MEDIEVAL TIMES450-1300 A.D Middle Ages A Hierarchical Age Hildegard of Bingen Society was organized into interacting levels Hildegard of Bingen was a remarkable woman, especially GOD for the Middle Ages. She Roman Catholic Church Weddings, was a (Popes, Bishops, etc.) Funerals, theologian, $$$$$$$$ Burials, Tithes a writer, a - didn’t pay taxes dabbler in early medicine with extensive knowledge of NOBILITY herbs, and a composer of Kings, Queens plainchant. She was the first woman to compose chants.

Peasants During the medieval period, another churchman became Worked for free on church land well known for his Paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the church connections with plainchant. (this tax was called tithes) Pope Gregory is remembered This age looked unfavorably on of the community. Some monks for scientific discoveries and adventurous farmed, cooked, and built and compiling thinkers. maintained buildings; others copied the body of chants that The important cultural center was manuscripts, taught, worked as the monastery. The monasteries were musical soloists and composers. In retains his microcosms of medieval society, with a this stable atmosphere grew the first name: complex organization that used the and largest body of medieval music, the Gregorian talents of each member for the good chants of the liturgy. chant.

CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS 1)The rise of universities and scholastic movement, in some ways THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF signaled the end of medieval culture, because the emphasis was THE ARTS WAS TO PROMOTE shifted from the authority of the church to the questing of man’s THE WORSHIP OF GOD AND mind. REINFORCE THE TEACHINGS 2) A rearrangement of entire society caused by the ravages of the OF THE CHURCH. “Black Plague”, which killed a third of of the people of Europe.

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MUSICAL DEVELOPMENTS During the middle ages , the completely sure how to interpret typical composer was an some of the systems developed in anonymous monk, who composed the medieval period. The first chants for his monastery’s notation that we know of liturgies. He also sang in the choir appeared about A.D. 900 and was or directed. Another group of used in liturgical books. This early musicians were the jongleurs, or notation was not pitch specific, minstrels, who travelled from that is, one could not sight read it place to place performing with any accuracy. It simply troubadour songs for aristocrats. indicated on which syllables the Another important group wrote cluster of notes appeared and what treatises about music, and an types of neumes, or clusters of endless series of discussions about notes, were included. Eery note of the purpose and basic ideas of the chant melody is depicted, but music poured from these men. one is not made aware what note One of the most to start on, how wide the intervals significant developments was the are, or what any particular note is. gradual evolution of notation. It This notation was intended as was not an overnight invention. a memory aid for singers who Some of the earlier systems are had already learned the difficult to decipher, and the melodies by rote. Medieval Art world’s scholars are still not

EARLY EXAMPLES OF NOTATION When polyphony began to appear around the year 1400, the question of notation became enormously more complicated. If two or more voices are to be coordinated and synchronized, the notation must include not only pitch, but also rhythm and alignment of the various voices. By about 1300 a system was established which was very much like our own, with different shapes and colors of notes indicating different time values.

CRUCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

POLYPHONY MUSIC THEORY SECULAR SONGS PITCH SPECIFIC NOTATION

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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC Although most medieval music is vocal, and very little music was written specifically for instruments, instruments were used, especially in vocal music. Some of the most common medieval instruments consisted of bowed string instruments (imported Can you identify these fom Arab lands), harps, plucked string Medieval Instruments? instruments, various wind instruments, and organ. Instruments were usually used to double the vocal line in polyphonic secular music of the period. Percussion instruments - bells and small drums - were used for rhythmic punctuation.

VOCABULARY AND NOTES motet : polyphonic vocal music. Bottom voices sang a chant and upper voices added melodies on top. imitative: when a melodic idea from one voice is repeated in another. melisma: melodic line with many pitches for a single syllable motive: a short repeated pattern, either melodic or rhythmic syllabic: a melodic line with one pitch for each syllable. sacred: secular: polyphonic: monophonic:

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