basic chant

Tools for Scholas and Singers of Gregorian Chant • Including Beginner's Guides

The American Organist Review

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO READING GREGORIAN CHANT NOTATION

....This wonderful little book is the chant-equivalent of Dick and Jane. With as few as one word on a page (and one neume), it takes us back to the root of learning to read (this notation) from the ground up. Beyond that, what can one possibly say? It is a primer and a refreshing way to reduce an idiom carrying with it a mysterious theoretical and stylistic aura to the fundamental, even primal musical language that it is.

....Jones does not pontificate about chant. He avoids sentences and paragraphs wherever possible. His preferred style of written communication is something between a word and a bullet list. How can one argue with the minimalist reduction of what is, to most, an indecipherable old craft to a series of statements such as "Staff covers just the range of the human voice" or "There are only two clef signs"?

....Where content is minimal, so the book's design and layout are also simple and striking. While the printer wastes no ink, the typefaces recall the stroke of the medieval copyist's pen. It is a lovely, simple treasure to behold.

In a scant 71 pages, most of which contain a single large illustration and one or two words, the code is broken. And once that happens, chant is as easy as "See Spot run. Run Spot, run!"

Haig Mardirosian

July 2009

The American Organist is the official journal of the American Guild of Organists

Reprinted with permission.

The AGO has over 21,000 members throughout the United States, Europe, Singapore, Korea and Sydney.

Sample Page 4

These pages are the same in both Gregorian Chant books, see the SAMPLE PAGES for more from the new, expanded book.

Sample Page 56

It is now

A Beginner's Guide To Reading Gregorian Chant Notation

The Pulse of Music - Book I

76 Pages

ISBN: 1438257481

Purchase $12.95 Download PDF PowerPoint

In Gregorian Chant notes are arranged like a train....each note or grouping has a clear purpose and when connected to its neighbors makes up a melody.

This book teaches how to see them, read them and sing them. It was created for self-teaching, individual instruction, choir training or chant workshops.

This book is created to help people learn to recognize chant notes and signs. They were created to be scribed on large manuscript pages, with notes large enough so that a group of singers could stand and all sing from one page. For this reason, when printed in modern small bools to be held in hand, the notes can be hard to read.

To solve this problem, this little book displays each note and sign in large form so that you can absorb the sight of it and what it means so that when you use a small score the small notes will be easier for you to read. A look at a small note form will bring to memory the large one that you learned about here.

Noel Jones uses this book in a class lasting only 45' in which those participating are able to begin singing and following chant notation by the end of the class.

Sample pages.

Contact Noel Jones