Medieval Music

MEDIEVAL MUSIC

450 AD -1450 AD

Fall of Roman Empire

6 AD (“in the year of the Lord”)

New Era started ( Middle Ages)

New Kind of music was shaped – Medieval Music

11-12 Centuries musicians called Troubadours, Trouveres, Minstrels

Sacred and secular

▪ Beginning of the “dark ages”.

▪ Life was hard and full of migrations, upheavals, and wars.

▪ In the later Middle Ages churches and monasteries were constructed, towns grew, universities were founded.

SOCIAL CLASSES

▪NOBILITY

▪PEASANTRY

▪CLERGY

NOBILITY

\-Derives from Latin nobilitas or nobilis; well-known, famous, notable,

\-ranked immediately under royalty, and the membership thereof typically being hereditary.

PEASANTRY

\- uneducated or unfamiliar

\- member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms.

CLERGY

\- First class of society,

\- sacred character,

\- woman we’re not allowed to sing

\- members are the ones in charge of the worship of God

MUSIC HISTORY

▪Vocal Music

▪The church frowned on instruments.

▪Around 1100, instruments were used in church.

▪The organ was most prominent.

Troubadour Music

▪TROUBADOURS

\-Performers

\-Composers

\-Female: trobairitz

ADAM DE LA HALLE

* Also known as Adam the Hunchback
* ▪ French Poet, musicians, composer and trouvere
* ▪ Trouvère refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the trobadors, both composing and performing lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages,
* ▪ History maker in the world of music during Medieval Period
* ▪ Used Polyphonic music

\

Trouvère

refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the trobadors, both composing and performing lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages,

POLYPHONY

is a musical texture that features two or more equally prominent melodic lines played at the same time.

SECULAR MUSIC

▪Music does not bound in religious traditions.

MINISTREL

– lowly musicians who wondered among the court and towns and regaled their audience with gossip and news.

JONGLEURS/JONGLEURESSES

– versatile entertainers who played musical instruments, song and dance, showed tricks, and preformed with animal acts

TROBADOURS and TROUVERES

– travelling poets and musicians who flourished in the various courts of Europe

MINNESINGERS

\-they refer to singers of courtly love

MUSIC OF THE CHURCH

▪GREGORIAN CHANTS

▪It is a single line (no harmony) sung by many to convey a calm quality.

▪It represents the church.

▪It has flexible rhythm, without meter, and little sense of beat.

GREGORIAN CHANT

▪Unaccompanied monophonic song used by Western Catholic Church

▪It uses centonization method – putting together the same set of musical motifs.

▪The chants can be sung by using six-note pattern called hexachord.

▪Neums - are an early form of music notation (four-line and five-line staff developed)

▪Organum – multi or several voice elaborations of Gregorian Chant is sung by choirs of men and boys

centonization

\-method putting together the same set of musical motifs.

NEUMS

are an early form of music notation (four-line and five-line staff developed)

ORGANUM

– multi or several voice elaborations of Gregorian Chant is sung by choirs of men and boys

POLYPHONIC MUSIC

▪Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. ▪Using precise rhythms as well as pitches. ▪Two voices

GRADUALE

▪ is a peaceful song. It was a Gregorian Chant. This song is religious.

HISTORY

▪Medieval times; Catholic church services ▪more focus on secular themes