Chant organ accompaniment
  • gsharpe34
    Posts: 47
    Hello: I've read quite a lot of the resources available at charbanel (etc.) and CMAA websites, and find some of it very interesting. More to the point, however, I am trying to develop my own style of improvised accompaniment that I can do direct from the square notes. I am nowhere near capable of bringing off a perfect accompaniment without some kind of rehearsal and working things out in advance. My belief though is with some knowledge of music theory, chant, and facility with a keyboard instrument (piano/harpsicord/organ), this should be doable.

    What I am certain of (apologies in advance if this is snobbish) is that the written-out accompaniments of the early 20th century simply do not really capture the spirit of the chant in terms of the best recordings I've heard of improvised accompaniment. The best I've heard so far is Dom Paul Benoit of St Maurice and S Maur (Luxembourg) from the middle 1900s.

    Any thoughts, input, comments, or points in the right direction?
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    gsharpe, welcome to the forum!

    I usually start my own accompaniment with an appropriate pedal point, with chord changes at the important melodic events. I like to use a large amount of dissonance, whether intended or accidental, though I keep everything diatonic.

    Another alternative is simple parallel 5ths alone.

    I should mention that I have no training whatsoever in chant accompaniment, and only do what I feel "sounds good".
  • Paul_OnnonhoaratonPaul_Onnonhoaraton
    Posts: 434
    the written-out accompaniments of the early 20th century simply do not really capture the spirit of the chant in terms of the best recordings I've heard of improvised accompaniment.

    For myself, I agree with you, which you can read here:
    Gregorian Chant Organ Accompaniment Treatises

    Flor Peeters also agrees with you, which you know if you've read his Treatise. It is on the St. Jean de Lalande website.
  • gsharpe34
    Posts: 47
    Thanks Gavin. I'm John but was Giovanni when living in italy, so the gsharpe stuck.

    Are you improvising from the square notes? (presumably...)

    And one or two manuals, plus pedal? and your technique works for propers and ordinary?
  • gsharpe34
    Posts: 47
    Paul:

    Yes, and thank you. It is that excellent write-up on accompaniment that gave me the confidence to begin working something out by way of improvisation, since the article's author said that the real tradition is, probably like so much else that is liturgical, a craft that grows organically and is handed down from one master (or in my case, one novice) to the next without ever being written down in fixed form or in manuals of instruction.

    I find, on that note, that when accompanying anything with repeated melodies (kyries, introits & alleluias, hymns, etc.) the accompaniment is never exactly the same. I suppose that's good...
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    No, you are not 'snobbish'. Definitely perspicacious, but not snobbish!
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