Can chant be sung too quickly?
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    I know that complaints against it often stem from (whether the complainees know or not) it being too slow and "dirge-like." Boring. I have heard this in church, on recordings, and from groups I've directed who seem to default to a dirge setting probably because that is what their experience of chant tells them it should sound like.

    I have not, however, heard it sung and thought, "Wow, that was way too quick."

    It is also part of my experience that it tends to slow down as singers are added. 2 or 3 singing together at a brisk pace will be noticeably slower joined by 6 more.

    How do you keep your groups lively, and avoid the dirge? Have you ever heard a group sing a chant so quickly you wished they would slow the heck down?
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Ryand,

    Several thoughts are necessary to understand the right speed to sing the chant.

    1) In which building is it being sung? A building which has a long reverberation will, necessarily, have chant sung more slowly. In this environment, it's possible to sing the chant too quickly.

    2) How complex is the melody? if one is singing a sequence, stately or majestic is quite proper, but one could sing it more quickly than, say, an offertory which will sound positively breathless if sung quickly. Marian antiphons can be sung more quickly than Communion antiphons because the one is intended for everyone to sing, and is usually well known, and the other shouldn't imply that receiving Our Lord should be rushed. The Communions aren't usually very ornate melodies, but one should still not rush them.

    3) The purpose of chant, humanly speaking, is to raise the heart and mind of the faithful to the contemplation of the things of God. Dirges don't do this. Nor does "My Little Pony". Melodies which are labored (i.e., dirge-like in singing, because of choosing the wrong tempo) fail to do this.

    I think one other point needs to be considered: is one singing a melody or the support section to "76 Trombones"? Notes should be sung as music, not as a theory exercise one is learning to sing.

    Hope that's helpful.

    Cheers,

    Chris
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    There is a school of Chant which has as its maxim that Chant is "elevated speech."

    Aside from breath control problems, slooooooooooow Chant is not "speech." (Nor elevating.)

    Chris is right: the building will govern the tempo, to some extent. But if the text is not 'carried' by the tempo, (building considerations taken), it is too slow.
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  • donr
    Posts: 971
    I notice that Chant too fast when I (or the singers) don't know it. We tend to sing it a little better the more we know it.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    No.
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  • donr
    Posts: 971
    :-)
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,365
    The question would seem to presuppose that there is a mean tempo for all chant, deviation from which would result in a 'too fast' or 'too slow' performance. To draw but two examples, one would not sing In splendoribus the same 'tempo' as Ascendit Deus or Iubilate Deo. Some chants, depending on feast, mode, mood, text, melodic shape and complexity, plus other possible factors would be properly sung-speeched at widely differing tempi; add to all these the specific voices, level of accomplishment, and the acoustical environment and the question becomes quite impossible to answer without knowing the specific chant(s) in mind and the acoustic in which they will be offered. So, yes, chant can be sung too quickly. Also, it can be sung too slowly. And, it can be sung 'just right'. All depending on the variables mentioned above.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,148
    Or, as Louis Armstrong said to his band, "Not too slow, not too fast, just half fast."
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  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    Well, Melo, sometimes it depends on whom you ask. James H. Moore's Vespers at St. Mark's : music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Roretta, and Francesco Cavalli mentions that speeding fines were regularly imposed on the singers.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    They have motorcycle traffic cops at S.Mark's?!? Get a ticket for doing 36 in a 35? That's just good old taxation.
    After reclining at the feet of Mahrt, Turk, Arlene, Horst, Morse and everyone else for a number of colloq.'s and intensives, strangely enough it was Ostrowski's simple stricture, "Do it the way I want to," that made the most sense to me. Counting backwards, noting icti, 2/3's etc. kinda turned me into Granpa Simpson. Of course, JMO talks very fast, which is still slower than he thinks, so that sort energy and impetus rubs off. I have sung with other directors who seem to have come from the Bob and Ray Slow Chanters of America Assn., and come away wanting a rug and a hari kiri knife in the worst way afterwards. Chant tempi might be analogous to martial arts disciplines.
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  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    I had the unfortunate experience of leading a Gloria too fast. People didn't have time to breathe. Yes, too fast is possible.
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  • PhatFlute
    Posts: 219
    I bet my ring it can,
    Ph

    Ps : is my opinion.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    It's going to be interesting to hear how things develop in the next decade or so. We're building up a large group of young people whose polyphonic musical education came AFTER their chant education. In other words, they already go with the flow of chant, first, before making music with a beat.

    When they are leaders, then this fast/slow thing won't be the issue. The question right now, it seems to me , is how to get an almost ineradicable sense of meter out of the chant.
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  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    You're right, Kathy -- it's difficult to get that "floating" sensation that comes (for me, anyway) with proper presentation of the irregular rhythm of alternating twos and threes. Singers tend to want to "quantize" the rhythm, e.g. by adding a pulse to a dotted punctum if said punctum is preceded by a group of three. This is just one of my menagerie of pet peeves, but still . . .

    So, to answer the OP's question, I would say that while it is theoretically possible to sing the chant too fast, I have never personally experienced it as either a director or a singer.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I have only ever heard the "chant too fast" thing from (1) people who are trying to count or (2) people who think that meditative = deadly slow or (3) both.
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  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Spot on, Kathy. I was blessed to be able to be educated in chant first, then polyphony afterwards. There is nothing more aggravating than trying to force chant to any sort of metrical rhythm.
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    There is nothing more aggravating than trying to force chant to any sort of metrical rhythm

    Except, I dare say, when using modal rhythms.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,365
    I'm sure that Ben meant '...any sort of metre', metre and rhythm being neither synonymous nor necessarily simultaneous phenomena.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    I have only ever heard the "chant too fast" thing from (1) people who are trying to count or (2) people who think that meditative = deadly slow or (3) both.


    Third possibility--which I've encountered--ignorant dolts.
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