Humming the liquescent neumes? Resources and scholarship?
  • TheUbiquitous
    Posts: 70
    I've always been taught that liquescent neumes hum the consonant. That is, until later when I joined a schola which on German scholarship decided not to. Still, and in general, the "humming" interpretation has been the standard I can count on, at least across a number of choirs and scholas throughout California.

    Recently, a very talented church musician was somewhat shocked that this was the "right" way to sing a neume. I have always assumed the "humming" was a Solesmes thing but I realized I just took it on faith. What's the deal? And, as Charles Culbreth might say, "where's the beef?"

    Thank you! I look forward to watching the discussion.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Unless I've misunderstood what you mean, I have never encountered this interpretation.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    I also take it as the standard interpretation, but then I'm in Mittelkalifornien (as opposed to 'central') and a former student of Richard Crocker (I don't recall this coming up with Bill Mahrt). Paul Ellison also endorses singing on voiced consonants and I've always assumed his ideas were probably formed before he left Britain. It's certainly disconcerting when a liquescent occurs where the nearest consonant to hand is a 't', though.
  • TheUbiquitous
    Posts: 70
    Ben Yanke: An example of what I mean:

    The instant you start to sing the smaller note, you should be on the "l" in "cel."
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I wouldn't call it humming (so I see why YANKE was confused), but I know what you mean, and I do think it is the standard interpretation. It is what CMAA teaches in beginning chant course, and what I've read and heard in many places.

    I'm sure there are other interesting things people do with it, though. There's always something like that.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    I'm sure there are other interesting things people do with it, though.

    Oh, yes! 'Interesting' is the key word, here.
    Choirmasters are an imaginative lot.
    Have you ever heard of 'choirmaster's prerogative'?
    Why, Frankish vs. Roman interpretation was just the beginning.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    There is no need to slavishly adhere to this outmoded practice.

    For one, only a small fraction of the liquescence in the chant manuscripts found its way into the square notation. Even then, the notation only served as a reminder to pronounce the sound well. It appears inconsistently from copyist to copyist, and even from chant to chant. The lack of a special symbol does not mean that we do not need to pronounce the sound well.

    Furthermore, the whole idea of turning the whole liquescent note into a hum more often than not creates a gap in the musical line—exactly the opposite of what it is intended to do! The competent modern director will make sure singers pronounce the sounds well whether a liquescent is indicated or not. The amount of consonant (or diphthong) required will depend on the number of singers, the instruments be used, the acoustic of the room, and the number of people present, not to mention tessitura and tempo. I instruct my choirs (when reading from square notation) to at least beginthe note on the vowel, since it is that vowel and not the consonant that is the primary vehicle for carrying the pitch.

    Of course all of this doesn't mean we can't learn a whole lot of cool stuff from looking at the way liquescence is notated in early manuscripts! For example, how certain sounds were pronounced, or how a word might have been be syllabified. It also gives us insight into the vocal technique of early chanters, and how certain consonant sounds might cause the pitch to fall, especially from to fa (or do to ti). It also helps us see where scooping from one note to the next might have resulted in a clivis being misheard as a torculus with the first note in unison with the preceding note (the torculus initio debilis), which might help us to make the choice to put the stress on the second rather than the first note of that torculus.
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen Salieri
  • joerg
    Posts: 137
    I once had the pleasure to sing under Goeschl who wrote his PhD thesis on liquescence under Cardine himself. I did not perceive any difference in articulation between liquescent and non liquescent neumes.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    What many people often forget (because until recently it has not been translated into quadratic notation) is that there are different kinds of liquescent neums in the paleography, not just the usual "small lequescent" clivis or pes encountered in the old Solesmes books. Look at the Antiphonale Romanum II: more liquescents than you can shake a virga at!
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen francis
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Cardine talks about different kinds of liquescent neumes, those of augmentation and those of diminution. That's perhaps an overly complicated way of trying to fit them into our established taxonomy. Cardine was clearly trying to reconcile new insight into the Gregorian semiology with the Graduale Romanum of 1908 and the Solesmes method.

    Nowhere is this more clear than in Beginning Studies in Gregorian Chant where he correctly observes that for the clivis with episema, the episema applies to both notes. He then concludes that we ought to apply the Solesmes interpretation of the episema to both notes. This is where is was mistaken, as the episema in this context does not mean "lengthen" but "do not shorten." Moreover, the basic pulse of the Solesmes method is the short note (punctum), whereas the earliest manuscripts reveal the basic note length (the virga or uncinus) to be long.

    I think his classification of liquescent neumes is also influenced by the idea that a particular symbol has a fixed meaning, when the meaning is only fully understood when taken in context.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    If I understand the technique correctly, it was practiced by Salamunovich, confirming the "West Coast" locus.

    Certainly was not so in the German-influenced (Caecelian) Milwaukee area.
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    @incantu - I don't read Cardine as saying this in _Beginning Studies_. He is says that the clivis with episema would be lengthened if it's cadential, but goes on to say that if it occurs in the middle of a phrase this is not the case: "there is no need to prolong [the clivis with episema]. Instead it is simply sung, as if each of the two notes carried a normal syllable." In other words, he agrees with your interpretation, unless you want to maintain that notes at the ends of phrases are not prolonged.

    This is treated more comprehensively in _Gregorian Semiology_ in the famous demonstration using the "IV A" antiphon melodies, the entire point of which is to refute the idea of "the basic pulse of the Solesmes method."

    There are clearly different kinds of liquescent neumes in the manuscripts - I'm curious how you would account for the differences without the notion of augmentation and diminuition?
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I stand corrected. On page 17 of Beginning Studies, Cardine does in fact give an accurate reading of the clivis with episema, i.e. that it has the value of two normal syllables. I have so frequently seen this comment about the episema applying to both notes used as justification for a completely incorrect interpretation of that neume that I transferred the blame to Cardine. Mea culpa. However, just after explaining how to interpret the episema (which, in this context is still in its Solesmes form), he goes on to explain how the cadential dot is to be interpreted. This is where I take major issue, because I maintain that the dot means exactly what the person who put the dot there intends it to mean. The dot is entirely an invention of Solesmes. At this point he is trying to use a little bit of knowledge about Semiology to reinterpret the completely incompatible Solesmes notation. The episema, on the other hand, carries different meanings depending on the context. It's funny that Cardine mentions the cadential clivis with episema, since this is one of the places where the episema is frequently left off all together. We are to assume that the earliest practitioners new that the final two notes of a phrase are always slower. I really do think if he had lived another 20 years, Cardine would have agreed.
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    I've found a number of interesting features in Gregorian Chant. I've found that in the Dominican Graduale that the quarter-bar in fact indicates that the neumes immediately before it should be lengthened as in a cadence.

    "Humming" the loquescent isn't entirely what I've been taught. I was taught that the consonant falls on this neume, such as the L is AL-le-lu-ia or the N in Ho-saN-na.
  • TheUbiquitous
    Posts: 70
    Adam: Are there any resources on this interpretation, or ways of expressing what you know I'm getting at?
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    There is this in the Preface to the 1961 GR:
    Seminota, qua cephalicus fg et epiphonus i desinunt, haud reperitur nisi in fine unius syllabae, quando simul, altera continuo succedente, occurrunt aut gemellae more diphtongi junctim efferendae vocales, v. g. AUtern, Y,]us, alleluia; aut plures contiguae consonantes, v. g. oMNis saNCTus…
    If I understand the Latin, it doesn't sound much different to the so-called 'West coast' interpretation to me.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
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