Chant Made Simple - Robert M. Fowles, Second Edition
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,610
    I've always found Willi Apel's Gregorian Chant to be a helpful book to have at hand.

    I was shocked, to say the least, that out of 9,028 books found on a search for Gregorian Chant to see that my little booklet on chant on Amazon to be a choice of people who also bought Apel's book. A further search for GREGORIAN CHANT under BOOKS floored me when the first book was mine, Gregorian Chant by Apel second and Chant Made Simple - Robert M. Fowles third.

    Now this just didn't make sense. Finally figured out that the placement was based upon relevance and sales, as over the next few weeks my booklet and Apel's book moved back and forth between first and second and third along with Fowles book. Chant Made Simple intrigued me as it held its own as one of the top-listed books so I ordered it and yesterday it arrived in the mail.

    My little effort was created when I found myself continuing to struggle with an understanding of the basic structure of chant notation. So I put it together on paper. Apel's book has so much in it that I found myself able to go there to find answers but unable to step back and put things that I learned together. I was sort of floundering in a sea of information.

    Chant Made Simple jumps in and explores in a very accessible way the history of chant and its transition from oral tradition to a concrete scribed on page system of notation. Chant Made Simple, in a few pages, answered some fundamental questions I have had about the notation of chant pitch and rhythm and then shows 42 chants in the original Triplex form with explanatory notes.

    I'm intrigued by the Triplex rhythmic notation and Fowles' easy to understand explanations of it.

    His suggestions for learning the chant should be engraved in your schola room's walls for frequent reference.

    Paraclete Press ISBN-13: 978-1-55725-529-7
  • Jeffrey MorseJeffrey Morse
    Posts: 203
    I, too, find this an amazing little book, and perfect for someone wanting to explore semiology. It is so simple and easy to understand that I cannot imagine that anyone would find it too cerebral or textbook like. His approach is so easy and refreshing, it reminds me a great deal of how the late Dr Mary Berry taught this same subject.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    This little book has served me well, too. It pairs nicely with Cardine's first year book, Beginning Studies in Gregorian Chant (Tortolano, trans.). Trying to understand performance applications of semiology in the hinterlands of San Diego is made a little easier with books like these.
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