Chant Made Simple

By Robert M. Fowells

Book Overview

A book introducing the earliest neumes which were the precursors to the current-day square chant notation. This is a wonderful resource leading to the use of the Graduale Triplex and Offertoriale... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 155725253X
• ISBN13: 9781557252531
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Paraclete Pr
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

May not get you singing but ...

What excited me about this book when I first saw it was that it explains the old neumes - the signs over the text that bear no resemblance to our contemporary staff oriented notation. However, the greater value of this volume is the careful notes on performance that are provided for the chants. These notes are otherwise available only if you have a superb chant instructor - something many of us do not have access to. Even if you have no intestest in singing Gregorian chant, these notes teach you to listen well to chant. This is a very slim volume but it contains a large does of clear and accurate information regarding Gregorian chant.

Excellent introduction to Gregorian Chant

The question of Gregorian chant rhythm has been of intense interest to scholars. During the period of the restoration of Gregorian chant in the late 19th and early 20th century, a system of understanding Gregorian rhythm was put forth by Dom Andre Mocquereau, O.S.B., a priest of the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes and a great Gregorian chant scholar. His method became widely used throughout the world and gave the chant the beauty for which it was renowned. One of his students, Dom Eugene Cardine, O.S.B. (also a monk of Solesmes) sought to study the question of rhythm anew. By returning to the manuscripts, he sought to bring forth rhythmic subtleties which had not been addressed in the method of Dom Andre Mocquereau. This little book seeks to introduce the reader to Gregorian Semiology, that is reading the ancient notation and the rhythmic signs of the ancient manuscripts. This book is a wonderful introduction to reading the the neums of St. Gall. This will also ease the reader into understanding and using the Graduale Triplex (a version of the Graduale Romanum with the medieval square notation, the neums of Laon, and the neums of St. Gall). To those musicians who would be interested in learning the chant, I can think of no better beginning resource than this.

It's Just What The Title Says

A good, simple introduction to gregorian chant. Don't get this book thinking that when you finish you'll be qualified to start a gregorian chant choir at your church or to consider yourself a scholar on the subject. What this book does accomplish is familiarize you with enough of the notational basics that, (1) if you're a listener you can better appreciate the music, (2)if you decide to do further study you'll have the necessary background to get started, or (3) if you're already leading a choir, you could add a couple of the book's short, simple chants to your repetoir.