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:

  1. Monophonic (Monophony): A single voice (melody) without any accompaniment. It is the oldest type of texture. Example: Gregorian chant.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

  1. Direct Song: Only one person sings.
  2. Antiphonal Singing: A dialogue between a soloist and a choir.
  3. Responsorial Singing: A dialogue between a soloist and a choir.

According to the relationship between music and text, there are three types:

  1. Syllabic: One note per syllable.
  2. Neumatic: Two or three notes per syllable.
  3. 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

  1. Prevalence of vocal music.
  2. Religious music is written in Latin.
  3. The first civil works appear in the vernacular.
  4. Musical notation is developing and perfecting.
  5. Melodies are modal.
  6. 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.