That sounds awesome, ryand, and I'd love that. It's just that there is no time. At all. We have 15-20 minutes to rehearse the propers before Mass, and then it's game time.

What is the experience with groups that use this method? What text do you use? Does everyone in the schola have to be really familiar with the hieroglyphic code, or just the director? Does the director have a predetermined set of signals he uses? I've seen people sing with this method once, and the director gave very vigorous hand cues to the other fellows. To be frank, I just can't imagine our director signalling like that to the schola. His style of directing is quiet and understated. He keeps very good control, but he doesn't use large, animated movements.

I've not run across this concept in any
writings even near contemporary to early chant performance or transmission.
A strange concept, indeed!
Could you cite early sources?

The subject of this thread is "Solesmes method help," not "Performance practice in the early notational and pre-notational periods of Gregorian chant." And the Solesmes method absolutely does involve the concept of "beat" or "pulse."

There is to date, by the way, no performing edition of Gregorian chant that notates both the rhythm and the pitch of the melodies according to the earliest known tradition—not the Graduale Triplex, not the Graduale Novum, not any number of chants in Fluxus notation, not even the Graduale LaGal. All of these resources require not only knowledge of special signs and symbols, but also enough familiarity with the chants to know when symbols have been left out, added by mistake, or have a special meaning determined by context. In order to begin to approach the earliest known performance practice, one must either be taught (by rote) by someone who knows the chants intimately, or one must himself have intimate knowledge of a large body of early chant.

Since I would venture to guess that most choirs performing chant in churches today do so from a Solesmes edition of the chant, it might be wise for fledgling choirs to start by learning how that particular notation was intended to be performed by the people who prepared those editions. At the very least, that's what the original poster of this thread was asking how to do.

The subject of this thread is...

Esteemed Colleague:
This is all well and good. But...
The thing that is falsely peddled as 'the Solesmes method' IS not the Solesmes method. Even a cursory reading of Dom Saulnier's work will reveal that the Solesmes method is quite a different thing than what is so fondly passed off under that prestigious name in this country (in this country and hardly anywhere else). You need another name for Your Method because it is false advertising to pass it of as Solesmes. It isn't! Solesmes scholarship left what you are doing behind with other historical methods quite some decades ago. If and when I would refer to the Solesmes method, I would rightly and with every justification be referencing Doms Saulnier and Cardine - not the educated conjectures of a century ago, whose authors did not imagine that their ideas were graven in stone. The Solesmes Method is what Solesmes is doing today, not seventy five or more years ago.

...hobbyhorse...

Well, then, it is one that I joyfully ride with Fr Columba Kelly, Dom Saulnier, Dom Cardine, and the reckoning of all current objective academic scholarship. No, this is not my 'personal hobbyhorse' - I have very good academic company. Your slur and its tone are unworthy of you. If I have addressed this more than once on this forum it is because certain folk keep pasting 'Solesmes' onto their method which Solesmes has long ago lift in history's dustbin. This is what is truly 'unproductive and wearisome'.

...as far as I'm concerned.

Esteemed colleague, we all know that Gajard taught a method and published a book, and the term "Solesmes method" came into existence for that approach. Is it reasonable to assume that the Abbey approved of it then? I think so.

Protesting against the term, after it has been in use for 50 years, on the ground that it's not currently accurate (or that it wasn't 100% accurate then), is a type of excessive literalism. It's too late for that: the term exists, and has a meaning in the community.

It is more peaceable to tolerate the term, even if you think it has become a misnomer. It really doesn't mislead anyone: we all know that Solesmes has moved on to semiological interpretation.

And the case for semiological interpretation does not depend on a quibble about terms.

Well, that is more respectable ratiocination. Still, I would be happier if the devotees of 'the Solesmes method' would, far more honestly and accurately, refer to their favoured interpretation of chant performance as 'the Gajard method', or 'the Liber Usualis method', or some such. You do have a point in that the term 'Solesmes method' has 'a meaning in the community', but, even that is misleading, because everyone 'in the community' does not accept the validity of that appellation. The 'Gajard method' would be far, far more acceptable, for that is precisely what it is. Neophytes are not privy to these distinctions and it is, therefore, dishonest to infer to them that Gajard's speculations ARE the Solesmes method. This gives them the impression that Gajard's work has a status that it does not possess, and that it has, for all time, the approbation of 'Solesmes' - this is a wildly inaccurate misrepresentation; one that is perpetuated purposefully by its near monopoly at CMAA colloquia and publications. The CMAA ought to be keeping company with modern scholarship, not inculcating discarded theories.

I understand, now, your reasoning (and respect it), though I think that you are being overly generous to the Gajard folk. Real truth and honest academic enquiry are too precious to surrender to popularly cultivated misinformation.

For what it's worth, the current practice at Solesmes is also decades behind the most recent chant scholarship. It's not like they abandoned the old rhyhmic symbols in favor of medieval performance practice. Their most recent publications are a step in the right direction, but they are a far cry from a performing edition of medieval chant.

Many thanks for the helpful suggestions offered by many, and the offers of help, which i hope to avail of.
I appreciate the efforts of some to introduce deeper elements of scholarship into the discussion.
I also appreciate very much those who realise I am a beginner teaching beginners, and that basics which may be set aside or superceded in some possible future where we have arrived at competence and are striving towards mastery, are what is most immediately helpful.
While this business with the ictus may not be the last word in chant, it was prescribed by a talented musician, whose life was steeped in chant for the very purpose which I intend to use it for - to help revive chant among those who have not had the experience of chant. So before I would dare judge his ideas and methods inadequate or superceded, i would first like to understand them.

Just this afternoon I was regaling my incredulous high school choir with tales of the emotions tied to the various methods of chant rhythm.

They asked me where I stood, and I replied as always that what unites us as chant proponents ought to be much greater than what divides us.

Chant illiteracy is the enemy.

People who chant differently are our allies.

...Jolly well...

(Mode VII)
For she's a jolly good fellow,
For she's...

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

They were just product ads in comic verse,
so I don't think they could be put to much practical use.

Example: a series of five signs

Burma Shave /
was such a boom /
they passed the bride /
and kissed the groom /
Burma Shave

MJO,

I'm glad you mentioned Ensemble Organum above. I'm heavily influenced by one of their recordings. A critical moment in the development of my own style of chant interpretation, back in about 1990, came in listening closely to the wonderful Ensemble Organum "Tui Sunt Caeli" Offertory antiphon for the Mass in the Day, Christmas Day. (From their "Messe de Jour de Noel" CD) Attached to the antiphon are three of the verses. These are delivered with amazing dexterity and breath control by the base, counter-tenor and tenor of the group. I listened to this piece over and over, both for sheer pleasure and as a window into how to think about making the chant come alive with the semiology. They used the Offertoriale triplex to access the semiology.

The only thing I take issue with is their choice to sing at an almost uniform volume all the way through the piece. IE, no, or very little, tapering at the ends of phrases. Still, they're so good, even this doesn't seem to diminish the product.

I'd recommend a close study of this piece to anyone interested in exploring performance interpration alternatives for chant.

I've attached a pdf of the piece as it appears in the Offertoriale Triplex.

And here, at 26 mins 27 secs, is the recording on youtube. (The rest of the mass is well worth listening to. And if you want to blow the socks off young men, especially, who've never heard chant before, the parallel organum Kyrie on this recording is just the ticket.)

Thanks for the discussion on this post everyone & Bonniebede. I've learned a heck of a lot.

Steve, it's funny. I Feel the opposite (second to most recent of your comments) That the ictus is completely unnecessary and a distraction in syllabic chant, and useful in the more complex forms.

...uniform volume...

Hugh -
I believe that they do this thinking that it was the way singers sang at that time and place. There may be a shade of truth to such an approach, if they have scholarship to back it up. I, like you, though, think that this was likely not a universal performance manner at that time. After all, the Roman singers, did they not, thought the Frankish efforts to perform the niceties of their own (presumably artful) chant were rather crude. Then, we have statements (such as I mention above) by Augustine and others describing the 'minute inflections' in the vocal praxis of chanters. That adjectival 'minute inflections' is, to me, one of the most important signifers towards envisioning early chant. This means to me a very spontaneous intricacy in singing what was (again, in Augustine's words) sung speech. Such is my goal when chanting. As for beats and ictuses (and I'm not being snide or unkind), their existence never enters my mind. I am guided solely by, first and foremost, the natural rhythm of the text (which must be studied intently for rhetorical delivery), and then how the neuma bring that text to life as sung speech, as musical rhetoric. I do believe that to chant properly one must to an extent put on the mind of a rhetor: the neuma are rhetorical signs! Back to Perez' 'uniform volume', I think that we can imagine that such 'crude' singing was the norm at many times and places. I've even heard it from some modern chanters, usually priests, who are chanting every syllable and note very, very distinctly and equally but have no idea of linguistic or musical (let alone, rhetorical) nuance. It's not at all difficult to imagine that there were those who sang that way in Frankish times. (Which path of thought leads to the matter of not just how chant was likely performed in a given historical decade, but how it was sung by whom! It would seem that our musicological, and ethno-musicological, quest is one which leads to yet another and another and another path of understanding complex musical, sociological, and linguistic relationships, some of which we can understand fairly well, and some of which we will never understand until someone invents a time machine. Of this I am certain, that chant, as it was sung in seminal times, was quite a different thing from what Medicean, Pustet, Mocquereau, Gajard, or even current semiological efforts would reveal - but, um, one of these [if I may be permitted to say so] comes closer, far closer, than the others.)

I am guided solely by, first and foremost, the natural rhythm of the text (which must be studied intently for rhetorical delivery), and then how the neuma bring that text to life as sung speech, as musical rhetoric

Apparently this needs a repeat:

Good and clever example, Adam. Of course, the object is, throughout the melisma's life, not to lose sight of the word it expresses, glorifies, meditates, etc., upon. This 'immolatus' is, by the way, one of the most excruciatingly ecstatic moments of all of chantdom. In it one experiences the absolute joy that is ours resulting from that immolation's offertorial act, as well as the grievous and unimaginable pain the Immolated One endured. Unexceeded joy and unexceeded pain are at once given voice in this chant masterpiece. Added to this, the jubilus on 'ya' is but the voice of one who loves, thanks, and praises Yahweh so much, so deeply, that he can hardly stop singing his Name. And, yes, it takes a rhetor to do it justice. Many thanks for this example!

...homily....which....

Thanks, Ryand - well, some would say they're all equal, some would say they all have a different nuance based on the LU as a guide, and so on. I couldn't possibly do justice to your question within the limitations of this medium. A good place to start would be Dom Eugene Cardine's Gregorian Semiology, or attending one of Fr Columba Kelly's workshops at St Meinrad's Archabbey, or attending the Seventh Winter Chant Conference of St Basil's School of Gregorian Chant in Santa Fe February 1-5, which features Fr Columba as visiting scholar. And, you would get to hear a recital of chant-based organ literature by me (on a very fine Fisk organ) and some of the gentlemen of St Basil's Schola Cantorum.

I will share an idea here - and I'm doing so in a kindly and collegial spirit - the CMAA needs to grow - to grow intellectually by giving more exposure to 'methods' of chant performance other than the Gajard's self-labelled 'Solesmes method'. Why not have the likes of Fr Columba and similar scholars included in lectures and chant tutorials. It really is rather insular to continue the near monopoly of the so-called Solesmes method amidst such an assemblage. Other, unquestionably impeccable scholarship, highly regarded in the academic community, exists and should not be ignored by a presumably august Church Music Association of America.

I love the lyrical interpretation of the Alleluia verse by MJO, but it seems that when I read Dom Johner's Chants of the Vatican Gradual, he cautions frequently against discovering "word-painting" in the Propers. He seldom points out when a melismatic passage illustrates the text and rarely "waxes lyrical" over a proper in the way MJO just did. Instead, he continually advocates restraint and equilibrium.

If I didn't know better, I would say that in this example MJO is guilty of engaging in *gasp in horror* "word-painting", and to a *shocking* degree:

Of course, the object is, throughout the melisma's life, not to lose sight of the word it expresses, glorifies, meditates, etc., upon. This 'immolatus' is, by the way, one of the most excruciatingly ecstatic moments of all of chantdom. In it one experiences the absolute joy that is ours resulting from that immolation's offertorial act, as well as the grievous and unimaginable pain the Immolated One endured. Unexceeded joy and unexceeded pain are at once given voice in this chant masterpiece. Added to this, the jubilus on 'ya' is but the voice of one who loves, thanks, and praises Yahweh so much, so deeply, that he can hardly stop singing his Name. And, yes, it takes a rhetor to do it justice.

I'm often guilty of it myself, by the way. Just can't help it sometimes. : )

And there is something to be said for the monastic ethos in which emotional excess would not be encouraged. I don't think MJO was calling for "unexceeded joy" and "unexceeded pain" in the interpretation of the chant, but I assume that in some way the semiological method would endeavor to express that more than would occur with the so-called "Solesmes" method, which I thought was the point of all this dialogue: that the semiological method allows for more expressive interpretations of the "word-painting" in the chant?

Jullie has made a very respectable point by cautioning against pictorial excess in chant. I think that it is fair to say that, while what we understand by word painting is not a factor in chant, word emphasis most definitely is. What else can one make of the poetic expression of texts like our 'immolatus', not to mention the jubiluses on the sacred Name of Yawheh? No, these are not to be approached as if they were chant versions of the queen of the night aria, but they do receive an emphasis which must, I think, be understood as purposeful and which should be delivered with life, love, and some manner of passion. In the same vein, I think that it would be naive not to see a certain drama (even if a restrained drama) in the famed melismas in the offertory, 'Jubilate Deo', and the manner in which it entices all who fear God to 'draw near and I will tell you...', and so forth. The mind cannot but be filled with imagery whilst chanting such passages, and the voice that is chanting them should express that imagery, though with reverence and an absence of dramatic excess. On the other hand, we have scads of melismas on words like 'et' or 'quoniam', etc., which are not replete with the meaning of words like 'jubilate', or 'immolatus' and allelu-YA. A certain calm artfulness is appropriate in such passages. I cannot but think that there is a certain rhetorical stress consciously implied to such words, the same way one might stress them when saying something like 'the Lord is our defence, aand our stronghold, aaaand he is gracious and merciful. Such is our speech, and such, very often, is chant - all the while avoiding excess and over dramatisation.

It is very difficult for us in discussions such as this because our ideas can seem to be quite subjective and easily misinterpreted. When speaking of drama, how does one avoid being understood as suggesting an operatic delivery? When speaking of restraint how does one avoid being understood as advocating a kabuki-like or paint by number delivery which has all the interest of something like that proverbial first grader learning to read about Dick and Jane. Our chant is a rhetorical art and cannot be spoken of with mathematical concreteness. And it is not by any means uniform. Some chants are deeply meditative and others are wildly joyful. This is one reason that it is criminal to sing chant during penitential seasons and ignore it the rest of the year. I dare anyone to sing the offertory 'Jubilate Deo' as an offertory anthem on the fifth Sunday of Easter.