AM ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN I’m not the only person who, coming to chant from lots of experience singing complex choral music, found chant to be, well, boring. How can someone possibly get into music that’s just a single unaccompanied melody? That’s so lame. Now, after many years of singing and directing chant, I’ve developed a love for the music and its expressive nuance. I see that my colleague, William Fritz, recently posted about plainsong interpretation, specifically as regards the Norbertine version of the REGINA COELI. I also see that Jeff Ostrowski published an article about the ‘correct’ way to sing Gregorian Chant (although Jeff doesn’t seem very passionate about this subject).
Below are seven reflections by which I might try to convince my “younger self”—or someone else with musical training but no chant experience—to give Gregorian plainsong a fair shake.
(1) Chant is the musical presentation of a sacred text.
Why does SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM say (§112) that “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art?” It supplies the answer in the very next sentence: “The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.” Plainsong is a way of presenting a sacred text. It is a way of heightening the beauty of that text through melody. And because that sacred text comes from the liturgy, chant is not just singing at Mass; rather, singing chant is singing the Mass. Gregorian chant moves the liturgy forward, and the presentation of a text is the key. So when you sing it, think about the meaning of the words, and also think about caressing each word—syllable by syllable—as you sing it. Plainsong should always be reverent, and careful attention to the sound of the text (in addition to the sound of the melody) is key.
(2) Think of chant like a recitative in an opera.
Present the words in a rhythmically flexible, conversational manner. The underlying pulse of chant is non-metronomic, and the melodies should be sung with subtle stretching of the time.
(3) Chant is typically sung slightly “off the voice.”
This is in distinction to the full bel canto singing with which someone might execute an art song or an aria. In order to maintain the flexibility of the previous point, there needs to be a sense of lightness. One should always strive for beauty of tone while simultaneously cultivating an easeful agility.
(4) Chant is unmetered.
It doesn’t have a regular pulse (unlike, say, a march or a waltz). Chant melodies tend to be constructed of two-note and three-note figures, so the singer should feel that sense of an uneven loping as the twos and threes go by. I realize full well that there are differing theories of chant rhythm. Nonetheless, this is how I was taught, how I sing it, and how I teach chant to others.
(5) Remain cognizant of word stress.
Because chant is the musical presentation of a text, word stress matters. In chant hymns, for example, an awareness of the word stress can help to give the melody subtle dynamic life, and the same thing can be true in the singing of a psalm-tone verse. In more complex melodies, the word stresses frequently (though not always) complement the musical gestures; however, in very melismatic chants, the word stress can sometimes take a back seat to a more graceful shaping of the melody itself. As a general principle, think: “the phrases should be musical,” with the natural rhythm and word stress of the text as central elements in navigating those musical choices.
(6) What about the ictus?
Those tiny vertical lines underneath some syllables are there to assist in conducting chant; an ictus is meant to signify a thesis (a downward conducting gesture). We modern musicians tend to think of downward gestures as downbeats, though that’s not what they mean at all in chironomy (chant conducting). Looking through a chant hymn, one might see a series of ictus1 that align with word stresses, while at other times aligning with unstressed syllables. This can become a little puzzling. Dr. Edward Schaefer said once in a workshop:
“I hate the ictus, because it can be so confusing. As a result, before giving out a chant, I go through it and white out all the ictuses, then photocopy that and distribute it to my singers.”
A freeing piece of advice: if you find the ictus to be confusing, ignore it or remove it. I admit sometimes this is easier said than done:
(7) Correct way of singing chant?
All this talk about word stress, flexibility of tempo and dynamic, unmetered twos and threes, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the ictus… It seems like there are a lot of variables at play. So what’s the correct way of singing chant? Here’s the answer I encountered many years ago, in a workshop with Ed Schaefer. I attended the CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium in Salt Lake City in 2012, where I had the very good fortune of meeting Jeff Ostrowski on the cab ride from the airport to the conference. While, there I participated in a workshop led by Ed on the Graduale Triplex, a book that contains Gregorian chant represented via three notational approaches: the square-note neums that most of us know, and then above and below that staff, neums that pre-date staff notation, culled from Swiss and French manuscripts.
Those older neums look something like Arabic script, and the point of the workshop was to identify both the similarities and differences in the way each of the three notations present a given melody, and then make informed decisions about perhaps altering a pitch here, lengthening a note there, to bring the square-note neums into a closer match with the melodies of their squiggly predecessors. It’s slow and painstaking work, and after three days, I took Ed aside after class and asked him the question: “What’s the correct way of singing chant?” His answer surprised me.
“The correct way of singing chant is that all the people singing a particular chant are singing it in the same way at the same time.”
In other words, the method of approach is less important than the uniformity of approach. The chant schola needs to sound like a well-coached ensemble, regardless of what choices the director makes about realizing the Gregorian melody.
I found this enormously liberating.
An Absurd Contention • It also makes sense if you consider the slow spread of the liturgy throughout Europe and north Africa in the Church’s first millennia, the development of distinct chant interpretations and melodies in various monastic communities over the centuries, the lack of precise musical notation for the first 1300 years of the Church (meaning that chants were learned and passed on by rote), and the lack of anything like instant communication in regards to purveying liturgical standards and practices across Christendom. The idea that there would be one correct way of interpreting chant seems absurd, once you consider the long sweep of Church liturgical history.
So then, what do you do? Does this mean that anything goes?
Certainly not. The chant should always be beautiful, prayerful, and reverent. A singer should use all the tools in his musical toolbox, from whatever training and experience he has, at the service of this goal. And a conductor should want the schola to feel unified — that all the singers execute the melodies the same way. Similarly, a conductor should be consistent in his own approach, following the logical proposition of non-contradiction in regards to his own instructions, so that over the course of many rehearsals and liturgies, the singers start to feel the way chant is interpreted together.
Perhaps, dear reader, one or more of these ideas may help you find an inroad into Gregorian plainsong. Here’s to beautiful chants, beautifully sung!
1 It’s important to remember that the plural of ‘ictus’ is ictus because it’s not second-declension: it’s fourth-declension. In the plural, the word ‘ictus’ is supposed to be pronounced with a long “u”—but nobody I’m aware of who follows the ecclesiastical pronunciation makes such a distinction.
