Gregorian chant 

You deserve so many more views and subscribers, Elam. This is my favorite RU-vid channel!

Gregorian chant is alive and well at my traditional Catholic Church! I sing in the Schola and choir. Thank you for the video!

1:28 the Holy Spirit in the form of a _dove_ ... (raven sounds) lol

You say, "This episode was perhaps long, but [. . .]" I actually prefer the longer videos to the shorter ones because of the complexity of the subjects you cover. All of your videos raise so many questions in my mind that need to be answered! So I'm voting for longer videos. Thank you so much for your work. You have an excellent grasp of the primary sources.

This is the type of extraordinary video that demands several viewings.

Thank you for doing such an amazing (lifelong) project! Slowly and thoroughly I shall get to every one of your incredible videos. Sending you love from Israel, Doron.

Just discovered your channel, I love it! I'm impressed by both your pedagogical and editing skills :)

The word cantus is cognates with persian “khandan”. We know from persian sources that khandan was more melismatic than the other genre, “guftan” which was mensural and speech like, (very comparable to ancient greek samples of music) the persian “guftan” is cognates with sanskrit gita/gatha. Perhaps in the future by the help of ethnomusicology we will be able to reconstruct more details of the plain chants. As always, thanks alot for the great and inspiring video!

Thank you for a great presentation. My father who would be 104 now, had a prodigious memory. I can see how the plainchant could be passed down through the generations when people cultivated a memory like he had. Learning by rote is the way we actually learn and understand anything. This video puts this in focus and shows that with all our "modern technology" something of our humanity has been lost. Cheers

i was soooo missing you guys...

As someone who has been a part of various scholas and church choirs singing Gregorian chant, I really, REALLY, enjoyed this video. I think a lot of choir directors could benefit from learning that Solesmes (while important) does not necessarily represent the "authoritative" version of how chant is meant to be sung. So many of them take a rigid approach, which eliminates the soul of the music. I think another equally important point that the video didn't address is the fact that these chants are primarily and fundamentally prayers. It is nearly impossible to translate the contemplative quality of the chants into a modern "performance," minus the devotion and intention behind them.

I just discovered your Channel today. Everything ive watched is excellent! Thank you!!! 😊

I´ll love to see a video about Orthodox Catholic singing tradition Great job !!!

Excellent video as always, Elam! My "Talk to the Hand" shirt just arrived in the mail earlier this month and I've been eagerly awaiting your next video! ✋

Thanks, for your clear and pedagogical explanations about early music and your video editation as well. They both match each other so good! Incredible!

I'm so glad I've found your channel! I've been bingewatching all your videos and it has really opened my eyes to music theory and it's history :)

Thanks for covering Gregorian chant!!!

Excelente como sempre. Obrigado !

Very impressive! This channel is a great source of Early Music.

I just discovered this unique channel today! There is so much more to music than meets the eye.

Great job with these videos, you really are providing a service, thank you!

Hi Elam! Just discovered your channel this evening and I totally LOVE IT! Flew through about 5 videos already and watching them reminded me of the Grosse generalbass Schule by Johaness Mattheson, something you should give thought to, a great topic for a video and performance video! Thank you so much for your contribution to the revival of early music.

What a great video! I've always loved Gregorian chant.

your videos are so high quality, i'm learning a lot

There’s a lot precious materials here. Thank u Elam !!!

Just discovered your channel. As a lover of early music, I really enjoy it. You present everything so well.

This was an excellent artistic and educational presentation. Thanks for putting this together.

Brilliant video. You guys' work is just amazing.

Lovely! I recall many years ago taking music history courses, and the sections discussing the church music of the Middle Ages was always my favorite; there's something about plain chant that seems almost magical to me. A sense of the "unbroken line" as you say in your conclusion, a connectedness. It feels as if I can almost hear into the past, and while I know that recordings and performances are often a culmination of years and years of very hard work, research, study, decisions made in interpretation, and exhaustive rehearsal... it still seems like traveling back in time. It was very enlightening to once more explore the ways in which notation evolved, and the reasons for it, and the sly bits of humor were much appreciated!

these videos are so excellent! thank you!

This channel is a real goldmine!

I love Gregorian Chant. It's something about that sound that I like.

This is wonderful information. Thank you so much for posting this lesson!

Great job!! Thanks Elam.

Brilliant! Thank you for posting

I sing plainchant in my local church. Many thanks for this very informative video!

Thanks so much master! Your knowledge is highly appreciated!

Bravo to young Elam Rotem brilliant performance!

Thanks for info about "Ludus Danielis".

What a great introduction! Thanks!!

I love chant, I picked up an early chant one day and sung it daily for decades: the antiphon, Salve Regina

That "DIes Irae" has been used soooo many times. Not only by Berlioz, or in Mozart's "Requiem". Film music composers love to use it. You can hear it in everything from" Star Wars" to "Frozen 2".

A musical teacher from the AISCGre once gave a class on plainchant, also teaching us neumes. We worked with, and performed the chant according to them. He claimed that the neumes were authentically signs for the performance, indicating hand movements like a conductor wielding his staff. He also said that writing down the music with actual notes, was a sign of decadence since earlier monks knew the melodies by heart, but then it became necessary to write them down because newer generations didn't learn the chant in the same way the older ones did, signifying the decay of musical praxis. He also claimed that liturgical chant was introduced into the Western praxis from the Byzantine praxis (cf. Old Roman chants).

Excellent video. Thanks so much!

Thanks, I am looking into some of the ancient neumes and stumbled across this. This is a great summary! Well done.

Excellent review of a vast subject!

Sempre bellissima la musica europea antica

this channel is outstanding

REALLY interesting and SO well explained. Thanks you. Excellent Video. [Fred from UK]

Excellent information, thank you!

Subbed. Solid work, my man.

A random thought following the bit about Neo-Gallican chant (19:02): Chant sur le livre existed also before that, and not just in France. I actually had a teacher once (to be fair, it was in France...) who was very keen on teaching this practice using the treatises of Lusitano and Petit-Coclico. But because I didn't hear about it elsewhere, after you made this video I convinced myself that he must have been a revivalist of this 17th century revival of plainchant revival (...), and that the treatises he used were standard counterpoint manuals to get some nice examples from. ....Well, apparently not! Check out this passage from Joel Lester: "In addition to these works presenting species counterpoint in terms of written composition, there are others that use contrapuntal species to teach vocal improvisation-singing "above the book" (super librum) as Tinctoris called it. For many centuries such extempore vocal improvisation was probably an important training ground for composers. Vicente Lusitano presented the first methodical instructions for vocal improvisation in 1553, applying note against note, then two, three, and four notes against one to vocal improvisation against a cantus firmus in two, three, and more voices (1561 edition). Lanfranco also probably referred to improvised and not written counterpoint in 1533, in that he teaches his students "to land on the consonances" (cadere su le Consonanze). Such improvised species counterpoint lasted into the eighteenth century in at least some locations. Brossard (1703) discusses "chanter sur le Livre," and Padre Martini heard four-voiced vocal improvisations (contrappunto alla mente) in 1747 in Rome (Martini 1774-1775, Vol. 1, pp. 57-59)."

Excellent, thank you very much.

Wow! Excellent video, sir. Subscribed.

Thank you.. this is a very good learning material. Cheers!

Thank you for this video. My son is 16 years old and a sophomore at a Catholic high school here in Virginia. If you go to his RU-vid channel 'Mr. Roy Wulf', you can see a video of a presentation he did a week ago about his love for Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.

Bellissimo video, molto interessante il materiale storico e molto ben esposto! Il Canto Gregoriano è una delle più ricche e feconde sorgenti musicali della nostra storia!!

Fascinating. I would love to see a full length documentary on the history of musical notation. Does anyone know if such a documentary exists somewhere?

Fantastic video! Bravo!

Very interesting and entertaining! Thank you!

Thanks so much 🙌🏻

15:50 looking good with the beard my dude

I think it's one of my favorite videos :)

That was great. Thank you.

Great work! I'd love to see a video on the difference between Gregorian and Byzantine chant/ when and where the split between Eastern and Western music within the Roman empire came from.

De nuevo, que pesado. Es emocionante aprender tantas cosas. Hasta los comentarios son muy buenos. Gracias a todos

I'd love an episode that would go into Medieval Polyphony. Are there books on the subject?

Oh , han respondido a mis plegarias. Paz a vosotros, shalom salama aleikum arigato

I have N# 801 of The Liber Usualis. My studies of the Church have continued since 2007.

Came here on a recommendation from Adam Nealy’s musical theory channel (where he debunked the ‘devil’s interval’ myth). Really enjoyed your video on Gregorian chant (and subscribed)!

Here from David Bennett Piano and subscribed. Love your videos.

Thank you so much

Gracias por tan excelente video

Really liking your channel

this episode was probably long, but definitely not long enough!

Great content.

Thank you

Awesome work ! Sensacional ! :)

Your God-focused content is amazing!

Thank you!

I loved your presentation! However, it is a shame that you did not move past the late 19th Century Solesmes method and discuss the developments in the study of Gregorian semiology pioneered by Dom Cardine. It is an exciting and ongoing chapter in the long history of Gregorian chant.

Documentário muito especial. Esclarecedor.

Gracias !!!

Danke!

Very interesting to hear this brief history of chant from an early music musician as opposed to those singing the chants in the traditional Latin Mass. I would like to hear your comparison of the interpretations of chant rhythm-Cardine vs. Old Solemn style. It’s quite the controversy in the Latin Mass community. As a director and singer of Gregorian chant, I might differ with your undertones of criticism toward the Solesmes interpretation of chant. I have studied chant from Solesmes monks and heard their explanations as to the decisions of the monk scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was nothing random about their decisions as to the rhythm and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for notating the entire liturgy. Without their years of study and publications the last century of chant revival would not have happened.

Wonderful video! When plainchant was accompanied by instruments: Do we know what the instruments played? Was the accompaniment polyphonic (pictures of organists show them use both hands even in early depictions)?

Do a video about improvisation on Early Music. :) ;)

Thank you for such an informative and entertaining channel. I just wonder, as a suggestion, whether you could produce a video on some of the early instrumental forms such as the ricercar. My friend Colin Booth has recently posted a performance of two ricercari by Claudio Veggio (b.1510). I have been playing one of them - beautiful yet approacable! Best wishes

Merci.

Excellent Class!, thank You!. I cant find a Video /Class in your channel of Byzantine Chants, are you planning on producing a class on the Topic of Byzantine Chants?. Thank You for Your time and hard work!. Excellent Channel!.

6:08 입당송 (오늘날 기보: 13:50) 9:32 사각기보 14:29 그레고리오성가의 9가지 포인트 (16:45 성가의 종적확장)

Excellent content! This is so inspiring, Thank you! By the way, I find the music that sounds at 00:06 extremely beautiful, where can I find something similar to this?

Amazing! :-)

Interestingly, some plainchant even made it into the Lutheran liturgy. Like the chorale melody “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” which comes from the “Veni redemptor gentium”

I'm certainly not musically inclined but the history of church music fascinates me.

Good stuff :) God bless you +

Thank you! So very interesting! I would love to learn about plainchant in Bohemian context, the oldest Czech chant "Hospodine, pomiluj ny" is still sung in church nowadays, just last Sunday I heard it 😊

so around 2:40 it came up in my cathedral singing, we were singing the salisbury version of the o antiphons and I had to then sing the manchester version and it messed w my head, very interesting to see how the versions changed up and down the country before more solid written down stuff

+Early Music Sources Great video. Thank you for the time and effort involved! The note denoted by what looks like a '3' on flipped on its side anticlockwise 90 degrees: is it not more likely denoting a note three times the length of the others, rather than three separate 'eh-eh-eh' as in the puer natus 'est'?' Dominus tecum :)

yeah wow I didn't know the history of written music, this is fascinating