Ward Method and Chant Modes
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 309
    I took the Ward I classes at Catholic U this summer, and am now happily employing the Method at my parochial school, grades 1 to 3. I will finish Book I in about two years.

    I am implementing some aspects of the Method with my adult schola at the Cathedral Chant School. Treatment of modes does not come til at least Book II in Justine Ward's books, so I am writing my own intonation exercises, centered around the finals of the modes instead of around "Do". It is my hope that work in this area will both improve sight reading and help us all to hear the tonality of the modes better.

    Has anyone tried doing anything like this? Justine Ward wrote some great compass exercises, but they are all centered around "Do", and so aren't really adequate for learning the tonality of the modes. Are there other suggestions on similar compass exercises for the modes?

    Also, does anyone have vocal warmups based on the modes? All the warmups that I've collected so far only emphasize major and minor tonality.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    James Jordan in Westminster choir college emphsizes solfege singing.

    I don't have this book, but might be helpful. (Has anyone used this book?) The Choral Warm-up: Modal Excercises

    http://www.giamusic.com/search_details.cfm?title_id=7338
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 309
    EUREKA! I just discovered I have Ward's Gregorian Chant Practicum on my shelf. It appears to have the sorts of exercises I'm looking for. The more I study this Method, the more impressed I am.

    I'd still be interested on feedback from others who have worked aspects of the Ward Method with adult chant choirs, and vocal warmups based on the mdoes.
  • Jenny Donelson
    Posts: 243
    Angela, you'll find the Sunol Textbook of Gregorian Chant very helpful in this regard. Part 1 has do and interval-based exercises, but part 2 has exercises for each of the modes.

    Also, there is a set of melodies for each of the modes transcribed in Busse-Berger's Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (UC Berkeley Press, 2005, p. 69) that are great for memorizing the modes. The text of each intonation expounds the symbolic meaning of the number of the mode (quinque prudentes for mode 5, tertia dies for mode 3, etc.) There are others, too, in Terrence Bailey's Intonation Forumulas of Western Chant.
  • Jeffrey CogginsJeffrey Coggins
    Posts: 360
    I recommend anything and everything by James Jordan.
  • Elizabeth Poel
    Posts: 44
    Angela, the exercises for each mode at the end of the Gregorian Chant Practicum book are wonderful. Dr. Ted Marier, with whom many of us studied at CUA, recommended singing them regularly. I understand that he got the exercises from Justine Ward, who got them from Dom Mocquereau. These exercises contain many patterns that we find in the chants themselves. In rehearsal, before singing a chant, it is helpful to have the singers sing the specified mode to establish the modality. You can even have them sing a few of those exercises in the particular mode beforehand, as well.
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 309
    Elizabeth, thanks. These are exactly what I was looking for. I'm encouraged that the intonations I was writing for my schola are quite similar to these. The big difference is that I was working more slowly up to them and using lots of "think" tones to establish the intervals.

    In the index I also note with great glee that she wrote some compass exercises for the modes!!! (Although they are considerably more complicated than the exercises established in Book I for Major.)
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