Mass XVII : Hybrid Notation
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Hybrid Notation is simply the neumes on the modern staff with a key signature.

    download
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    Interesting combination, I got a bit thrown by the B-flat/Ti-flat business, but it makes sense.

    Do you find that this is accepted by a certain set of singers? I would think that the anti-chant-notation types would be just as thrown off by this as by regular notation. It's not the fifth line and key signature which make chant notation confusing, IMHO.
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    I find this very unpleasant on the eyes.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Eww. Do not want.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    for us chanters it is bogus, but for the people who always complain about four lines and moveable DO, it helps them to concentrate on the neumes and not worry about pitch.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    This is very strange...I guess it is the mental clash between right and left brain trying to grasp it.

    Maybe if the extra staff line and the modern clef were light grey and the modern key were C to avoid seeing the modern accidentals?

    Don't give up!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Noel... you are very kind and encouraging. I am just trying to figure out ways to 'bring people back to the chant'. This really is just an experiment.

    I gave this out to the choir tonight in BOTH (authentic GC notation and then also the hybrid) versions. I asked them all if it made a difference to them which one they used. They said NO. (now mind you, none of them 'read' musical pitches in reference to the staff anyway. They are all just following the up and down motion of the notes. Now, for many years I have heard complaints from other professional musicians that the Gregorian Staff is confusing, so I was just trying to help them along in the chant. It really is just a bridging gimmick to get them to focus on the square note nomenclature and not get lost with an unfamiliar staff (pitch) system.

    So I need to hear from you non-chant professional musicians! Chime in and tell me if the hybrid is a help or just a waste of time! Be honest! I don't care one way or another. The hybrid system is not for devotees of the chant. It is for luring beginners into the chant one step at a time. I was hoping that one got familiar with the square note nomenclature it would be much easier to graduate to the authentic notation. However, that may not be the case.

    The other thing that occurs to me is that it could just be an EXCUSE from (biased) musicians who don't WANT to learn chant. If that's the case, it doesn't matter how we spell it out... you either want to sing chant or you don't!

    On another point, this was the first time I introduced chant notation (besides chant hymns - monosyllabic) to the choir. I have a separate schola which is entirely devoted to only singing chant. Now four of those people are also in the choir, so it gives my choir a great base for singing GC!

    As for the choir, I got a mixed reaction. Some weren't interested to sing it, but they all joined in and were able to (roughly) learn the entire Mass in about 30 minutes.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Noel, Jan and other chant purists and afficianados:

    The hybrid is ONLY meant for beginners, so I don't expect seasoned chant users to even want to see this, as is obvious from the responses here! It's not for you, it's to help beginners feel a little more comfortable approaching the music.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Noel:

    Interesting comment about the gray. Here it is.
    massXVIIhybridGray.pdf
    156K
  • jdan
    Posts: 11
    This could be very useful, especially as a teaching tool for a children's choir, but it is so high. Knock everything down a few whole steps.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    jdan

    Moveable DO still applies! There is no way to knock it down without completely rewriting it. The beauty of this method is that I take an existing manuscript and superimpose the new matter (extra line, g cleff, key signature) to bring it into the 21st century pitch nomenclature.

    Do you regularly use, teach or sing chant? I am curious.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Carl:

    Good points. I am not sure if it is useful at all. Trying to figure that out still. I may scrap this whole idea tomorrow for good.

    The other part of this experiment is that I translated the melody over to modern notation and set it to the English which I did on this board somewhere also. The only experiment I HAVEN'T tried is to set the English words under the square note nomenclature and the Latin words under the modern notation. Those are the only options left!
  • jdan
    Posts: 11
    francis, I teach chant to a children's choir and a men's schola (with a women's forthcoming!) at my parish.

    Actually, I started the kids out with some material from "Chants of the Church" - care of musicasacra - with modern notation. It was a good way to get them accustomed to the sound and feel of chant before undergoing a complete paradigm shift.
  • jdan
    Posts: 11
    and I can't say I am entirely convinced that a moveable do system works here. The key signature has this gravitational on me, pulling me towards the realm of pitch-specific notes.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    jdan.

    Tis why I embedded the moveable DO symbol inside the G-clef at the proper space. It isn't very noticeable, but it is there. Nonetheless, I see what you are saying. And then of course, it also depends on how easy one can transpose modern notation on sight. I for myself, rarely play hymns and plainchant in the key as written. It is usually too high or too low. Of course, this drives my trumpet player mad as he plays at every High Mass on Sunday and he is constantly asking me if I am playing in the key as written. Even the pastor mentions that pieces are too high when I play them as written.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Francis, this I think is a great experiment.
    Even if you scratch out the idea, I think this will help you and your chanters for the next step in singing chants.

    Here is my 2cents suggestion from my experience.
    Since your chanters use mapping technique (following up and down motion of the notes) maybe practicing a few neums can clarify and help the chanters? I started with podatus. I draw it big on the board (or easel pad) followed by a dotted punctum, have them sing on NU (on podatus)-e (and other vowels on dotted punctum) going up on the scales (4 of them). Also pointing each note of the neum as we sing at the beginning helps the beginners to see which note we are actually singing. Move up half steps each time. I do this as a part of warm-up excercise.

    And then ADD each following neum Salicus, Quilisma, Porrectus, each week in a similar way. I keep mentioning those names and repeat them a lot. My chanters knows those neums very well now (names and how to sing them. This helped me to remember the names too.). Whenever we have new chant, we search for those neums and see how many there are and give special attention and practice them. They became very confident with those. I think those four neums are the most tricky ones, and rest of them are pretty self explanatory (except liquiscent, we practice them seperately). I'm sure many of the chanters have their way of practicing chant neums. I thought this might help. My best wishes. And thank you for your hard work on bringing Gregorian chants. (and I'm really sorry you cannot come to the Colloquium. I was hoping to meet you and hear more about the Baltimore story.)
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    In case anyone is not aware, Dr. Weinmann wrote an entire Graduale like this.

    Download the entire Graduale HERE

    It is called: "1909 Weinmann Graduale (on modern staves)"

    HERE IS A PDF SAMPLE PAGE
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Thanx JO. Is there any historical matter to explain why?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Francis, I find the hybrid notation (the top example) very busy-looking. Weinmann made his version more readable with some design choices:

    (1) Use conventional capitalization for the first word in each piece, instead of decorative initial capitals.

    (2) Add more vertical space between staves.

    (3) Add sufficient spacing to provide clearance between the key signature and the first syllable on a staff.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Chonak

    I didn't create any of the notes spacing or text. I simply added the fifth line to make it readable by those who find reading four line staff difficult. I only spend five minutes on each page. You will have to read this entire thread to understand the purpose of this excersize.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    The other thing that occurs to me is that it could just be an EXCUSE from (biased) musicians who don't WANT to learn chant. If that's the case, it doesn't matter how we spell it out... you either want to sing chant or you don't!


    I'm more inclined to see it that way. When I was a chant beginner, once I was taught the relationship between chant notation and solfege, I was good to go. I think I would have found this too confusing, honestly. Remembering my early days of chant, I found the stemless notes, etc., on normal staffs to just be confusing rather than helpful... what finally made chant "click" for me was seeing how the punctum is a pulse, and so each neume has so many puncta of pulse... rather than the quarter/halfnote/etc. deal with them all being different, and integrally dependent on the time signature, which to chant is irrelevant.

    So for me it was solfege + puncta = epiphany
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Thats cute Jam... I am glad you found your way to the real liturgical music. My issue here is how do go about getting the other 90%(?) of the musicians who are caught in the OCP web of musical death? We gotta untangle them somehow! Just looking for solutions.
  • quilisma
    Posts: 136
    For me, the classic notation frees the mind, in other words, I find that I can pitch (or rather play) it in any key on the keyboard without a second thought.
    But as soon as the chant appears in modern, or even this hybrid notation, I find it much harder to change the pitch/transpose.
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,021
    I have no problem with the concept. But I go to the basics of any concept, otherwise the concept, in reality, is not. To have the Gregorian "C" clef in black on a certain line (with a te within easy view), and then the modern "G" clef on a different line (also with it's te key signature) is a problem. It's not just the visual confusion. It's that either one or the other is so wrong that it means absolutely nothing. Either use one clef only (as in the Weinmann example) or force the staves to congruent.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Musicians in the OCP web, do they learn solfege when they learn how to sing?
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    The greyed version, to me, more clearly points to this as a learning aid to show beginners how to map one system to the other. I could see showing this to them once, maybe singing from it, but never really using it again.

    Another useful tool is to show this same thing but using stemless round notes (quarter/half with slurs) instead of square.

    You do make this example more complex than it needs to be for beginners, though: You introduce iij and ij. You're using the ictus. And you're using a piece with Ti-flat. It might be easier for beginners to introduce each of these concepts separately, so that they don't get so freaked out by how much new stuff there is to learn.

    When I did the workshop for my parish, I made sure to work up to the more complex stuff step by step. Start off with a chant they've probably heard, and show it in chant notation. Introduce each neum with its approximate equivalent in modern notation. Emphasize how chant notation does a better job of expressing Latin than modern notation can do. And so on.
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