Grading systems for liturgical repertoire
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,218
    Riffing off an earlier post about curating repertoire. I'm particularly interested in input from the music education world (which I'm not from). And this is focused on polyphony, not chant. One could I suppose construct a grading system for chant in which the Chant Ave Verum Corpus is Grade 1 and Jubilate Deo Universa Terra or the tract Qui Habitat is Grade 5. I'm not sure what the point would be, since one doesn't choose chant by level of difficulty but by liturgical day. And it's not clear to me how chant as a whole fits into an overall system.

    There are several grading systems out there on the Net. They are all short on specifics. A rough estimate:
    https://alansimmonsmusic.com/about-us/difficulty-levels-explained/
    • Very Easy/1
    Works in up to 4 parts containing
    simple rhythms and harmonies, often with supportive
    keyboard accompaniments. Ideal for choirs with limited reading ability.

    •• Easy/2
    Works in up to 4 parts, mostly with easy rhythms and
    harmonies and helpful keyboard accompaniments.

    ••• Capable/3
    Still in up to 4 parts, but containing some challenging
    passages, with or without accompaniment.
    Require some basic reading skills.

    •••• Skilled/4
    Works in any scoring, with or without accompaniment,
    containing some challenging passages. Require solid reading skills.

    ••••• Advanced/5
    Aimed at selective and professional choirs,
    these works are both technically and musically challenging.

    Now, in developing specifics, I would suggest a principle: that a grade for a secular choir might not match a grade for a secular/educational choir, just because of the differences in personnel and training. Unlike a high school or even collegiate choir, a church choir is usually made up of mature (often overmature ) singers. And their training and routines are somewhat different. I would expect a piece that is not in the cultural vernacular language to be graded higher. But Latin is part of the cultural vernacular of the Church. (I use 'cultural vernacular' because a piece in Vietnamese aimed at Vietnamese masses will presumably be sung by people who know how to sing Vietnamese.) Vocal ranges might also differ. Tenors and sopranos above F and altos/basses below A suggest a slightly higher grade. Likewise descending 4ths and 5ths, (in any part but bass) or large intervals. Amount of voice crossing and departure from homophony will matter in the lower grades.

    Where is Palestrina? 3.5, or 4? Whatever it is, Ockeghem is higher, because of the rhythmic language More than 4 parts means level 4, but fewer parts doesn't necessarily mean a lower grade (cf. Dalitz Tribus vocibus vs. Byrd in 3). Only a very few elite Catholic choirs will be doing Grade 5 music on a regular basis, if for no other reason than rehearsal time.

    This is me picking at a possibility. Is there any need for this at all? Am I measuring manure with a micrometer?



    Thanked by 4probe Abbysmum MatthewRoth CHGiffen
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 143
    It sounds like a massive project, but would be extremely useful for many of us. Especially those of us that don't have super high music education - things can look deceptively simple, and it turns out it's really hard! Having some guideposts when selecting music is very helpful.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,290
    Same.

    I am getting a sense of what’s easier and doable. And I want to stretch the choir too. But I want to actually sing the piece like a Magnificat and not come up short without anything if it turns out to be too hard.
  • probe
    Posts: 76
    "Up to 4" seems too broad. One part (eg chant) should be easier than two part (eg SA), then three part, then four. Tallis Spem in Alium 40 parts might need its own scale ;)

    https://blog.arrangeme.com/blog/guide-to-rating-your-music-where-range-and-grade-level-intersect

    Master List of Sacred Music by level of difficulty - MusicaSacra Church Music Forum
    https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/19526/master-list-of-sacred-music-by-level-of-difficulty/p1#Discussion_19526

    https://c4net.work/about-difficulty-levels/
    Thanked by 3francis CHGiffen Jeffrey Quick
  • francis
    Posts: 11,219
    You also have to take into account, traditional harmony versus modern harmony… modern harmonies can venture into some pretty wild thirteenths, close seconds and sixths and tritones thrown in, (and beyond) built into the chord structure.
    You also might want to have one category that is homophony and another category that is polyphony. Four part hymnody, for example, can sometimes be easier than two part polyphony.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen probe
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 143
    You also have to take into account, traditional harmony versus modern harmony… modern harmonies can venture into some pretty wild thirteenths, close seconds and sixths and tritones thrown in, (and beyond) built into the chord structure.
    You also might want to have one category that is homophony and another category that is polyphony. Four part hymnody, for example, can sometimes be easier than two part polyphony.


    All very true. Also, rhythmically, some pieces can be so challenging. The harmonies are straightforward, but it can be hard to make heads or tails from a score with some of these rhythms.
    Thanked by 2francis CHGiffen
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,218
    Probe wins the Internet for discovering that we've discussed this before. Which I should have assumed. And for that list from C4, which was just what I was looking for.

    What is hard is largely a function of what we're used to. And everything used to be easier because we were used to one thing; choirs only sang the music of their own time. If a choir only sang chant and Palestrina, they'd quickly get good at both. The rhythms of 15thc. music are no more complex than the rhythms of sacropop hymns (which granted are not simple). But they are differently complex, a set of new cliches to learn. I'm the guy who insists on using the whole patrimony-- which means there are fewer points of connection between pieces. Tomorrow we're doing Palestrina's Ego sum panis vivum. When we learned it, I told them it was actually easier than Sicut cervus, which they already knew (which is not easy, but it gets done because a lot of people already know it). It was a hard sell, but I think now that they'd agree. Another difficulty is that we sing pretty much all polyphony before the Enlightenment in transcription; we don't use the choir it was written for. So voice ranges are not optimal. Sometimes they're wide. We're learning Ockeghem's Missa Au travail suis right now, up a minor 3rd. I switched a few passages around for range consistency. But still, everyone is singing Ab3 to f5, or an octave below.

    Maybe part of my musing about grades is that I don't have a background in music ed, and I've come to realize that training a church choir is nothing but music ed. I'm a little jealous of that curated world. But I also realize that grading is to a great extent about selling product, and in a world where we have ready free access to any music except that written in the lifetime of anyone alive, there's little to sell. As a composer, I have to be a salesman. My compositional language already makes things a little complex, so I'm having to find ways to simplify where I can.
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