Teaching a semiexperienced schola the Solesmes method and other fundamentals of chant more directly

MatthewRoth

Belated Christmas and new year greetings to all of you.

OK…I know that the Solesmes method is not everyone's favorite thing (to talk about or otherwise). But bear with me. My schola, from its inception, has used the Solesmes editions, but the members never had formal training beyond the basic meaning of the characteristic rhythmic signs, so I aimed to learn the Solesmes method in greater depth and to apply it; people here probably know that I love the Laus in ecclesia series. I listen to recordings which I think are worthy of imitation (Fontgombault, ICRSP etc.), and try to encourage others to do the same, which has greatly helped. And we sing a lot too, so I don't want to waste time at practice or feel like we are going backwards, not forward. It's not an enviable spot to be in. In terms of experience, the time for this was two or more years ago, except that I wasn't ready yet. Our conducting, if it's not me, is not quite there yet with formally using Mocquereau's chironomy, so sometimes it is off-beat, technically, but we moved beyond hashing out each note in the chant.

So with that out of the way:

1) how do you teach people the ictus in particular?
2) (this applies no matter what you teach, I suppose) how do you teach people to look up more often? I've asked people to stand up more straight and hold their Libers flat, like the ICRSP seminarians and canons do. This has helped a lot with other problems! The book no longer impedes watching the conductor, but, well…
3) this seems really stupid, but how much do you expect people to be able to identify neumes? I would like people to be able to do this for neumes other than the salicus and quilisma. I don't mean the crazy groupings expected in Laus in ecclesia. I mean the basic forms (clivis, podatus, salicus, scandius, pressus, oriscus, quilisma, torculus, porrectus). It is a bit hard to understand each other when questions arise without a common framework IMHO. And if in all of the textbooks from before the council, in addition to the Liber preface, they present neumes, well it seems reasonable to expect people to learn the names.

Believe me, I'm not expecting 100% perfect ictic placement or neume identification. What I want is for them to understand what a conductor is trying to do when gesturing, to be able to follow if we have to count out loud (in fact, I would count either after or in lieu of solfège like in the Laus in ecclesia exercises, when we have time and it seems appropriate), and for it to come together a bit better over time. Maybe other strong singers will have interest in learning chironomy too. Our schola is just that, so we don't have to work on non-chant repertoire (yes, we're lucky).

preemptively tagging @Charles_Weaver and @FSSPmusic since I know that much of this will resonate with them.

Chant_Supremacist

I'm not the target contributor for a thread like this, so I'll just make my one comment and leave you be. I can't even imagine trying to get everyone to learn the names of all the neumes. I'm not sure what the payoff of that would be, really. They know what a quilisma is, and maybe a couple know the words ictus and episema, but that's about it.

MatthewRoth

Well, that's just it, isn't it? How do we communicate if we don't know the names of the notes? Why are they in all of the introductory material, if we're not going to get people to at least try to be familiar with them? I guess what I'm saying is that I find it rather unedifying and silly to just give up. Sure, people are volunteers with limited time and with other important things in life to do. But my dad had the same obligations as many of my schola members, and he managed to learn all of this extra stuff for Scouting, at least as much as what the boys learn if they advance up to Eagle Scout.

In fact, many adults, dads especially, spend more time away from home for Scouting between Wood Badge (which is not for the boys at all!), volunteering on campouts that aren't for their boys (specialty events, events for older or younger boys respectively…), meetings for the adults, etc. than I expect from the most active member of my schola, even though we sing Sunday Mass and Vespers and have a weeknight high Mass most weeks of the year (but unevenly distributed, so the total number and "one per week" are misleading) and where no one is expected to come to every last Mass, Vespers, novena, etc.

francis

I have some simple tabloid charts that have the rudiment identifiers for my grade school classes. Will find and post.

francis

I think I got this content from the FSSP website a few years ago and decided to turn them into small posters for my classes. They are printable to 11x17 landscape.

FSSPmusic

They have to memorize the ictus placement rules. I don't know how my priests feel about this analogy, but someone attempting to sing chant and follow Solesmes-method chironomy without knowing the ictus placement rules is like someone going to confession who hasn't learned the Ten Commandments and hasn't made a proper examination of conscience. You may still be able to sing the chant convincingly, just as you may still be able to make a good confession, but there's a framework that's missing. Go over the rules regularly, and discuss which rules apply in specific instances, especially ones that seem counterintuitive. Understanding the proper interpretation of bar lines is also imperative.

If you have singers who hammer out each note instead of singing legato lines and shaping phrases, start small with inculcating musicality. Take something they can sing from memory, even if it's as basic as "Et cum spiritu tuo" or "Amen," discuss where the tonic accents are, where they should consider the climax of the phrase to be, which note should be the softest (and it's always the last note before the bar line in chant!). Do the same for a longer but very familiar chant such as the Asperges or simple tone Salve Regina. Perhaps you have singers who put an impulse on every note even in those chants. Have them sing "loo" on each note, then switch to just "oo." Is it coming out "oo hoo hoo" for anyone? Incorporate your point no. 2 here by insisting that they look up as they sing.

Have them count-sing, which will force them to observe the rules; don't allow them to cheat at bar lines by adding an extra pulse at half bars or not adding a silent ictus a full bars. Occasionally have them sing text, solfege, or a neutral syllable while you count-sing over them. Let them ask questions and discuss how the rules apply and where there might be more than one legitimate possibility for ictus placement. After the real rules, there are guidelines about counting backward in groups of two, preferring ictus placement on final syllables, avoiding ictus placement on weak penultimate syllables, and so forth. The choirmaster needs to know that stuff, but the singers generally don't.

It is not terribly important for them to know the names of the different neumatic elements, although they need to know what the quilisma and salicus are. With vocal music, it's usually more effective to navigate using the text. Say "the -so- of hyssopo" and they're sure to find the spot quicker than if you say "the last clivis before the full bar." (This applies in modern notation too.) I hope this is useful, and I'm interested to read others' suggestions.

MatthewRoth

Yes, that’ll be helpful. We have some time that will allow us to do this and not also fall behind in our rehearsal obligations. So I can get going immediately.

We have long struggled over the bars because the extra count was consistently applied at the half bar, rendering it choppy and the full bar meaningless.

As to the ambiguous placements and counting by two, that makes sense. I find that most of the time, the counting resolves the ambiguity or if it doesn’t something like accompaniment helps make up your mind like in the Vidi Aquam where Portier’s version in the LCCO clearly marks ictic notes that aren’t obviously so. But where it probably confuses people, to your point, is where you could either count something after a bar, like in the Dies Irae, as a one-two or a silent one then two.

Charles_Weaver

Patrick's advice here is all really good. I will just add a couple of small points of advice based on things I have seen and used in my own experience. I think a lot of it doesn't apply to your specific case, Matthew.

1. I find singers will look up more with legible scores. I don't use the Liber with my Sunday schola. I use the ICKSP propers printed out in letter paper. We have the whole Sunday temporale plus feasts we actually do in the parish filed with little packets, which I distribute every week. I do understand the reverence for the Liber, but I have also seen it be a hindrance in a poorly lit choir loft.

2. Another advantage of the printouts is that one can include markings. I don't do this myself, but I have seen it to be effective. Of course the ictus rules are important for all singers to know, but in the case of limited rehearsal time with non-committed singers (I'm not talking about my present position but about a schola I used to sing with), it can be helpful to mark phrase beginnings like in the Dies irae. Andrew Mills always used to write an eighth rest with an ictus mark on top, and I bet he got that idea from Marier. Of course, a well trained schola doesn't need this, but don't let that stop you from employing such tools in suboptimal circumstances.

3. More generally, allow yourself to be flexible based on the musical needs of the group you are in front of. I count-sing with all my choirs, but much less often with the adults, who all have a ton of experience and who mostly trained either with me or David Hughes; some of them have trained with us since they were little kids and have it well ingrained now. With my current kids' schola I insist on it, but we also have a much smaller repertoire and a much longer rehearsal period, with weeks to prepare for a single Mass. Mocquereau's advice about conducting in volume 1 of LNMG is really inspiring. So much depends on the director's instinct and the musical abilities and needs of the schola.

4. With kids especially, having everyone do the chironomy in unison is invaluable. Not necessarily distinguishing arsis and thesis, but just a simple fluid down and up, with the bottom on each count of 1. Have the kids take turns conducting each other.

5. Let me put a more concrete example on point 3 about bending the rules. Never be afraid to abandon textbook chironomy for specific musical needs. If I'm standing in front of an underrehearsed schola that doesn't know me well (as happens often enough at pick-up TLMs and the like) I would never use the classical chironomy gesture for the tristropha at the end of the simple Salve Regina. Instead, I would conduct it like a measure of three four (i.e., down-out-up) while holding out my other hand or something to make sure everyone gives the full value. I reserve the true chironomy for groups I work with all the time. And with those guys, I sometimes give vaguer and fewer gestures (something Mocquereau also talks about). Let your musical instincts prevail. If you have internalized the Solesmes method, there are a lot of ways you can communicate (with your hands, body, and face) that "feel" even to singers whom you don't have time to train thoroughly.

MatthewRoth

I use the ICKSP propers printed out in letter paper

Yeah. My chironomy is marked on those. But I can and do sometimes conduct from a book, preferably the Liber Brevior, aside from a day with extra things going on (Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week), and we just print so much as it is.

Chn Lebocq has an electronic version of some propers which he has sent via e-newsletter.

All very helpful!!

MatthewRoth

also this reminds me.

I retypeset the Gregorian Highway Code that some may know, and I summarized and condensed the practical information from the first few chapters of Laus in Ecclesia. (Despite the name of the second file, this version is in English.) That includes the ictus rules (with, yes, the "more than maybe they need to know" bits).

Perhaps others will find the material useful!

as an aside…I make these in LaTeX with a custom page size which works nicely as a booklet on letter paper, when I choose to print as a booklet in the print settings. How-ev-er PCs, and Macs, do not play nicely with this sometimes. It will reduce the size of the printed image, but I have no problem printing from my iPhone (so it's not only the printer). This was solved for a while by going to Adobe Reader instead of Preview on macOS and then choosing folding (under printer options or something like that) on the printer that has that, and I need to test what's going on on different printers, without trying to fold, in Preview on Mac, in different programs on PC…

FSSPmusic

But where it probably confuses people, to your point, is where you could either count something after a bar, like in the Dies Irae, as a one-two or a silent one then two.

In syllabic passages, yes, but the Dies irae isn't the best examples, since the Solesmes method prefers the ictus on word finals when possible. Look at today's introit (LU-446). No ictus is marked at et omnis lingua. The ictus cannot be placed on -gua, since the following note is ictic (rule 2). Do we place the ictus on -mnis, making -mnis lingua a ternary compound beat, or count backward by two and place the ictus on the first note of omnis, making et non-ictic? Or one might even place the ictus on et and make it the beginning of a ternary compound beat without breaking any hard and fast rule. The modern notation edition of the Liber takes the second option, so that's what I go with, since it was presumably edited by the same monks who edited the Gregorian notation.

Interesting chironomy example. I'm a little surprised to see six consecutive theses following a single arsis in the first incise, and the three consecutive arses in the last incise. There are a couple of other spots where I would do things differently, but I understand the choices made there.

Charles_Weaver

Do we place the ictus on -mnis, making -mnis lingua a ternary compound beat...

This is my preferred solution, but your second option is also good.

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