The ictus also marks the beginning of a gesture which can be described as either arsis or thesis. Of course the large-scale shape of the phrase, or of the entire chant, is probably of greater importance. But having these subtle shadings of rising and falling, elan and repos, keeps the musical line in motion at every small step along the way.

yes, the forward motion is important in music.
So ictus is as essential as solfege. (It's just more subltle to realize that.) It's the rhythm that gives music 'life.'

By the way our schola is learning Communion chant "Qui manducat,' which I love.(The text is really the core of our faith, and the music is so beautiful. I can talk about this forever.) We listen to Stepping stone Cd and another one by a famous group who I believe in a 'different style'. We all agreed that Stepping stone sounds better than the other. The other had too much contrast of long pause and the fast notes for neums, I think. Too much contrast of musical elements seem to be not quite right in chant singing. (Another advantage of ictus. Control of the rhythm, not sounding random. I hope this is not starting another heated discussion of the two different styles of singing chants.(although I learned a lot from it.) It's just my opinion)

Janet, you are 'lucky' that your group don't mind solfege. I had a long talk about it, because a couple of members in my group believe that they don't need it. They say that they always sang songs just by ear (one is in a folk group also.) and they can get by. Spending time and effort on learning solfege is more than what they want to do. (Another words, music is just a music. It can be that serious.) Well, I guess I'm too serious that I spent all my life learning music, and I still have so much to learn.

Thank you all for your help... You have given me several more points I can use to encourage them. I have no intention of stopping with either rhythmic markings or solfege... I want them to all learn the methodology so that they aren't orphaned when I am transferred again.

Mia: We have been singing Qui manducat during this season as well. Since we are still beginners, it is too much to try to do propers for every week. We are trying to add the 'ad libitum' Communion chants to our repertoire so that we can give ourselves time to learn other new chants and still be prepared for weekly Mass.

Pes: Can I quote you on the 'bludgeoning cats' comment? I think that will probably help a great deal!!!

This week we learned two new chant hymns -- Ave Maris Stella and the Pange Lingua. They loved both of them. It provides a bit of a rest working on hymns from the PBC (as opposed to propers). I can tell such a huge difference from when we first began... it would have taken a much longer time for them to learn two new chant hymns... now they are picking it up so quickly. We solfeged the first part of the Ave Maris (particularly that part on the STEL-LA where the notes go: re do ti la sol la) and they very quickly saw how essential the solfege was for getting the notes right.

I'm go to 'bludgeon' a few cats next week and hit the topic again with your suggestions!

Four of us are going to the SM workshop in Sugar Land, TX in February with Scott Turkington... perhaps that experience of working with him will also help...

Most of the time I do give them pre-marked music. However, when it is a song from their PBC books, there isn't such an easy shortcut. All the propers I give them are pre-marked up... Besides, those chant hymns in there are really pretty easy to do, so it seems not very hard to me... but then, I'm not exactly neutral on the subject...

I usually do have them sing in rhythm before we do solfege, so they really must have those markings if they want to participate!

Mark, The answer is yes. Scott's rule #1 on ictus, "don't change the monks' markings."

Thanks Singing Mum for reminding me of the SMILE. I couldn't do that at first. But I manage to do it later and said
'well, I guess we all learn differently, so for that, can we spend about 5 to 10 minutes for solfege? There are only 7 names to remember (with one variant). God gave us many good things in 7;-) She laughed and said, "Mia, you are convincing me." We had a good laugh together. I'm not good in making jokes, but smiles do help. I think they start to see the need as they progress to more complicated music.

Janet, that's good you are going to Scott's workshop. I went to the one in VA last October with my 3 other schola members. They were very impressed, encouraged and had a good time talking with other chanters too. (They were also convinced that I was not making up things like ictus and all...;-)