Avoiding Monotonous Psalm Accompaniment
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 349
    For those of you who accompany the Divine Office on the organ, what do you do (if anything) to avoid monotony when you have a large length of psalms all the same tone? The specific situation I'm dealing with is Sunday Vespers in Paschaltide, where all five psalms are under one antiphon (a mode VII triple Alleluia). I suppose the two possibilities for variation are changing the registration or changing the harmony, but in both cases I worry about being tacky. If I don't alter those during the course of the psalms, I guess the best thing would be to keep the accompaniment more subtle and smooth, so as not to become grinding on the ears, and let the singing be much more in the foreground (which probably applies across the board, but especially when using the same tone for so long). Thoughts?
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 1,089
    So glad you asked! I go for this scheme where basically I change a single chord with each new psalm, and so imperceptibly arrive at somewhere quite different from where I began.

    So, e.g. (chords based on “do”) for Paschaltide Vespers (mode 7f)

    1st - V, ii, I : V, I, Vsus4-3, vi
    2nd - V, VII, I : V, I, Vsus4-3, vi
    3rd - V, VII, I : ii, I, Vsus4-3, vi
    4th - Vopen+2, VIImaj7, Iadd2 : ii, I, visus4-3
    5th - Expressive recombination of the above, returning to the first scheme towards the end of the psalm (hinging at ‘non mortui’ and returning ‘sed nos qui vivimus’)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,523
    Try to learn the accent pattern for one. So, modifying things based on dactyls versus spondees is important. This is why I prefer when accompaniment is done from square notation followed by the pointed psalm as in the Liber.

    I’m not as good with the theory but suffice it to say that I really don’t mind as a singer if things are a) basically the same b) we get a lot of support plus the reciting tone but not the melody v) you change it up logically: I like a change at Non nobis in ps 113 instance. Something like the first inversion or going to the minor key can work well. But I’m very much in the Potiron-Fontgombault-Portier school of thought.
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