medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
There is a huge difference between plainchant and polyphony. Anyone can sing
plainchant. Even today, Benedictine monks do it (badly) and sell
best-selling records. The long training period for boys and monks was simply
to memorise the entire repertoire, as all plainchant was sung from memory.
The invention of musical notation simply speeded up the learning process -
or the teaching process. (Which opens up a whole can of worms: what were
noted missals and noted breviaries actually for? Then again, how did priests
manage? All masses would have been sung - the origin of the "private" mass
is mildly controversial, but quite late.) Polyphony is quite different - you
would need to be essentially a professional musician (even if actually
employed as something else, such as a cleric). You need to be able to read
music for a start ("pricksong" was notated music, as opposed to
"plainsong"), as well as possessing musical ability and having had
considerable training. Only polyphony would have ever been sung from written
music, and the numbers would have been limited to the number who could sing
from one (admittedly often large) choirbook.
John Briggs
Madeleine Gray wrote:
>
> A more general point. Is it possible that we are over-estimating the
> amount of skill and training needed for singing the Office, either as
> plainchant or as polyphony? Because we belong to a different musical
> tradition, because we have had to do so much academic work to recreate
> late medieval polyphony, because it has become something for academics
> and purists ... I wonder whether for singers brought up in that
> musical tradition it may have been both easier and more flexible,
> with perhaps not quite the high standards we are accustomed to
> expecting.
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