Isons, drones, etc.
  • Johnny Domer
    Posts: 21
    I'm a newbie schola director (for both the EF and the OF) and I've begun discovering more and more things like Old Roman Chant, the rhetorical method of singing chant, etc. I was particularly blown away when I visited St. Josaphat's in Detroit and heard Wassim Sarweh using the organ for a kind of droning bass accompaniment to his chanting. I'd love to incorporate that droning bass tone for my own schola, but I'm not sure how to do it/what bass notes go with which modes/where or what an ison is exactly, etc. I feel like it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out (for example, for chants in Mode 1, the droning tone goes between a Re and a Do), but I was wondering if any of you folks could recommend resources to assist me in learning more about this stuff/what notes are supposed to accompany which modes. Even just simple, basic help (e.g. "For mode 1 it alternates between Re and Do; for mode 2 etc.") would be greatly appreciated.
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    This chart has been posted before; it might be helpful.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Glad to see that chart's still around. I have it on my hard drive somewhere from the last point it showed up.

    Listen to a lot of Byzantine Chant and you'll start to absorb it. You have to get to the older stuff and the more Eastern stuff for the ison to really work... the newer and more Western the music is, the less suited it is.

    For Old Roman Chant, have you ever listened to anything from Ensemble Organum? They're brilliant.
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