Music History Periods: Part I  Medieval  Renaissance  Baroque  Classical  Romantic  Modern

Medieval  Describe the medieval time period  What purpose would music serve during this time  Medieval Time Period: ish  Medieval Music:

Religious Medieval Music  Western classical music history  Starts with plainchant (also called "Gregorian" chant) Music used a single vocal line approved by the church  Plainchant taught by wrote until the early 9th century  Limited in pitch range and monophonic (i.e., composed of a single melody with no accompaniment),  Sung largely by monks, nuns, and clerics rather than by professional singers.  Sung in the Divine Offices, eight daily prayer services using Old Testament texts 

Secular Medieval Music  The earliest major repertory of Western secular (non- religious) music  Troubadors and trouveres - French poet-musicians who set their own poems to music  Content focused on love often the fictionalized  Notated as simple rows of pitches without rhythm  Accompanied by instruments, but instrumentation never notated Images of troubadors in medieval manuscripts have offered hints as to what instruments were played 

Organum  10th and 11th centuries shift to Polyphony (i.e., with more than one melody at the same time).  Organum Greatly slowed down an existing plainchant Added a new, more rapidly flowing musical line at a higher pitch (2 voice parts)  TqVs

Motets  13th century, rhythmic passages of organum to which words had been added began to be treated as standalone musical works called motets (literally, "worded").  Three-part & Four-part motets appeared, with a different text sung in each voice Sometimes the texts were in different languages  Both music and text ideas are now very complex  Started with scared texts and moves to secular texts 