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Concept
Plainsong
Summary
Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French plain-chant; cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive form of Christian church music until the ninth century, and the introduction of polyphony.
The monophonic chants of plainsong have a non-metric rhythm. Their rhythms are generally freer than the metered rhythm of later Western music, and they are sung without musical accompaniment.
There are three types of chant melodies that plainsongs fall into: syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic. The free flowing melismatic melody form of plainsong is still heard in Middle Eastern music being performed today.
Although the Catholic Church (both its Eastern and Western halves) and the Eastern Orthodox churches did not split until long after the origin of plainsong, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.
Plainsong developed during the earliest centuries of Christianity, influenced possibly by the music of the Jewish synagogue and certainly by the Greek modal system. It has its own system of notation.
As the number of chants in the church's repertoire increased, officials needed a better way to standardize the music. A unique form of musical notation was developed to help standardize the music and provide a reference for the performers and audience alike. The musical notations that were used were called neumes, and they are employed on a four-line staff, unlike the five-line staff we are accustomed to today. The neumes are placed above the chant's words to help the performer identify the piece's melody but did not specify the pitches or intervals that needed to be sung. Even though there were written musical manuscripts, the performers still needed to memorize the chants through oral traditions before interpreting the notation. It was not until the eleventh century that musical pitches were being integrated into written music.
Official source
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