Medieval Music Exam Review some ideas that come to my mind (not
an exhaustive list)What we have focused on in class: SHMRG
Plainchant and role in church; church role in medieval society
Music as a liberal art Plainchant as oral tradition Items of the
mass Stages of notation Performance styles of chant Text setting of
chant Modes! Troubadors and their songs Structure Topics
Performance practice versus written artifact The sound of sacred
music versus secular music and supporting evidence Role of
professional musician Why change chant? Scholasticism The stages of
organum, its place in the structure of a plainchant and in the mass
Comparison of polyphony with structures in society (churches,
social structures, church hierarchy, etc.) Viderunt Omnes path to
organum, substitute clausula, and motet How organum evolves into
the motet Advances in notation associated with organum Aquitanian
polyphony Notre Dame Polyphony Aesthetics of polyphony pure
intervals, cadences, rhythmic patterns in 3-subdivision, repetition
of motives The prevalence of oral composition and oral tradition
Stages of the motet and the stages of notation that accompany them
English sound Ars Nova versus Ars Antiqua; Ars subtilior, Italian
Trecento Formes fixes It goes without saying that you should
recognize the names and know the importance of major composers,
compositions, treatises, places, etc.
What I have skipped in class (but still important): Tropes and
sequences Items of the office and the office chants Other important
parts of theory (e.g. Guidonian hand, species, etc.) Other secular
songs Dances (Estampie, etc.) Specifics on medieval instruments
Versus and Conductus Whatever is skipped during week 4Suggestions
for class review: Timelines create one big timeline in the review
session that includes major treatises, composers, events, stages of
notation, compositions, places of focus (e.g. Notre Dame), etc.
thus synthesizing the information from chapters 2-5 (roughly
concurrent) and adding the 14th century at the end. Listening and
identifying the style characteristics (through SHMRG) that lead to
style, time period, place, composer, context
