Mode VIII Alleluia
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    I'll just leave this here.
    AlleluiaVIII.pdf
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,410
    For reason?

    (Um, why are the notes round??)
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Ryan,

    At the risk of starting a fire-bomb attack -- not from you but from others here -- can you explain why your harmonic underlay seems much more like a theory exercise than an accompaniment to voices? I've been complimented on my accompaniment of chant ordinaries, but I've never understood why what I do is so highly praiseworthy. I have, over the course of two decades, been struck by how common the "theory exercise" approach to accompanying chant is, and I don't know why it is so common.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    MJO:
    1 - Because
    2 - Because it's organ notation and not neumes? I don't really understand the question.

    Chris:
    I don't understand what you mean by theory exercise approach. I appreciate any input you have if you'd like to be more specific.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,795
    If I didn't know there are no farmyards nearby I would swear I just heard a distant chant "Four corners good, no corners bad!"
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    I am so confused right now.
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    I've used this Alleluia in both OF and EF liturgies. It works well.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Congregations and choirs like their accompaniment to lead them where they're supposed to go -- which is why some guitar chord simplifications do such damage to musical line progressions: G major and E-minor aren't the same. I don't have time this nanosecond, but I'll try to give directly specific suggestions of how I might accompany the same chant, as soon as I can.



  • CGM
    Posts: 696
    I think that as a good melody will generally illuminate a text, so should a good accompaniment illuminate the melody. Here's my shot at harmonizing this particular melody. Keeping in mind that chants typically move in melodic cells of "twos and threes," I tried to use chord progressions that, as CGZ said, would lead the melody forward, and without being clichéd, make the conclusion of the melody seem almost inevitable, given the linear and harmonic trajectory it was on.
    GregorianAlleluiaMode8.png
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  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Yours is a good lead for singers to follow. Mine is for an organist to follow a good schola's lead.
    Thanked by 1JonathanKK
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Ryand,

    That's the other shoe! Thanks for that.

    God bless,

    Chris
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 339
    Ooh, that's a great perspective. Perhaps, especially with chant, accompaniments ought to be fitted to the needs of the choir. That should apply equally to modern settings, maybe, thereby increasing the usefulness of a composer/arranger's work.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,471
    accompaniments ought to be fitted to the needs of the choir.


    Hic. Semper et ubique.
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