What was medieval music like

What was Medieval Music like? Noughts and Crosses: its Medieval history. Noughts and Crosses: its Medieval history 15 september There were also some wind instruments, horns and flutes.

Dancers rarely touched each other. There were court dances and country dances. The Egg Dance, for example, a country dance, was a dance done in a marked off section, with raw eggs scattered in it.

The goal was to dance without breaking eggs. The Morris Dance is still done by dancers today. It is the dance around a may pole. Most of the dances had a set pattern of steps, jumps, or kicks, that you had to learn. There were a number of characteristic instruments of the Medieval Period including:. Flutes made of wood Medieval flutes looked more like the modern day recorder as they had holes for fingers rather than keys.

Dulcimer The medieval dulcimers were originally plucked, but then hit with hammers as technology developed. Lyra The lyra is considered to be one of the first known bowed instruments. The name comes from a tract written by Philippe de Vitry in c. The style was characterised by increased variety of rhythm, duple time and increased freedom and independence in part writing. These experimentations laid some of the foundations for further musical development during the Renaissance period.

The main secular genre of Art Nova was the chanson. Da Cascia, J. Da Bologna and Landini in Italy. It is not so with modes. The lack of sharps and flats in medieval music with some exceptions means that the relationship between notes for a mode starting on D dorian is different to a mode starting on E phrygian.

In addition, each medieval mode has a returning note which plays a key role in the melody, this note known as the tenor, tuba, dominant, repercussa, or reciting note; and each mode has its own characteristic figures or melodic clusters of notes.

Add to this the fact that some modes started and ended in the same place, known as authentic modes, and others started on one note and finished on another, known as plagal modes, and we see that the medieval conception of sound was unlike ours. What this means in practical terms is that a medieval psaltery or harp is potentially a problem for a player of modern music since they are diatonic, lacking the permanent availability of sharps and flats.

But the medieval soundworld was different, and a diatonic instrument was perfectly suited to medieval diatonic music. A more detailed examination of medieval modes can be found by clicking here.

The harmonies were different, too. Medieval music was i monophony, a single melody line; or ii a melody with a drone; or iii organum, which variously meant a melody with a second line that tracks the first with longer notes, or with a parallel octave, fourth or fifth, or two parts in contrary motion, or an additional line with fast-running notes; or, iv as with Sumer is icumen in , a melody on top of a ground or ground bass, a short repeating phrase which continues through the whole piece.

This same principle of all voices being equal applies to an English dance without title in the Harley manuscript, the same source as Sumer , which has two complementary lines of music moving largely in contrary motion, as we hear in the video below.

Until the end of the middle ages, polyphonic parts were pitched close together, their notes sometimes inter-weaving across each other.

Not to be reproduced in any form without permission. All rights reserved. The biggest thought I had while reading this article was how much of an influence religion would have on medieval music. It did not surprise me that there were religious songs note the Cantigas de Santa Maria, but there were also quite a few secular songs as well.

While reading about the medieval era and the divide between different religions and the power of religion in general, secularism often fell low on the ladder. I tried to compare these songs back to our original medieval readings, but could not.

Our readings often put God or gods above secular culture, in general. However, these songs only had one thing in common that I could see, which was to keep people stable, calm, and joyful at heart. While the clergy was the organization that wrote down most of the music, both religious and secular music kept people entertained and calm during harsh winters and wonderful dances.

It makes sense to divide songs into religious and secular in the modern world, presupposing that one might believe or disbelieve in God or any particular god, depending on the culture.