Zachary Gates Dr. Hung M.

Histo

Different types of chant were created for different reasons. Obviously they created different effects in the worship and the enjoyment of the congregation. It must be noted though, that the sole purpose of music in the church was to further the love for God and not the love for only music. It was through music that prayer would be enhanced. Music at this point wasnt used for anything else. There was no formal secular music in the beginning due to the fact that all the education those times was only available in the church. Therefore all those who were literate used their literacy to either read the words to praise god, or read chant to praise god, even though there wasnt any notation for a very long time. There were two types of chant being performed at the time: a single note line, and the sustained note organum. The single note line functioned as a source of musical clarity, as it consisted of one line of music with one set of text. It can be thought that this is the same clarity and purity that was strived for in the lives of religious people. As a function within the service, if a section was extremely important, itd be equally important that it be sung without any distraction of harmony or multiple text. This focus must have been important. Not just those running the service, but also the congregation would find the clarity in the messages being conveyed in the very clear music. Also, music was in a very early stage, and the ability to focus on a single line wasnt overbearing on the ears and minds of the people listening. Polyphony would have given them headaches. Again, let me reiterate that they did not care for the music as much as they cared for the glory of god. Their music choices reflected how they felt God could be praised best. As for performing written chant versus improvised chant, it had to have been a little more difficult to perform the improvised then the written chant.

They had learned most of these chants from rote, and therefore were very familiar with the chants. Even so, I feel like this familiarity with the chants would be challenged when faced with large amounts of improvisation. The improvisation could throw one off, while a written version of their chant and following that very closely could only help drive forward the accuracy of the chant. In addition, theres a reason why religious texts exist. If verbal prayer was to be improvised, thered be a place for that in the church, but because it is not, I think there must be a case for the fact the improvised musical prayer was not as widely accepted. While it comes more organically from your soul, it is not about your soul, or your enjoyment of the music. Its about the clarity and purity of the messages and prayers being sent to God. I think that it might have done a service disservice by making it about you and your creativity by improvising. Yes, even though it is in your mind for the glory of god, you cannot deny that it does create an air of attention seeking in a god-centered performance. I feel like the musicians that tried to embellish the music with their improvisation and later ornamentation had wanted more from music because they were more closely related to it. The general congregation member or priest would not understand the tension of music and where it would naturally go to, and therefore they might find improvisation or embellishment as redundant, unnecessary, and inappropriate. Unlike the congregation, these musicians may have thought that they were better equipped to decide what their prayer in song should sound like, as they were the masters of their own craft. What they may have failed to realize though was the fact that the true point of the craft was worship: a job obviously left to the priest.