1) I will love base ball always, no fights will stop it !
2) Gregorian chant has to much going on for my taste. only my opinion, and it is not clean/r as is Da Palestrina,

Ph

The ictus is used to organize the melody into a rhythmical framework of smallest possible rhythmic groups. The point of ictus is at rest where the off ictus units are in a state of impulse. The restfulness’s and impulses are not equal to each other but colored by where they occur in the bigger flow of the melody. So the raw ictic rhythm is synthesized with the larger dynamics and flow of the melody and this is synthesized with the rhythm of the text.

No disagreements here from me. I guess the problem I have is that there is more than one way to skin this cat, and proponents of the ictus as printed often believe (or at least portray the belief) that where the ictus is placed in Solesmes editions is near to being divinely inspired.

I may take into account where the Solesmes editions choose to place the ictus, particularly in melismatic passages - but to me they sometimes feel very much like editorial fingering in Baroque keyboard music or - better yet - editorial accents or staccato marks in a score of Renaissance choral music. I don't want my choir seeing them because (not willy-nilly, but after careful deliberation and study) I as a conductor might want to do something differently. This is all not to even mention the confusion which ensues regarding the way the salicus is notated with a vertical episema.

I guess my frustration comes from the fact I wish we were far enough along as musicians that we wouldn't need the help. Sure, piano editions with lots of fingering or choral with lots editorial dynamics may be helpful to beginners - but we should be striving to learn as much as possible to not need all that help as soon as possible.

sure you could use a different methodology for marking ictus or breaking the melody down into the smallest elementary rhythms, and still be using the method overall. One advantage of sticking with the conventional approach is of course that it provides a certain ‘universal’ interpretation. Using the method correctly and in a way that is beautiful requires artistry and skill by the director.

At the risk of running in circles, the problem is that the method seems to me to be imposed on the original music and the resulting interpretation is simply one of many possible subjective interpretations - beautiful as it may be. Some might even argue the resulting performance wouldn't be in line with musicological evidence in the original manuscripts.

While the musicologist in me suspects that to be true, I feel, however, that an "old Solesmes" interpretation is generally what as Catholics we're culturally used to from chant in liturgy, and that in most liturgical situations, it's nevertheless best to generally inform our performance by the particular kind of beauty in that style.

But to say that there must be one universal interpretation in that general style is as if to say that there is only one way to create phrases in Baroque melismas and that it must be standardized. Beauty and artistry - even in the general framework of the "old Solesmes" style - are not the sole province of following Solesmes' ictuses.

It's as if we're trying to codify artistry and beauty. The impulse comes from a noble place I'm sure, but such things cannot be learned from a book, they must be passed on through apprenticeship, living it, singing it, and thankfully (with our modern technology) recordings.

Maybe I've just not had someone get it across to me yet (despite my encounters, studies, and friendships with numerous CMAA faculty) but when you combine my above concerns with my previous comments about the departure required from "standard conducting technique" often taught along with the ictuses, perhaps you might see my reluctance to embrace this method if my ensembles and I can achieve similar stylistic results and beauty without bothering with the printed ictus.

I wonder if one could do a blind study. Use semi-melismatic chant with which everyone is mostly unfamiliar. One conductor and ensemble given one without ictuses. Another conductor and ensemble of the same level given the same chant with ictuses. I bet even a well-educated audience - unfamiliar with the specific chant, but knowledgeable about chant in general - could not tell which ensemble and conductor were using which score.

Eloquently stated, SkirpR, and I'm beginning to understand your point. I can't imagine learning to sing the propers without ictus marks and going exactly by the Solesmes book, as it were, in that respect, although our director, being a professional band director, has developed his own method of chant conducting based on twos and threes which I couldn't begin to explain technically but which is highly effective for our group. I think over time each schola does indeed develop a method which works for them.

A former Benedictine monk once sang for us a Communion antiphon according to the Solesmes method and then the same antiphon according to the semiological code in the Triplex, and they were both enchanting, but I know it would take a great deal of study and skill to be adept in both methods.

I have found that there is really no one way to direct chant. I have sung chant under Jeffrey Morse (the OP of this thread), Edward Schaefer, Dr. Mahrt, and Wilko Brouwers. All are excellent interpreters of chant, and all have different conducting styles: from Old Solesmes to completly 'Semiological'; from minimal gestures made by the right index finger only to large sweeping motions on dramatic ascents. I have tried different approaches to directing chant, and have applied aspects from all of these approaches when they will help my choir achieve the intended results.

Yes, I've heard groups conducted by all of these people, and it's always beautiful. You have to understand chant and its beauty, its essence in order to evoke it from an ensemble and convey it to listeners - but how you arrive at your understanding is not as important.

Except for

I have come to my own conclusion that reliance on Solesmes has created a class of "experts" steeped in arcane and mystical knowledge supposedly unknown to the unwashed who only studied modern conducting techniques.

...

Does this over-reliance on Solesmes deter average parish musicians from attempting chant?

This. Which may be the real issue, and quite possibly a not insignificant part of what went wrong, why English chant never took off, and why nobody sang any propers after Vatican II.

I sing in a friend's polyphony group. We do some pretty hard motets (the big Byrd ceremonial ones, etc.), but also easy ones. Take the Byrd Ave Verum. The way we're singing it with him, he gives a whole measure (in 2) before we sing, then pretty much keeps beating time in 2 till "cujus"(I see user @SkirpR 's blood boiling already!) I have a great deal of respect for my friend, he's a very good conductor and rehearse.

Ah, but here you've betrayed that the group sings polyphony exclusively - betraying that they may have enough familiarity with the style to get away with it. I've just seen too many conductors do this with non-professional or non-experienced singers and imagine they're getting out of the way of the music - and instead they're just along for the ride in a performance where no real music is happening.

I've also been told that such expression is much more effective when it's subtle. I won't say there's not some truth in that, but that sort of thing also smells like mystical hocus-pocus to me in most cases. If on a 100-point scale, an expressive level of 40 is demanded (which I'm not sure I agree with either, but let's just go with that), I'd rather err on the side of 55 than 25.

He and I are actually professional acquaintances.

To me, he breaks a lot of rules (hands sort of down, etc.), but it's still great and I enjoy watching.

I don't think I can see his hands enough to comment, but I have my own thoughts on hand shape. I've worked with enough people to have figured out that many "rules" in conducting are a little silly. 1) How many great teachers disagree on what should logically speaking be fundamental principles? 2) More importantly, everybody is different, physically, emotionally, gesturally - what works for one person does not in another.

And that's really the key - and one we can steer back to the ictus - the goal should be to gain enough education/knowledge/experience to really understand it - and then figure out what works for you regardless of techniques that may be revered/famous/successful for other people.

I think this might be the first rapport between the schools of Old Solesmes and Cardine. When will the lightning strike?

It seems to me there is a sequence of steps the ideas about a particular genre of music (en masse or within a smaller group) seem to go through - and not playing it out completely in mind yet, it seems it might be applicable to other concepts:

1) Isn't this great, we've not heard this before (or at least not like this for hundred/thousands of years)?! Everyone agrees.

2) One person or camp has an idea on how to make this better.

3) Another person or camp has a competing idea.

4) Both ideas are interpreted by the masses as being mutually exclusive, which in the end to a greater or lesser extent weakens the entire concept. Some degree of bitterness ensues.

5) Eventually, with a majority of people allow enough distance and time from the original dispute, proponents of both sides can come to see the value in the other, and the overall thing is better off for it.

And they say women have no power in the Church....

The real 'power behind the throne' with the Solesmes Method was Mrs Ward. I can assure you that if she were still alive the Liber Hymnarius and Antiphonale Romanum II would never have been published. It was she who raised Dom Andre to the level of demigod, and his method as Holy Writ.

I'm afraid this just isn't true. Mocquereau was world famous decades before he became involved with Justine Ward, and Mocquereau's various editions of the Liber Usualis (1903+1908) had already sold hundreds of thousands of copies. For the record, Justine Ward could barely get Gajard (Mocquereau's successor) to respond in a timely fashion to her letters…when he responded at all.

I find the older Solesmes method is most useful to those directors starting out with some musical savvy, as a starting point and a grounding in free rhythm. That was the intended purpose, after all, was it not? The goal at that time was to reintroduce the chant on a wide scale and with a method that was supposed to be accessible to all variety of amateur directors and singers- a way forward that was not tied to mensuralism. I thank those involved with all that work, as I think their efforts went a long way toward accomplishing that goal.

The main problem is getting rigid with the method, not allowing authentic advances in scholarship (never the Catholic way!) and losing musicality by being needlessly narrow with a very fluid art form. Some people begin to be afraid that to depart from the older method is to invite chaos into the chant. Not so, not necessarily.

Perhaps some confusion has to do with cultures that are more and less concerned with rules. French culture is very different than our own in how the French often consider methodology. And certainly the language is very different, which means a chasm between French and English sensibilities as to how to sing text.

Speaking for myself, I am glad to have been acquainted with the method through Scott Turkington and Fr. Skeris when I first started studying chant. I never took the rules as absolutes, as that went against my training and intuition as a degreed musician. Jeffrey Morse, Wilko Browers, and Bill Mahrt confirmed that intuition, and I am so grateful to them. Then I was very glad to study semiology on a graduate level with Ed Schaefer.

Twelve years after coming into contact with the older method, I am content to be learning more and fine-tuning ways to communicate with singers and students. When it comes to score prep, I find the ictus to be most valuable in Introits, sometimes Communions, when I notice it at all. In the case of the ordinaries, I find the ictus to be most often poorly placed and don't match it to my conducting. With melismatic passages, the ancient notation included in the Triplex simply gives much, much more information, and I go straight to that for interpretation of the line.

All this to say- can someone study both the older method and the triplex, and appreciate the limits and contributions of both? Most certainly.

"When it comes to score prep, I find the ictus to be most valuable in Introits, sometimes Communions, when I notice it at all. In the case of the ordinaries, I find the ictus to be most often poorly placed and don't match it to my conducting."

Agreed.

I had the chance to take some intensive 2 hour lessons each day over a 5 day period recently with Ruth Phillips, cellist who works as modern and baroque cellist - spending time each year on the road with touring opera companies performing baroque operas night after night.

Working on Bach Suites I saw that her bowings at times had little or nothing in common with any of the bowings in the extant scores from Bach's time - bowings that do not agree even among with these early copies. (there is no original score, but one is in his wife's handwriting) It suddenly struck me that most cellists choose a score and then work to make these bowings work for them in their performance of the pieces. And these bowings may have been inserted to merely help beginners get to work on them.

But take a cellist who spends hours and hours in performance of baroque continuo work and have them turn to play the suites, you may find them doing drastically different bowings that work and make music.

So, in the same way, I see the ictus being extremely valuable as you do and believe, as you do, I think, that as a person becomes more and more confident with their work with chant, they will find places where the ictus markings conflict with what they feel are useful, and that time you leave them behind.

They are extremely valuable to the beginner and anyone who blasts them and convinces beginners that they are not important and not doing anyone any favors.

At the risk of continuing this conversation any longer, I just want to clarify two things:

But I would never (now) use SOP choral directing to facillitate chant. As I'm disinclined towards a serious study of chironomy at my age, I let my knowledge of diction, phrasing, natural elocution et al influence my circles and swirls.

I don't mean that one should use patterns, etc., nor do I mean to take issue with the basic shape of the gestures given to arsis and thesis. Although I do believe those shapes need not always be as rigidly applied as in the chironomy books, and other shapes can convey the same ideas - as long as one understands gaining and relaxing energy - which, luckily for me, was a principle built into all my initial conducting training. I merely questioned the placement of the printed ictus in the music.

They are extremely valuable to the beginner and anyone who blasts them and convinces beginners that they are not important and not doing anyone any favors.

Again, I feel I should clarify that nearly ALL conducted music, metered or unmetered, comes down to groups of twos and threes. Try conducting very rhythmic, crazy mixed, assymetric meter works of the 20th century - twos and threes. It was no surprise to me as I was becoming familiar with chant that the same principle applied. Again, I just question the specific division of twos and threes that is always given by the printed ictus.

If someone is new to chant, I agree that starting with what's printed there may be best - but as one gains experience, questioning the printed ictus should not be discouraged. I, personally, might go so far as to encourage it (as I have in this thread).

To disprove the need for the ictus or rather groups of 2's and 3's, I would need to see a series of oxytones beautifully set to a syllabic chant that could maintain the individual accents.

Well, that's my point. There will always be a need for groupings of 2's and 3's - but their location should not be at all times absolute, and could be open to quite a bit of interpretation.

Regarding two accented syllables found back-to-back, in music, {WARNING: bucking-the-trend personal opinion coming!] I believe one will always need to be greater than the other. Even when people speak naturally (when they're unaware they're being listened to), it seems to me they will often choose one of the two back-to-back-accents over the other. This choice seems based on textual context, and in music on melodic/musical context, but it may be a bit subjective. Nevertheless I maintain it is absolutely necessary in order to maintain some beauty in the composition or performance to somehow choose one. While respecting the text is important in all song, and particularly so in chant, a fundamental principle of music is gathering energy (i.e. going somewhere, arsis, etc.) or relaxing energy (i.e. coming from somewhere, thesis, etc.) (unless it is a composition purposely trying to be static, e.g. minimalists).

(I'm tempted to launch into why I believe Latin psalmtones work perfectly well in English, but I won't put everyone through it again! If you're curious search the old threads.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is - I don't see why people have a problem when they encounter two accented syllables in a row, why everyone brings that up as a huge problem, and why it is so bothersome, when often the music or textual context will take care of it. It seems as if people are reacting scrupulously, "Well how do we know which word is supposed to be more important? Aren't all accented syllables are created equal?" No, they're not. This is art folks. If the music doesn't lead you to which is more important, a good performer will decide - whether he or she realizes it or not. But how do you decide? Go out and expose yourself to as much beauty in language and music as you can and then feel free enough to do whatever feels right.

Just dug this up and read the entire thread... again... how are you all doing now?

"Putting all those notes on "and" - I must be stupid... except that in the Latin original "et" gets the same notes."

Except for the real possibility that the composer wanted to emphasize AND. You've probably observed that the important words get lots of notes in Chant. That would explain this.

Ah, if Mocquereau had a nickle for every time dots and ictuses had been declared dead...

I note that they have not removed them from reprintings of the Gradual including in works that have revisions elsewhere, like the Missel grégorien.

"I note that they have not removed them from reprintings of the Gradual including in works that have revisions elsewhere, like the Missel grégorien."

But see also Antiphonale Romanum 1 and II. They are not used there.

why not mensuralism/proportionalism instead of old solesmes or new solesmes? : for those interested in mensuralism in Gregorian chant there is a site https://www.cantatorium.com/ with proportional values transcriptions (wich uses the episema and punctum with other sense than Old Solesmes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tx86n1zta7d2ufc/Table of Neumes.pdf?dl=0). In the youtube there is singing examples of the site:

https://youtu.be/7BZJ4zzJplk

https://youtu.be/2HMVpGR2ISI

It's possible to sing with a regular two beat measure, easy to a conductor.

I'm aware of the earlier discussion, to which I contributed, and I don't think that they disregard the episemata at all. There's still a difference even in the much-lighter interpretation of Fontgombault which serves as the basis of the Laus in ecclesia recordings, but in any case "treating all notes equally in every case" is thoroughly dismissed by Triors, Fontgombault, and the Schola Saint-Grégoire in the event that choirs had previously thought that this was the case. I don't think that you have to agree with me or Fontgombault etc. or use the Solesmes method, but I do think that, in order to dunk on it, you've provided a grossly unfair reading of my comment(s) and have entirely mischaracterized the discussion.

Besides, if you're not interested in the Solesmes method, then that's fine, but for those of us who are, the treatment is definitive.

(NB: you can use the HTLM tags to format in lieu of them being provided automatically by the comment box.)

but, in any case, the point stands that Praglia didn't ditch the markings, and Solesmes needs to do so, but hasn't, which is a huge problem if they really do want to move on.

You can hear the difference by listening to any number of recent recordings from Triors and Fontgombault.

Well, that's the point, isn't it, at least when it comes to, e.g. the podatus and some examples of the torculus, and I think I made that point ad nauseam in the last thread.

I don't understand what I'm accused of mischaracterizing.

With all due respect, you should pose your questions to any number of far more qualified people, from Scott Turkington to Fr Bachmann of Clear Creek, so that your confusion may be cleared up, but I'll say this: I think trying to summarize my comments (that I thought were clear) and which I wrote out at length earlier (and which are already merely a summary of others' writings), and what others have wrote in the linked thread, in the form of a question is not particularly polite.

In any case, finding that the musical notation is infelicitous is not the same as the Triors-Fontgombault-Clear Creek and Schola Saint-Grégoire explanation not being definitive and clear (which I think it is, but of course you're free to disagree, though why bother if you're ignoring the signs in the first place).