OK, so my propensity for getting myself into hot water has not diminished with time.

I got a phone call this morning from a friend of a friend.....

"I need someone to sing the Saturday evening service as most of my choir can't make it. Your friend said you'd be able to do it" said the chap on the end of the phone.

"I'm certainly free on Saturday evening. What do you need done?"
"Nothing fancy. Latin Mass, couple of anthems" he replied

"Ah. Which church?" - He gave the name of a Catholic church a little way from us.
"You do know I'm not Catholic?" I pointed out.
"Yes, but your friend said you could sing anything, and you would be OK with the service."
"Oh."

"So you'll do it?"
"Yes, I'll come along." How hard, I thought, can a Latin Mass and a couple of anthems be?

"Splendid. Oh, by the way, we use plainchant. Anyway must dash, bye!"
And he hung up before I could say the words "actually I've never sung plainchant......."

So here's the thing - can anyone suggest some sort of idiot's guide to plainchant that I can mug up in two and a half days?

Oh dear. That does sound challenging!

Plainchant is actually fairly easy to sing - it follows the natural rhythms of speech. If you take the piece and speak it first - watch the natural accelerations and decelerations of the speech rhythm. Then apply it to the music.

Clear as mud?

That's clear, thanks Meerkat. And I know that when the dots go up so does the voice and when the dots go down the voice does likewise. But there's some funny squiggles I don't get, and would like to be able to check before I have to do this for real.

Crumbs katyjay! You do land yourself in these things don't you

I've never sung plainchant...

I did just find this

It's "A beginners' guide to reading Gregorian notation"

It has stuff about the clefs and about symbols, and it will play examples to you. I think you can print it out for free, but it is probably worth looking and listening to the online examples at the site

Hope it helps a bit...

I think the symbols are a bit weird on the online one, they don't fit properly with the text and the staves - hopefully it'll work if it's printed out...

Do you have the names of the pieces? there are quite a few recordings out there, often free to access, if that might help?


This site has links that look useful:

http://comp.uark.edu/~rlee/otherchant.html#resources

For example, from that site this resource looks particularly helpful:

http://interletras.com/canticum/Eng/index_tecnic_ENG.html

Katyjay, what exactly have you got to sing? I've done quite a bit of plainchant, and have some plainchant stuff written out in 'normal' notiation. Might be able to help....

Aw, we're not suggesting plainchant is abnormal??

Not in the slightest - used to read it (almost) fluently - just wasn't sure what the other notiation was called!!

Thanks all of you.

At the moment I know there will be a Gloria, a Paternoster (but I don't know which ones) and something called "Vinea facta est dilecto in cornu". I have borrowed my friend's "Graduate Romanum" book, and if I can work out how the notation goes I'll be able to prepare what I have to sing.

Ah well, one never stops learning.......

What you have to sing may be written in modern notation, (rather than the square traditional kind with a 4-line stave) - can you find out?

No, unfortunately it's in traditional notation. But I have got two and a bit days to figure it out

We sing plainchant all the time in choir, it's not that complicated. Listen to some sung by the monks of Solesmes abbey if you can, to absorb the style - they do some of the best around.

I have various books here, but nothing that would help you that I can think of. I have notes somewhere (in the roof?? wish I knew!) we had plainsong lectures and practical stuff at college.

(edit)
I have found a book of examples - traditional notation for the voice part and "normal" (ie modern) notation for the accompaniment, so you can work out what the old notation means. If it would help you are welcome to pick it up and borrow - don't know if that's any good ???

I think mensural notation is the term? It goes up or down and just check where the C clef is centered at the beginning of the stave, so you can be comfortable where middle C is. There are no key signatures, any chromatic adjustments are notated as accidentals..

I hope you're charging a fee for this!..

Thanks again everyone for your help & advice.

Hi there Katyjay
We sing a lot of modal music written in the same notation as plainchant. I found that the crucial thing is to look and see if you have a C clef or an F clef, and work out where the semi tones are...and bob's your uncle ( and gladys is your aunt...or something like that). Is it very complicated with lots of neums, or simple straight up and down with a few jumps in to stop you falling asleep?
Speaking of modal music...we have to sing Tenebrae at 4.30am for the next 3 mornings...that's all modal music, but luckily only 2 basic tunes all the way through and another tune for the readings. I'm sharing the singing bits (a lot of them) with the Chantress, we're doing turn and turn about. Trouble is that now I'm getting quite nervous about doing it as we sing solo and unaccompanied, so there's nowhere to hide it it all goes pearshaped!

It's got neums in it. And there's some with a C clef and some with an F. I'm gradually getting my head round the notation, but still have some uncertainties - for example one of the things we're singing - the Vinea Facta Est - has an awful lot of notation going on long after we run out of words. What does one do with that?

4.30 am singing sounds a bit like hard work, Itchy1. Hope it all goes well.

you can whistle, hum or rhythmically moan - but only if it's in the Dorian or Ionian modes

Hi there Katyjay
This morning was fine thankfully...I think tomorrow (Good Friday) is the worst of the three, mainly because I won't get to bed until midnight...and then it's another early start. I think I must be mad to do this!

About the notation that has run out of words, we have some of that after Easter. We usually just sing the long neums to "ah"...but as they're all attached to an alleluia of some kind it makes sense. As far as I understand when the monks originally sung this sort of music, it was a chance for the singer to improvise and show what they could do, I suppose just like a cadenza.

What are the others singing at that point?, or are you singing solo...I guess you will have to fit in with what the others are doing...or talk to the musical director about what would make sense.
Sorry I can't offer any other advice...only try and enjoy it. I love singing plainsong and modal music and on the whole find it much easier than singing other types of church music. Just as well, as we do a lot of it around here!

Eek - thankfully I haven't got to do 4.30 am. Just tonight, tomorrow morning (rehearsal at 8.30 which sounds quite civilised by comparison!) , Easter Vigil and two on Sunday.

Enjoy your neums! Wonderful stuff, I love singing plainsong, although we're doing other kinds of music as well, Victoria, Lotti, Durufle, Casals etc.

Actually I really like all sorts of church music. We use a lot of plainsong, but I also sing with a local chamber choir and we sing all sorts of things...we're currently learning a Byrd Mass for four voices, John Tavener's Song for Athene and a setting of "Let all Mortal flesh keep silence" by Edward Bairstow. I'm enjoying the Song for Athene and the Bairstow piece is growing on me.
In the meantime, until Easter Sunday plainsong reigns supreme!

ooh the Bairstow is wonderful. And Byrd, Weelkes etc etc - we sang the Weelkes Hosanna last Sunday. What are you doing on Easter Sunday??

How's the plainsong going, KJ?

HOly Week and Easter is such a busy time for all of us. Six down, day off tomorrow and six on Sunday.... I have the Exultet to sing - thankfully in English. Will be wonderful.

Just checked out my 'homework' for next Tuesday morning's singing lesson - Mozart Laudamus Te from the Mass in C minor. Think my teacher is having a laugh! Better get my head down tomorrow and Monday...

All the best to everyone for the rest of the services, especially Katyjay.

Well, that was.....a challenge.

The plainchant was OK. I managed to follow reasonably well, didn't get too thrown by the fact they did it in a different key from what was in front of me in the book, survived the bit where they dropped down a tone in the middle of a canticle and didn't disgrace myself too much.

The fun came when we were told, just before we went to line up for the candlelight procession from the garden outside into the church, that we hadn't rehearsed one of the motets but as "everyone" knew it, that wouldn't be a problem. Oh, and would I mind singing first alto as they hadn't got anyone else who could......

So picture me trying to sight read the "wrong" line of an eight-part motet by candlelight in an otherwise pitch dark church, with no other visible means of support!

Not to mention processing into said church with absolutely no way of telling where the steps were except for the light from the candle I was holding. Or the fact that the candle was buckling in the heat. Or that the pages of my (photocopied) music were sticking together and I had trouble turning them one-handed.

At least fretting about whether I'd fall in the procession and cause a pile-up or would end up setting my music on fire stopped me worrying about singing the wrong notes!

Sounds like great fun... I'm impressed by your courage, KJ.

Courage is holding a wilting taper in a cardboard holder and processing in a borrowed, overlong cassock!

Compared with that, sightreading in public is a doddle

Well, our Holy Week services have now been officially renamed: Shambles Thursday, Good Shambles, Holy Shambles, Shambles Day, and Choral Shambles (which I've just got back from).

Yesterday at our candlelit service (only it was practically light, they held the service too early and there was sunlight streaming through the windows ) our choirmaster managed to set his cardboard candelholder alight in the middle of the anthem.... it was stuck in the side of his music desk and suddenly the whole thing just went up in flames and he was trying to conduct and blow it out at the same time

You know, Katy, I'm soooooo glad you didn't tell me about this yesterday........

Lol I thought maybe better not. Actually it was very funny, only thing was that about a page of the anthem was ppp because only a few people were actually able to sing, the rest of us were laughing while trying to look like we were singing!!
But our problem (apart from random fires) was not enough rehersal time... the Maundy Thursday service took up the normal time of our rehersal so we really didn't have enough time to practise for all 5 services.

Reminds me of the time we were singing at a Candlelit Christmas carol service and we were the only ones to notice - mid-carol - that the decorations round the pillar at the back of the church were on fire....

Glad it went well katyjay.

Husband once sang at a Candlemas service where one of the boy trebles managed to set fire to another boy's hair I've managed to set fire to my own hair before now , but at least that was at home where the fire could be put out easily.

Deborah, what is it with your husband and hair being on fire?

Just coincidence, promise! That said, I was nevertheless nervous with all the candles around yesterday evening.

Well done Katyjay. Never one to shirk from a challenge, and this turned into the mother of all challenges with the sounds of it. Glad you managed to stay upright and flame free.

Ooops, I seem to have woken up the pyromaniacs in all of you...