authors known, sensual character.
Source of Polyphony
Organum: The organum is the first polyphonic musical form, originating in the Middle Ages in the 10th century. It consists of a Gregorian melody (cantus firmus) to which another melody is added at a distance of a fourth or fifth. The first organum composers were Léonin and Pérotin.
Western Music: Medieval church song, called Gregorian in honor of Pope Gregory I (540-604), was the first to be collected.
Secular Music: Developed somewhat later, with expansion, the creation of the first universities, and contact between cultures as a result of the Crusades.
The Troubadours: They were cultured and refined poets and musicians.
The Troubadour: A musician who was a poet, far from improvising. He also learned compositional techniques in a course of study called the Quadrivium.
The Dance: It was an essential element in the distractions of the court and of medieval society in general. The estampie and saltarello are very rhythmic melodies with a fast and strong pulse.
Guido of Arezzo invented the names of the notes and musical notation on lines.
Gregory the Great was a composer who unified and simplified religious songs.
How to Recognize Medieval Music
- Prevalence of vocal music.
- Religious music is written in Latin.
- The first civil works appear in the vernacular.
- Musical notation is developing and perfecting.
- Melodies are modal.
- A richness and variety of instruments appear, which, subject to the voice, are used to accompany and provide color.
Neuma: A sign that was used to represent music in the Middle Ages when there was no staff.
Texture: The way different voices are combined. Types: monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic.
Minstrel: An artist who sings what he has learned from the troubadours in castles.