MEDIEVAL MUSIC

Very few examples of music remain from the ancient civilizations that pre-date the fall of the Roman Empire in 476. However, much is preserved from the Middle Ages, a time period that ran from 476 to the beginning of the Renaissance in the fifthteenth century. Two types of music developed during the Middle Ages; sacred and secular. Sacred music was filled with religious context while secular music pertained to everyday life in the Middle Ages.

As sacred music grew in abundance during the Middle Ages it became necessary to come up with a way of recording the churches many pieces of music. The earliest form of sacred music recorded during the Middle Ages is known as Gregorian Chant. Gregorian Chant is monophonic, consisting of a single-line melody, and uses free-verse rhythm. Free verse rhythm means the singer may choose to sing the piece to whatever rhythm he or she chooses. Over three thousand Gregorian Chants are preserved and nearly all of them remain anonymous.

Eventually it became necessary the monks who were inventing new Gregorian Chants to devise a system of notation that would enable them to write down their music. This was originally done as a memory-aiding device. Monks of the Middle Ages used neumes to record their melodies. Neumes are the predecessor of the modern day musical note and were recorded on a four-line staff. The melodies created by monasteries fall into three classes; syllabic, neumatic, and maelismatic.

Between the years 850 and 1150 a new style of music was born known as polyphony. This is the simultaneous singing or playing of two or more melodies. Polyphony music gives much more freedom to the composer compared to the rigid style of the single-line melody of the Gregorian chant. Because two or more voices were expected to stay together during the singing of a polyphony meter and rhythm were devised to keep the voices together. The development of this type of notation created an era where music was carefully planned out as opposed the early Middle Ages when music was mostly improvised.

Organum was the earliest type of polyphonic melody. A second voice would be sung at the interval of a fourth or fifth below and original Gregorian melody. Eventually it was innovated that the lower voice did not have to run always parallel, but could also run contrary to the original melody. Also, composers started using more than two voices and melodies, instead using three sometimes four melodies with musical accompaniment as well. When Perotin added texts to more than one melody of the same piece the motet was born. This was done in the early thirteenth century.

Secular music in the medieval period was written and performed mostly by minstrels and wandering bards. They would wander from town to town and from court to court improvising their music as they went along. A different level of these minstrels developed in the royal courts of Southern France, known as poet-musicians. These poet-musicians provided secular music for dancing, dinner, after-dinner entertainment, ceremonies, tournaments, civic procession, and supported military campaigns. This aristocratic class of musicians had a profound influence on European culture. These musicians used a wide variety of instruments. Some of the more notable ones are the psaltery, dulcimer, and vielle.

During the fourteenth century in France a new musical style was born known as the Ars nova. This music still used the same concepts as earlier period but was written a bit more refinement. One of the most famous figures from this period is French composer Guillaume de Machaut. He wrote both secular and sacred music. His music introduced a new freedom of music.

The Middle Ages saw a dramatic evolution of music and the development of the notation system that has continued to evolve through our present day.