Corpus Christi Watershed (whose collection of chants for the Traditional Liturgical Year we include in our sidebar - St. René Goupil) is providing the following 12 online lessons for those who wish to have a first idea of how to read and sing plainchant:
They also include the following very rare recordings from 1904:
9 comments:
I don't mean to burst the bubble, but I am a musician- and I wish it were that easy- it is not extraordinarily difficult, but this attempt is misleading. You cannot learn chant with a few 30-second videoclips. Those videos only make sense to make because I already know what he intends to teach in each clip.
The simple fact is that chant must yes be worked at, but more importantly internalized- an opportunity this generation has missed, but hopefully can recoup over time.
Lets stop fooling ourselves that it can be learned in such a trite way...
I can certainly appreciate Chanter's point.
But I also don't think that it is being implied here that readers like me are going to become proficient by simply working through these lessons.
But there are readers out there with the talent and training to use this and they may well be in a situation where they and/or their parish are struggling to gather the necessary resources, or are dealing with other hurdles in getting things running.
Also, even for someone like me (who for the sake of everyone involved must not attempt chant in public!) there may be nuggets of useful information that will help me follow chant during Mass, etc.
I look forward to giving the material a look.
The important thing is that at least such means are provided. As a chant practitioner (or over 20 years) I know that this is not sufficient. Actually, the only right way to learn, is to practice it. The best thing, to begin alongside someone(s) who are already doing it. Besides, it should be practiced within liturgy, as its sung form. Yet these tips are very useful for the beginners and those who are interested in Traditional Latin Liturgical Singing and Chant.
I wish I was smart enough to understand how to do this. I just love chant.
I had to hear "Gather us in" on the piano at Mass yesterday.
CC Watershed is perhaps one of the BEST places to get "connected to" if one wishes to develop a love for Gregorian Chant or polyphony.
YES... Gregorian Chant is PRAYED... not SUNG. And it does require a little work... but an amateur CAN do it... and one must do it if nobody else around is willing to!!!
I am a rank amateur compared to some of these folks at Watershed... but I have gotten pretty good (good enough to occasionally lead or sing a solo verse) by hours of practicing and by listening to the sung propers that Watershed has on their sister site renegoupil.org. Also, the CMAA annual colloquium is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I'm saving up so that some day I can go there with one of my teen-agers.
I used to think chant was too hard for me since I do not read much music at all. There are five new sung propers for every Sunday Mass. But then I realized (child of the sixties that I am) that I probably learned more melodies between the ages of 8 and 18 then all the propers for all the Sundays combined... and then some. THAT was when I realized that I had no excuse not to learn these.
All it took was one other person who already loved Chant, and who was self taught, to get me interested.
I could write a TOME about my experiences learning this.
Perhaps I should create a blog post about it. It would have to be a series though.
Why does this matter? because if you love the Old Mass and you wish for love of the Tridentine Rite to spread... heady argumentation won't do it. ONLY BEAUTY can neutralize people who may otherwise not "get it". But the Sung Missa Cantata requires beautifully sung propers and ordinaries. For this to happen, someone has to give up their favorite hobby or something and substitute learning the propers for a couple of years. TRUST ME! It's worth the effort!
Abc123:
Ah what bittersweet memories your comment elicited. The piano. The plastic flowers. Canned choir music and electric candles. Coveralls, tattoos, t-shirts and shorts. Being greeted by the Minster of Bulletins on the way in. All that hugging and kissing and Father handshaking his way up and down the aisle while trying not to trip over people returning to their detachable chairs. The holding hands around the Cranmer Table. The general circus atmosphere throughout the mass...
How I yearn for the return to my past circumstances. Not.
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Marla: It is just for such as you that I commented. You are smart enough to learn Chant!
Start with learning the ordinaries (The Kyrie, Gloria, the Creed (Credo III is a good starter) the Sanctus, the Agnus Dei. Also, before the High Mass begins there is the Asperges. The Asperges is an excellent place to begin.
If you master the ordinaries to one or two Mass settings (seasonal settings for which the words do not change each Sunday, unlike the propers)... then you could move on and spend a year trying to master just the Introits. Then go on from there.
A great deal can be done on memory alone. This is not to say that reading Chant properly is unimportant. But it will come if you study the "movable do (DO as in do, re, me,...") and if you make use of ReneGoupil.org for the propers. Most of the ordinaries can be heard in various other places like YouTube and Vimeo.
Here is an excellent rendition of Credo III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR9NF905nJk
Hearing this Creed for the first time 20 years ago made a deep, deep impression upon me.
Ave Maria!
Pascendi
Mr. Ostrokowski's series contains a number of very helpful suggestions for getting across some of the basic principles for reading chant.
Nevertheless, I think a newcomer to chant might find some points in the series intimidating. The history of the Vatican edition and the mora vocis, while of great interest to musical geeks like yours truly, is not of much help when it comes to the nitty gritty of actually reading and singing all those "square notes." It's a technical discussion that tends to reconfirm the prejudice that chant requires near-professional musical skills.
Nor do I think it is necessary to teach students the names of all the various neums, as long as they can decode them. In my experience, quilisma and episema seem to be the only technical terms a student really needs to know.
Perhaps one could add an "eat-your-spinach" lesson, incorporating some of the annoying but really useful interval exercises from Poppel and Suñol. This is akin to repeating conjugations, and indispensable for
Also helpful: teaching students to associate intervals with melodies they already know. Descending minor third: "Cuckoo"; ascending fourth: first two notes of "Immaculate Mary"' etc. etc.
That said, I gave our seminarians at Most Holy Trinity a basic course in sight-reading chant during the past academic year, and I wish I had had some of this excellent material available to incorporate into the course.
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