25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Chant NOT Made Simple, December 30, 2005
Unfortunately, there is nothing in this book that makes gregorian chant "simple".
First, it is *very* short. A mere 57 pages in a smaller-than-average size book. Everything having to do with explaining chant notation is contained in 4 short pages (the amazon.com "excerpt" has half of the entire explanation), and leaves a lot out. Latin pronunciation takes 2 pages. Learning to chant takes 2 pages. The explanation of the 8 gregorian "modes" takes up all of 3 sentences (compare that to the wikipedia entry). The entire rest of the book (about 75% of the book, 43 pages) is sample chants (latin lyrics and notation) with translation and commentary.
Second, the book assumes that you have a lot of musical background. Music terms are used frequently without, or with very little, explanation ("dominant", "final", "c-clef", "f-clef", "ornament", "ornamented minor third"). The most basic chant notation, the square shaped "neume" is never actually introduced and defined -- you have to figure it out from the context of the sentences. A chart on page 4 has no explanation whatsoever (the author must have assumed that it was self-explanatory).
Third, the use of a complicated set of hand-written notations in the sample chants, adds an entire level of complexity to it all. Sometimes these notes are so frequent and so small, that you can't even tell what the notes are. This seems mostly due to the quality of the photographic reproductions (and reductions) of the sample chant notation.
There is no discussion whatsoever of the practice, becoming more common now, of chanting in English.
On a positive note, the commentary for the example chants are frequently well-done. In particular, they explain the symbolism that accompanies the chant made for a particular piece.
This book is almost exclusively suited for academics, advanced students and scholars of music, than interested lay people. A lay person with a love for the sound, and with some experience in the choir, will likely walk away more confused after reading this book than they were at the beginning.
Update: A far better work is the article "An Idiot's Guide to Square notes" by Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker. Google it.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction to Gregorian Chant, September 7, 2002
The question of Gregorian chant rhythm has been of intense interest to scholars. During the period of the restoration of Gregorian chant in the late 19th and early 20th century, a system of understanding Gregorian rhythm was put forth by Dom Andre Mocquereau, O.S.B., a priest of the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes and a great Gregorian chant scholar. His method became widely used throughout the world and gave the chant the beauty for which it was renowned. One of his students, Dom Eugene Cardine, O.S.B. (also a monk of Solesmes) sought to study the question of rhythm anew. By returning to the manuscripts, he sought to bring forth rhythmic subtleties which had not been addressed in the method of Dom Andre Mocquereau. This little book seeks to introduce the reader to Gregorian Semiology, that is reading the ancient notation and the rhythmic signs of the ancient manuscripts. This book is a wonderful introduction to reading the the neums of St. Gall. This will also ease the reader into understanding and using the Graduale Triplex (a version of the Graduale Romanum with the medieval square notation, the neums of Laon, and the neums of St. Gall). To those musicians who would be interested in learning the chant, I can think of no better beginning resource than this.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Simple, Not Helpful, April 18, 2007
Simple? This is actually layman's attack on the old Solesmes method in order to advance, well, not much at all. He asserts the proposition that chant cannot be sight read by groups but rather that everyone must hang on every note of the director and mimic him. He further says that chant has no rhythm of its own. My goodness: it's a wonder anyone sings it at all! Indeed, he doesn't come anywhere close to describing how to sing a single one. He discusses some particular chants but never mentions where they fit in liturgy. He is fixated on the old St. Gall neumes to the exclusive of every advance since then -- and then wraps it all up in the garb of the Cardine school. It is really a radically unhelpful volume, and I'm keeping my rhetoric really in check here. Indeed, I feel bad for anyone who buys this book in the hope of singing chant.
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