The Early Christian Church and Secular Song

roman music:

roman empire decline:

Christian church gained influence
church fathers interpret bible, set down principles * similar to ancient greeks * beautiful things exist to remind us of divine and perfect beauty, not to inspire self-centered enjoyment or seduce our senses
Christian church became the main and often only unifying force and channel of culture in europe
church took over rome's mission of civilizing and unifying the peoples under its sway
music was used to influence the people

transmission of greek music theory:

martianus capella described the seven liberal arts - verbal arts (trivium), mathematical disciplines (quadrivium - included music because its mathematical relationships seemed to explain the universe)
boethius was the most revered authority on music in the middle ages
de institutione musica treats music as a science of numbers
borrowed lots from greek sources

greek legacy:

greek music was a heavy influence for the first two or three centuries but church leaders rejected their idea of cultivating music purely for enjoyment - wanted to wean converts away from anything associated with their pagan past
early church leaders saw music as servant of religions
Christian music became unaccompanied singing

Judaic heritage:

some elements of Christian observances derive from Jewish traditions * chanting and singing of scripture and psalms
both traditions relied on vocal music in worship services
strophic devotional songs/hymns began to emerge as the early church spread
strophic form - music repeats and melody stays the same with changing text

eastern and western churches:

395 ce - eastern and western empires split, followed by eastern and western churches
western church - Catholic, ruled from rome
eastern church - orthodox, byzantine, blend of cultures
western churches in italy, france and germany developed chants; most local versions of chants disappeared or were absorbed into the single uniform practice under the authority of the roman Catholic church * constantinople * western church became increasingly romanized
monks preserved chants by learning to sing and notate them - gregorian chants

music consisted of a single melodic line
vocal melody was intimately linked with the rhythm and meter of words
musical performances were memorized or improvised
philosophers believed music was both an orderly system interlocked with nature and a force in human thought and conduct
a scientifically based acoustical theory was in the making
scales were built up from tetrachords
musical terminology was well developed

goliard songs:

oldest written secular songs, latin texts
goliards - poets and composers who were students or clerics and exalted a libertine lifestyle
celebrate wine, women, satire
music does not survive in precise notation
early manifestation of literacy

jongleurs:

sung by jongleurs (minstrels) * traveled from village to village entertaining * social outtcasts, denide protection of the law
troubadours and trobairitz were poet-composers who flourished in france * created and sang their own songs - mainly about love but covered other topics too * very well thought of, unlike jongleurs * most songs were about their social lives and complaint songs about their love lives * basically the influencers of the medieval era * composition was competitive, oral tradition * troubadours - southern france * trouveres - northern france
variety and ingenuity
refrain is a line or two of poetry that returns with its own music from one stanza to another, each stanza sung to the same melody
narrow range

minnesinger: