Jasmine Riel Group-Organum Assignment: Essay MH-247-02, Music Historiography I Dr.

Hung October 15th, 2012 In a liturgical service, I think hearing a sustained-note organum and hearing just a chant can have very different experiences. I think a sustained-note organum involves more leadership from the organal voice and more attention from the principal voice because those or the soloist who is singing the organal voice, like in our performances, had to be able to sing their own part while remembering to cue in the singers. I also think that everyone singing the same chant, for example, in class when we sang the principal voice together, it was easier to sing in unison and to move together. I also feel that hearing an organal voice above the principal voice has a freer essence to it because it is not constantly bound to singing the same rhythm of a particular chant. In a large chapel, the drone of the sustained-note underneath would reverberate throughout, with a soloist or specific group flying through the air above the drone (since the new part is usually taken at a higher register than the principal voice). If I had to make an educated guess as to why these chants were created, it is that chant, in a way, is praising the glory of god through voice in a way that is more musical as opposed to just speaking it. Id think that in hearing a unison chant, the members of a mass congregation would be moved and want to even sing along. Maybe while hearing a sustained-note organum, listeners would rather relax and listen to the soloist(s) travel freely, allowing the singer(s) to take them on a floating-like journey in praising the Lord. But both of these forms of prayer music are similar in that they are both meant for praising God and praying to God. I think by adding more melismatic techniques and more parts to these chants makes them even more creative in how the singers try to reach out to the Lord, allowing more ideas to emerge. When my group went about completing this project, it was extremely difficult in both treatments of the sustained-organum as an oral tradition and written tradition. As an oral tradition, we had a difficult time in a few different aspects. First of all, we had to improvise and not all of us were used to singing chant. Ive sung chant a few times before in [Catholic] mass, so I was somewhat accustomed to the feeling of moving freely here and there, but like my members, it was hard to stray from step-wise motion and do a few written/improvise leaps without forgetting to eventually get back to the note where I had to cue in the rest of my group. Because we were only improvising, it was hard to make the music flow more evenly and more freely. We were more worried about getting the right

notes and not sounding bad and making sure that we eventually came in and ended at the same times even though the point of improvisation is to feel worriless and move freely. But I feel that back then, this was also difficult to develop as well, especially since there was no notation system right away. Like us, they had to practice improvising frequently, probably, in order to ensure a lovely chant. But also, without a notation system, I think it was easier for them to improvise because there were not that many rules that they had to worry about. Today we have so many different musical ideas and concepts so we are accustomed to adhering ourselves to specifics. As a written tradition, creating an organum seemed more feasible for us. It was easier to just write down notes play it and sing it, and then change whatever we didnt like. I feel as though in the past, they were used to not having to be bound to a written system, therefore, writing down the music was not completely necessary. For us, writing down the music functioned as a tool to help us remember. It served as a very technical assistant that helped us know when to move and when to cue in everyone else. But back then, writing down chant served as a cultural function the necessity to record music and share it with other people. For us, we were not hoping to have our chants be sung by other people in mass we just wanted to make sure we knew what we were singing. But in the past, people wrote down music in order to save it and to spread it to other people and be able to teach other cultures how to sing their music.