7 Replies to “Simple Propers: Offertory for Advent 1”

  1. While I admit not being very familiar with the technical development of the tones which you are using for the psalm verses, I do wish you simply used the Gregorian tones. This would be a better "hermeneutic of continuity" and is so pleasing to the ear.

    In this example, I really think the accented syllable should be on Fah or if the the last word is of a single syllable, then it should be on Fah.

    I would be interested in your take on both my points.

    Keep up the great work, I am using some of the Simple Propers every Vigil Mass.

    David in Toronto.
    Vox Cantoris

  2. I appreciate the thoughts that you've shared here David. I have to be honest that my sentiments are very much the same and I have struggled to great lengths to find a satisfying way to use the Gregorian tones with English texts. I have also observed others who have tried to do the same.

    My resolve at this point is that, although it can be done not without great difficulty and compromise, trying to use Gregorian tones with English texts is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

    I think that Fr. Ruff's article, among much literature on the top, sums up the issues at play very nicely:

    http://www.npm.org/Sections/Chant/images/Custos%202.pdf

    The reality–and this is scientific data–is that English phrases end with a hard final accent 75% of the time. In Latin this happens also, but it is something close to 1 or 2 percent of the time. So if the accents in the Gregorian tones are going to be sung truly as "accents", meaning that the accented syllables are sung with a dynamic stress, then they ought to align with the word accents in the text. My experience is that this builds up an intuition in a singer and allows for the singing of the psalms with ease, even and especially without notation, as one becomes familiar with the patterns.

    If we use these tones with English texts then 3 out 4 times will will have to do something with the melodic termination to accommodate an accent on the final syllable. The most satisfactory method I have found is to slur the notes following the final accent in the tone, and this can work in a pinch, I believe, but using it with any regularity becomes rather grating. I agree completely with Ruff's observation here.

    Another solution that people take is not to align the "accent" of the tone with the "accent" of the text. This reduces the tone termination essentially to a series of pitches which have no real significance other than their melodic ordering. Or we get displaced accents, which I believe contradict the nature of chanted psalmody.

    A solution that many have found is simply to modify the tones or to compose new ones that work well 100% of the time with English, and this is the decision that was made here. This certainly is not a perfect solution, but it is one that works and that is the higher good with this project–we want to give average parish singers a resource that they can use successfully, and they can sing with success with these very simple tones.

    I wish so badly that there were a better solution for using the Gregorian tones with English texts, but I just haven't found one. Please know that the decision not to use them is not for any kind of hermeneutic of discontinuity!

    Lastly, I'm confused by your description of the use of "Fah" in the tone above. The decision was made here for the last note of each line to align with the final accent of an English text. Again, 75% of the time the phrase will end with a "thud": "beginning of the world"… so this is anticipated in the tone. Perhaps using a tone that is so close to the Gregorian tone 2 is dangerous… perhaps I should reconsider this.

    If you can offer any alternative methods of employing the Gregorian tones with English texts that are not discussed in the Ruff article please share, I'm all ears!

  3. Thank you Adam for your response and for the link. I will need to drill into the article again a few times but I see more clearly now where you are going. My love for Gregorian chant is the reference to the "hermeneutic of continuity" and no offense meant to anyone here. In an ideal world, we would have the Ordinary Form a mix of English and Latin with the Latin Propers preseverd and translated. But we don't live there…yet.

    From my experience with chanted English I am too familiar with the "thud" you describe and that is what I was expecting on the Fah! I've heard it used so often, I suppose that I've begun to think of it as the norm. After reading Fr. Ruff's piece and your comment, I understand now why it has always sounded out-of-place. Odd how we come to accept as the norm something that seems so odd and we eventually find ourselves liking it. Singing it in that manner is how I was taught and I stand corrected.

    Your note and the article explain a lot of what I have been finding frustrating about chanting in English to the Gregorian settings. I think with this particular chant it is the closeness to Tone II, "dangerous" as you wrote, that I personally found a little un-nerving. Tone II is very appealing to me and I wanted it all!

    On another thought about English for the Propers; while I greatly admire Bruce Ford's monumental work with the American Gradual, I find them incredibly difficult to sing and I say this as someone who can sing the entire Liber Usualis–and maybe that is the problem. I keep hearing in my head something different to what I am trying to sing. No matter how hard I try, I can never sing them to even myself and feel that I've done a worthy job. Consequently, I've put them aside, but your Simple Propers have now come to the rescue.

    Certainly the melismatic chants have great difficulty working well in English and I very much appreciate your work with the Simple Propers that, while they are influenced and particularly so with the intonations, you have not tried to repeat Mr. Ford's work. The English language is very difficult to make work successfully here, though I admit, I felt different about the psalm-tone. Saying that, I do know that there are many times I have had to compromise when writing my own settings in the past. As I stated, I need to drill into the article more and I surely recognized some of my own compromises and those of others in the examples–truly none of them worked, we just got used to them.

    I've used the Communion Psalms weekly since you began posting, but not generally for the Offertory so that we can still continue with a hymn immediately after the chant. At the Entrance, I sing the Antiphon from Simple Propers and then the organist begins the hymn. We are still a long way from replacing hymns with Propers and at least for this one Vigil Mass, at this one parish, I'm making it work. Prior to your posting the Simple Propers, I was already singing the Entrance and Communion right out of the paper missalette (Novalis-Living With Christ) to a Gregorian Psalm-tone out of my head, so you're work has now allowed me to eliminate in the antiphon, the compromises.

    Thank you for all that you are doing, the challenge is to get this into the hands of those in the parishes responsible for music and that is going to be an uphill battle, but let each of us do his or her part and we've made a start.

    A blessed Advent to all at Chant Cafe.

  4. Hi, Adam.
    Great work!

    Could you tell me where do you find this simple melodies? Or are they composed by you from the Graduale Romanum setting?

    Thank you and I wish you a Holy Advent.

  5. David: Thank you very much for sharing your thought process here. It really is very valuable, and such feedback from others has really helped me focus in on fine tuning this project. Please keep your thoughts coming regarding the psalm tones that I use–I plan to have a unique tone assigned to each melodic formula, and these are not set in stone yet. I have taken your thoughts on the Mode 2 Offertory to heart. Thank you again for this.

    Luís: I have crafted the melodies and melodic formulas that they are based on. This was not a musicological project, but essentially a creative one. The challenge was to craft melodic patterns that are essentially a hybrid of a psalm tone and a through composed antiphon which can be used with ease with English texts. So for each phrase there is an intonation, a reciting pitch and a termination, and there are 4 phrases in the Introit and Offertory formulas and 2 in the Communions. When there are fewer lines certain phrases are eliminated or elided and when there are more I make the use of various flex figures. The modality of the Graduale Romanum chant is retained, but for every distinct genre/mode there is only one formula. So every Introit in the GR that is in Mode 1 will use the same melodic formula. There are generally 10-20 antiphons per genre in the same mode. So the entire proper of Mass for the entire year will be set according to 24 different melodic formulas in this project.

    A blessed also Advent to you both!

  6. Dear Adam,

    Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer.

    I was very curious because I've just started conducting a small schola – a capella – and since most of us aren't musicians, we have resorted to the Graduale Simplex, which isn't always very satisfying.
    So, I was wondering where did you find this melodies…

    Best wishes,

  7. I crafted them myself, Luis. By means of scouring the chant repertory and various sources and applying some creative intuition. You will not find these melodies anywhere else. They are a new creation for this project.

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