Welcome Henrik! Perhaps someone else can answer your question, but in the meantime would you like to describe how you learn Queen?

If you have a learning system like tonic solfa, it is no different. You find doh or fah based on the clef, work your way down to the starting note, and off you go.

Modern music is limited to certain locked-in melodies that are quite predictable. Chant is not limited to only two scales, the frequently heard major and less heard minor, but it free to sing many scales. Many feel that this lack of predictability give chant a timeless character.

It can be difficult to learn two things at once for many people, learning to sing Latin words and vowels and square notes at the same time can frustrate some people.

At thecatholicchoirbook.com we offer a free chant school that is used in home schools.

Here reading and singing chant is taught but all the chant is in English, with sung examples by the incomparable Matthew Curtis. This is a man who could revolutionize cantoring in the Catholic church!

The book may be purchased or downloaded for free, all audio examples and the video (which will run on an iPad, other tablet or computer) is free to download and share.

The English chant is from a very fine source.

[As Adam notes below, someday it may be said, "His work is good but his links are often faulty.]

There are dozens of ways to LEARN either Gregorian Chant or Queen (or, really, any style of music or individual song). The easiest may be simply how most of us learned to sing whatever pop music we grew up with: listen to it a lot.

A more interesting/relevant question might be: how is SINGING Gregorian Chant different than singing other styles (rock/pop, folk, opera, etc...).

There is a huge variety of understandings when it comes to performance practice, but (I think) there are a handful of things that are more or less agreed upon in the singing of Gregorian chant:

-the text, not the music and especially not the singer, are the primary focus

-the singing should be able and pleasant, but need not be impressive or virtuosic

-so-called "straight tone" or "head voice" is preferable to either the vibratic "legitimate voice" of classical singers, the "chest voice/belt" of rock and Broadway, or the breathy "sincere voice" of pop

-vowels ought to be clean and pure, as in other forms of choral singing; not chewed on as with contemporary soloistic styles

-accents/pulses ought not be accentuated or overly noticed (this is up for some debate, but I prefer the "driest martini recipe" analogy, wherein one pours the gin while thinking about vermouth)

-in it's most pure form, Gregorian Chant is unaccompanied and monophonic. Elaborations (such as ison [drone], organum [parallel harmony at a fifth or octave], mixed voice singing [women and men together in octaves], or accompaniment [typically on the organ, but everything under the sun has been tried]) ought to be used in a way that respects the form, feeling, and style of the "pure" chant. (Note: I mean "pure" in a sort-of Platonic ideal form sort of way, not to suggest that any of the elaborations are less good or less worthy).

I would also note that, in my VERY HUMBLE (read: somewhat uninformed) opinion, Gregorian Chant is truly not a single genre, but a collection of styles, and that different singing techniques and performance practices work better for different styles. The equalist-rhythm of "Old Solesmes," still taught in most "beginner" chant workshops works fantastically for syllabic hymns (such as those for the Office and Benediction), especially if they are to be sung by large groups. The (I assume to be) solo melismatic chants (for example, the Graduals) suffer in my ears when labored in such a way. And singing to Psalm tones is another matter altogether.

That was probably way more than you were looking for.
So: go to Noel's site, and listen to as much chant as you can.
Then go to a CMAA or other chant workshop as soon as you can.

The C# in the Eroica is hardly predictable, but I digress.

>>he'd say, "You know, he's dead."

That's generally the response in my family when discussing passed-along wisdom:

"My grandfather always used this brand of baking powder in the waffles."
"You're grandfather is dead."

When you count in folk songs, rock and roll (Charles in CenCa) and more it's got to be somewhat accurate!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Approximately_how_many_songs_have_been_produced_in_the_US_and_UK_since_the_music_industry_was_born

The "number of recordings produced" of songs does not equate to the "number of songs" actually composed – nearly all "songs" get recorded manifold times, especially if they are old and/or popular. Moreover, the answer cited in the link also points out that technology even 30 years ago was incapable of producing as many albums as current technology is.

So if there are, say, one hundred million songs (100,000,000), then the estimate provides only 10 songs which do not have predictable melodies. Raise that to a billion, and the estimate only allows 100 songs with unpredictable melodies. You see what I'm getting at, I hope. :)

A C-sharp in a piece of d-minor sacred music dealing with the crucifixion is very common in Baroque music (and later) for the simple reason that "C" is he first letter of "Crucifixus" and the sharp would have been hand written as a "+" ... a wide-spread and outstanding fairly early example of "eye music" notation. One of the most outstanding examples of this is the opening movement of Bach's cantata "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen" for basso solo. Those C-sharps are not only predictable ... they are wrenchingly poignant.

Of course, in otherwise very unpredictable modern sacred music, the B-A-C-H(B-flat) or it's reverse (H-C-A-B) is quite predictable, too, in the Passion of St. Luke oratorio by Penderecki, as well as in other works that somehow pay homage to Bach.

Nevermind.

Any music is predictable once you know it, though Stravinsky can be delightfully or maddeningly subversive of expectations well after you think you've memorized it.

The phrase "more or less agreed" contains some qualification already, but 1) as to primacy of text, I wouldn't want to argue against Latin, even though I've come to prefer letting people contemplate the communion Psalm in English while they stand in line without bulletin in hand. And "prima la parole" applies just as much to Schubert Lieder as to DaPonte's recitativo.

Secondly, am I really in a minority in preferring 'legitimate voice' for chant? In Early Music there was an article about Monteverdi's audition reports, "La voce e grata assai, ma...". It's a bit startling to read that a beautiful voice was considered to small for church work but possibly well suited to opera, at that time performed in private venues much smaller than the cathedrals. It would be ironic if the CMAA officially commended a singing style associated with madrigals. ;-)