Ep 6 - ChantHacks: Regina Caeli, Part 2a (Rhythm & the Epizema) with Mark Emerson Donnelly

This is Part 2a (of 3) on the Regina Caeli. In this episode, I discuss
1. Rhythm and the Downbeat
2. The Epizema & the Mora Vocis
3. Choral Unity

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Transcript

As a famous movie director once said, "Films are not finished. They're simply abandoned."

[“Jubilate Deo” chant]

ChantHacks with Mark Emerson Donnelly.

Well, at long last, after many rewrites, here's Regina Caeli, Part 2.

It's not exactly what I thought it would be when I started out several months ago. What's taken so long, aside from preparing three different Chant courses and attending to other projects, is that a discussion about the Mora Vocis, and more importantly, the Epizema, is really a discussion of rhythm. However, rhythm, being the only essential aspect of music, requires a lot of unpacking and analysis. It can be considered from many different angles. It's not simply the juxtaposition of loud and soft.

The subject seemed to warrant a fair amount of attention on my part. As a teacher, I wanted to be thorough and know as much as I could before, well, teaching.

So I thought and researched. And researched and thought. And then thought and researched some more. However, the more I researched and thought, the more daunting my task became, at least in my mind.

I started to feel I had to justify my own ideas on rhythm and expression and those of Doms Mocquereau and Gajard; that is, I felt like I had to justify the rhythmic and expressive principles of the “Old” Solesmes Method. I felt I had to answer every objection or contrary position with regards to singing Gregorian Chant. That I had to plug every hole. There's many different schools of thought on this matter. The discussion, argument, whatever you want to call it, has been ongoing for over a century and a half. I was straying farther and farther away from my goal for this episode of ChantHacks; and really, ChantHacks in general. That is, how to sing Gregorian Chant easily and well. Not only that, this episode was shaping up to be a lot longer than the 15 minutes I was aiming at.

Fortunately, our daughter Alanna came to the rescue. Alanna's my assistant. She's been singing Chant and polyphony since she was in elementary school and has completed Laus in Eclasia, Level 1, and was part of my Level 2 class this past summer at Clear Creek Abbey. So she knows a thing or two about the Chant.

After many discussions, which also included my wife Catherine, who has attended both Levels 1 and 2 of Laus, I got back on track for this long delayed episode, and really back on track for ChantHacks. And the track for this episode is:
Through the “Old” Solesmes Method, a group of singers, with a reasonable amount of effort, can achieve a rhythmic and expressive unity in their singing of Gregorian Chant.

Now, if you want to get into that whole discussion about Gregorian Rhythmic Theory, rhythmic markings, “dot and squiggle neumes”, mensural or proportional singing, or how Rome has said you should or should not sing the Chant, then I'll direct you to “Gregorian Rhythm Wars” at Corpus Christi Watershed, ccwatershed.org. There you can read and listen to Jeff Ostrowski, Charles Weaver, and Patrick Williams duke it out on what's the most correct, or at least the best way to sing Gregorian Chant.

It's an important discussion to be sure, but I warn you, it is a very deep rabbit hole, and these scholars don't even represent all the positions out there. However, if all you want to do is sing Gregorian Chant well according to a tried and true method... Well, Jeff and Patrick would object to the true part. So let me start over. If all you want to do is sing Gregorian Chant according to a tried and, let's say, overwhelmingly fruitful and teachable method, then stick around and I'll try to stay on track and avoid any rabbit holes!
So on with Regina Caeli, Part 2:

One, Some thoughts on rhythm and the downbeat in Gregorian Chant, leading to,
Two, A consideration of the Epizema and the Mora Vocis, and,
Three, How they can lead more easily to choral unity; and thus make it easier for us to pray together in the choir loft, the pew, and at home.

So, here we go...

The simple Regina Caeli is unique among the four simple Marian Antiphons, in that every syllable in the Chant has only one note. The other three have at least two ornate or multi-note syllables. I think the Salve Regina has about ten ornate syllables. Anyway, for the Regina Caeli, we have either a single square punctum, usually called simply a punctum, without the square part. Punctum means point in Latin. So we either have a single punctum or a dotted punctum, sometimes called a Mora Vocis.

We also have a distropha, which there's only one of in the simple Regina Caeli. That's two punctums close together on the same pitch [on the same syllable]. Because of the totally syllabic nature of this Chant (syllabic means there's only one note or pitch per syllable), this is the simplest of the Marian Antiphons to sing. It's also the shortest and so the easiest to memorize!

Now, there's two printed versions of the simple Regina Caeli commonly used. One with single punctums, or puncta, plural of punctum in Latin (but most people say punctums), one with a bunch of single punctums and eleven Moravocis, with of course that one distropha. The other one, with most of the same pneumes, and a few Horizontal Epizemas (remember from episodes 3 & 4, our kind of all-purpose Chant expressive sign? The short line that looks kind of like a tenuto mark in modern music?) Plus we have a bunch of short vertical lines.

Now, if we have horizontal epizemas, there's likely to be Vertical Epizemas, and there are. That's what those little vertical lines are. The question is: What do they mean? Well, they have to do with rhythm. But what's rhythm?

According to my go-to dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, Rhythm is: movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions. This is the most general meaning of rhythm. So we see there's a rhythm in dancing or architecture, in the rings of a tree, in the seasons of the year, in any routine.

The second meaning is: the patterned recurring alternation of contrasting elements in sound or speech. The sound of someone walking across a floor with hard-soled shoes, a pile-driver at a construction site, the recitation of a poem, such as a sonnet by Shakespeare, the crashing of the waves on a beach.

Now, the third meaning is the patterning of musical sound as by differences in the timing, duration, or stress of consecutive notes. This last meaning is what most of us think of when it comes to the word rhythm.

However, in some music, it's hard to discern this alternation if the rhythmic differences in the alternating sounds is subtle, as in Gregorian Chant. How do we notate this rhythmic pattern? How do we differentiate the contrasting elements? Well, one of the ways we notate it in the “Old” Solesmes Method is through the employment of the vertical epizema. What does the vertical epizema do? It marks where the Ictus is when the pattern of notes doesn't make it obvious.

"Wait a second," you say. "What's the Ictus?"

Well, in Gregorian Chant, the ictus is the downbeat of the musical rhythmic movement. The non-ictus is the upbeat.

Now, generally in music, we consider the rhythmic contrast to be between loud and soft. And in a lot of music, that's true. If we think of a march, we have...
[singing a march]
So the downbeat is really quite forceful, but that's not how it is in Gregorian Chant. The contrast is not between loud and soft. The contrast is between energized sound and restful or reposeful sound. Though ictus in Latin means strike, blow, or punch, according to the “Old” Solesmes Method, it means the place of rest. In French, répos, repose. This is at the core of the "Old" Solesmes Method.

As I mentioned a few moments ago, ictus in Latin, derived from the ancient Greek, means blow or punch. (At Thomas Aquinas College, one of the schola members called me "Ictus Mark", as I was a feisty sort of guy. (I guess once a hockey player, always a hockey player.)

In medicine, the word ictus is used variously to describe a pulse of the heart, a stroke or seizure, even an insect bite. For instance, an ictus solis is sunstroke, literally stroke of the sun.

So you might initially think that the ictus in Gregorian Chant is very heavy or impulsive, an accent. Well, it turns out it's not, at least not according to Dom Mocquereau in the "Old" Solesmes Method. Even though it is referred to as the downbeat or the downpulse, the ictus is not considered a point of energy or activity, but rather is a point of rest.

You might think, “Well, that's strange. I've always thought the downbeat was heavy, kind of an impact, like a stomp of the foot. Isn't that what we do all the time, stomp our foot to the beat?” Well, kids might, but as adults, we're more likely to tap our foot.

And this leads to my next point. In working on this podcast, I've had a correspondence with a wonderful ancient music scholar, Dr. Tosca Lynch, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Dr. Lynch's paper, published in 2016 on “Arsis and Thesis in Ancient Rhythmics and Metrics”, published by Cambridge University Press, seems to support Dom Mocquereau's theory and method of how the ictus or the downbeat is not a point of emphasis, but a place of rest.

In her paper, Dr. Lynch notes,

"Such a rigid understanding of rhythm perception does not apply to Western music. [That is European music] either. In fact, even though in our musical tradition, by musical tradition [she means the way that we describe and teach music], in our musical tradition, downbeats are indeed regarded as strong rhythmic positions, as opposed to weak upbeats. It is not true that all strong beats are marked by audible dynamic accents in musical performance. This kind of consistent dynamic accentuation is mostly employed for [instructing younger children] as a temporary teaching device, which helps foster an internalization of the rhythmic pulse that will eventually substitute the exaggerated accentuation. So the student musician will eventually feel the beat inside rather than having to pound it out.”

To make sure I was understanding her point, I wrote to her,

"The thesis, then, is not the THUMP that we're taught it is in elementary school. It's more a point of rest. The arsis is where we hear the energy, as the French say, and here I was referencing Doms Mocquereau and Gajard, as the French say, ‘Élan et Répos’, rise followed by rest.”

She wrote back to me, "Your summary sounds absolutely spot-on. Rest versus energy is exactly what the ancient distinction seemed to be about."

So it seems that Dom Mocquereau in the "Old" Solesmes Method got things right.

Now, where does the energy come from? Well, it comes from the upbeat, or as we say in formal musical terms, the anacrusis, which comes from the Greek anácrousis, meaning pushing or lifting up; in music, lifting up towards... the downbeat.

This upbeat has the same qualities of the Latin word accent. It is high, that is lifting, intense and short, that is not drawn out. (The Latin pronunciation I'm talking about here is the Vulgar, that is the common Latin, which is still used predominantly in the Catholic Church today. For more on the different pronunciations of Latin, read Laus in Ecclesia, level 1, lesson 10,& Excursus 11.)

Dom Mocquereau used the ictus mark to show how to recite the words musically and how to sing the music intentionally; that is, as if you really meant what you're singing. Or to put it another way: to sing the words in a way that intensifies their meaning in an interior and artful fashion.

So, the non-accent in the music, or more precisely,
the upbeat before the downbeat,
the anacrusis before the ictus,
the élan before the répos,
the rise before the rest,
correspond beautifully and synchronously with the Latin word.

That's the basic understanding of rhythm in the Old Salem Method, and it governs the entire repertoire of the Chant.

And since according to the OSM, “Old” Solesmes Method, this kind of offset layering of the musical accent with the verbal accent overwhelmingly predominates, the vertical epizema is an ingenious sign for indicating the ictus when the rhythmic downbeat is unclear. And that's why it's called the ictus mark. It marks where the ictus is.

Next, on to the Mora Vocis…

Well, this episode is already more than 15 minutes, so there's going to be a Regina Caeli, Part 2b.

If you liked this episode, you can thank my daughter, Allanna, who just recently graduated from Thomas Aquinas College, and is teaching three days a week. The other two days, she's working for me.

As I said at the beginning, I did a lot of research and wrote a lot of material for Regina Caeli, Part 2. I had many directions it could have gone in. Allanna did a fantastic job of re-ordering and editing my text. She's a great musician and has heard me talk about Gregorian Chant and sacred polyphony her whole life, both at home and in rehearsal. She gets where I'm going with my thoughts and helps put them in a rational order.

Please consider supporting us at LifeFunder.com/mdonnellymusic. So I can keep Allanna employed in our mission of producing and promoting Music for God and for Souls. Your financial support will help keep these podcasts going and give me time to compose. If you'd like to commission a musical composition (like the ChantHacks extro music) for a special mass or occasion. Or would like to have me come and work with your choir for a weekend, please contact us at either mark@vocalart.org or ALLANNA@vocalart.org.

Stay tuned for the grand launch of ChantHacks. Allanna and I have more chant content coming your way!

I'm Mark Emerson Donnelly. God bless!

[“Amen” from “Pater Noster” by MED]