Interesting.

Question... why would you not just do this in square notes?

That is admirable, but how large is the audience (director's of music in the trenches) that would be concerned about the use of the St. Gall and Laon neume system? It must be an extremely small number. Or am I missing something? And then, if they are interested in that system, would not they just prefer to use the ancient manuscripts to keep it pure (and in the Latin)?

Some critics of the first edition complained--not without some justification--that I used episemata to show only some of the nuance contained in the St. Gall and Laon neumes, and that I stated no criteria for selection. (I didn't have any, really--just personal taste.) There ARE people who are seeking to incorporate all this nuance into their choir's singing, for good or for ill. (Cardine himself had reservations.) I am trying to make the book "all things to all people." My concern is that using notes of two sizes may be disturbing to those who follow a more-or-less equalist interpretation--sure the vast majority.

FWIW: No system that I've encountered that has attempted to render the rhythmic hints in the earliest MSS into either quadratic notation or standard notation have succeeded. Granted that some of the "new" shapes (new in 1934) from Solesmes have helped, such as the oriscus in the salicus, but there are subtleties in the MSS that are not easily rendered in new notation. I often find myself, when reading the new Antiphonale Romanum, wishing it had the old neums above the quadratic notation. (Didn't someone - Guido d'Arezzo? - say that you need the new notation for pitch and the old notation for rhythm?) YMMV.

Wherever we have round notes it is because of the childishly pitiful recalcitrance of those who think that they are terrific church musicians and singers but who couldn't possibly be bothered with serious chant scholarship. Please spare me from hearing their renderings of chant.

I see someone missed the medication cart this morning. Next time they need to increase the dosages. I am fine with square notes for authentic Gregorian chant. Adapting them to modern music is goofy. I do read both, by the way. It's like the Amish who risk burning their houses down with kerosene instead of using electric lights.

Modern compositions are NOT Gregorian chant, no matter how greatly the opposite is desired. I think a greater problem is chant musicians who don't read modern notation all that well. In any event, I rarely give square notes to my choir for anything but genuine Gregorian.

Unfinished sentence: What Olbash strikes me as potentially more satisfactory.

The American Gradual reaches a much larger audience of users than just the rarefied air of Musica Sacra, and from what I understand was not from the beginning an effort to lead singers back to singing square notes, but rather to make the Gradual available in Enlish to singers of the Anglican/Episcopalian/Roman and other denominations.

All should note that By Flowing Waters has also had a much wider outreach through its use of round notes. "The Other Ford" could have decided to do nothing but put the translation to the square notes of the Simplex, but instead made it acceptable and appealing to people who would shy away from square notes.

By insisting chant should only be sung from square notes and in Latin and no other resources provided would drastically limit those who may decide to move closer to the original.

Monks and Nuns today do not all cluster around a single, hand-drawn manuscript to sing but, "Horrors!" read from a mass produced book of tiny notes. Should all scholas be required to read chant from one manuscript by candlelight to sing chant in an authentic manner?

Do those who have recently jumped on the chant bandwagon have the knowledge and experience to tell "The Ford" and "The Other Ford" how to edit their very useful books?

Ben, neumes are a relatively recent system for singing Gregorian chant, as Bruce mentioned above. There is nothing authentic about them and they are, in essence, of 19th-20th century French origin - at least as we know them today. Neumes serve well for people who are not skilled in reading modern notation and allows anyone, with a little work, to sing chant. I have encountered a number of chant singers who go nuts when a piece of music in contemporary notation is put in front of them. They can't sing it. For the old works that are rather simplistic musically, they work fine. But putting modern compositions in neumes seem to me like the deception played on Jacob by his father-in-law. It is music pretending to be something it is not. When you lift that veil on the wedding night, it isn't Rachel underneath. LOL.

Gregorian chant is plainsong, but plainsong is not necessarily Gregorian.

BTW, I like TAG and congratulate Bruce on his very fine and useful work.

Where did you think Bruce would get the time to do all that? LOL.

I think Francis is volunteering, unless he means "hear hear!"

Bruce Ford developed The American Gradual in 2001 according to the calendar of the Episcopal Church, so the book started as a specifically American project. It takes psalm texts from the Book of Common Prayer and takes other Scripture texts from the RSV. The melodies are based on the restoration work published on the website gregor-und-taube.de.

What is the point in saying that modern chant composition is not Gregorian chant? Of course it isn't! Nor is much of any chant which we have inherited. Certainly none of post-Caroline times, nor very much from pre-Caroline times. In fact, the chants that any scholars would actually admit to be 'Gregorian' are very small in number. What is the point in making such an assertion? Liturgical chant is liturgical chant. It is of a recognisably cohesive genre. It has been composed over a slew of centuries, and very little of it (as most nowadays know) is actually 'Gregorian'.

Too, I think it is not quite accurate to dismiss the square notation that we have today as XIXth and early XXth century efforts at rendering the chant notation of early eras. This square notation has only been around since not long after Carolingian times. The notation found in our modern books has quite recognisable antecedents in any post-Carolingian manuscript. It is not at all a system invented in recent times. What is the point in making such an assertion? Square notation has been chant notation since before the XIth century, not too long after the era of Frankish scribes. Further, there is nothing arcane about it. It can easily be learnt by school children (who find it fascinating) and anyone else who wishes to expend a little effort to learn a notation whose signals are as clear today as they were a thousand years ago.

I didn't think that I was 'off-topic'. But if you wish to make another thread of it I have no objection. Whatever you think best.

There have been noteable instances in missionary lands in which permission was obtained from Rome to adapt our chant to local languages. Several of which I am aware include Chinese and Algonquin. There are other examples, Japanese being one. It is really rather artificial to 'allow' this in exotic places but not in any of our European languages. Beautiful diction and artful attention to linguistic and musical nuance are what makes for good chant, and these can be heard in almost any language. English, it is said (tiresomely!), does not have the beautiful vowels that Latin does. Well, no, it doesn't... at least not the same ones. It does, though, have its own beautiful vowels which can be sung exquisitely by anyone who wishes to sing them exquisitely. I and many Anglicans have done this for a very long time. I think that the really shocking thing about non-Latin chant to many people is that suddenly they can understand the language, a level of engagement which doesn't, for most, happen when hearing Latin and merely listening to vowels that are, objectively, no more beautiful than English ones. If one wishes for something to be beautiful he will perform it beautifully. If he (or she) wishes to discredit something he will perform it with determined and purposeful ugliness.

There is always a certain charm, a sort of enthrallment, experienced when hearing a language that one doesn't understand. One notices the unique vowels, the rhythm, the sometimes strange vocal inflections, and so on, and may be captivated and conclude that that language is far more beautiful and musical than English. I have experienced this with French, Slavic, Italian, Danish, German, even Latin, Japanese, Portuguese, and others. I was once totally carried away by listening to a lady reading French from a piece of paper and asked what she was reading, convinced that it must be something very profound. 'Oh, that is my grocery list', she said. Latin has this same quality because most people do not comprehend it. They truly do appreciate it (as is good), but they attribute to it some penumbra of sacrality that is, objectively, no more inherent in it than in English. An intelligent and mature person will cherish Latin because of its unique presence throughout our history, its unique role in the development of our European civilisation, but will not attribute to it highly subjective characteristics, unique holiness, almost (even if not quite) magical or sacral powers that no more inher in it than other languages. The 'magic' lies totally in its incomprehension to most hearers. If we should attribute such holiness to any language other than our own I should think it would be Aramaic, the language spoken by our Lord. But, alas, no own carries on about Aramaic, do they!

.

Sorry to disappoint.

Allow me to start a new discussion about Latin vs. vernacular in the liturgy with a word from Dom Guéranger OSB, Abbot of Solesmes:
http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/11569/the-anti-liturgical-heresy-by-dom-gueranger-osb-latin-vs.-vernacular

Hoping to cultivate and transmit his brilliant legacy.

Once again I don't mind if people go for plainsong in English.
For me I stick to Latin and Gregorian chant.
___________________
And to appease the debate, this is a video about the beautiful English language which can be talked in so many accents :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dABo_DCIdpM
Warning: some strong language...

Forget the Latin-English-French-vernacular wars. For me, the Kyrie is something that should be sung in Greek.

As well as the Hallelujah.

They don’t have a good reason for disliking it other than distaste for whatever associations they have with it.

As they say all too often in the Catholic church, "BINGO!"

Just like music theory, chant as well has suffered under the presentation by teachers who are the equivalent of many high school teachers who teach geography...often athletic coaches hired to win games but carried as "teachers" in the budget.