Neumes vs. notes

I've been reading Timothy McGee's 'The Sound of Medieval Song' to try to get some insight into the evidence for how a medieval musician would have 'decorated' (or added 'flowers' to) a melody. One point that emerges, which I had not really appreciated before, is that neumes - the earliest musical notation system, appearing from the 9th century - seem to have the purpose of notating musical gesture, expression or ornament rather than precise pitch or rhythm.

The general view on this is that the 'melody' (as we would think of it today, i.e. the pitch and duration of the 'notes') would have been known, or transmitted by ear, with the neumes providing a mnemonic aid. But it seems telling that it was felt to be of first importance to record how each word should be sung. The medieval treatises that try to describe their meaning show the substantial subtlety that could be conveyed (all following quotes are translations taken from McGee):

"The plica is the bending of a sound by a sound...one type ascends, the other descends" [Walter 129];  

"The plica is produced in the voice by the closing of the epiglottis with a finely controlled and closed vibrato of the voice" [Lambertus, 273];  

"The pes, growing with two small notes, desires to stretch upward; the high one liquefying, abandons what it represents. The clivis wishes always to descend with two small notes, and the note at its end denotes an indistinct sound. It precedes a pause, or lingers in the mouth of one who is pausing as if it had the status of a complete note" [Anon, summa musice, 540]

Quilisma is "a tremulous and ascending note" [Aurelian of Reome] 

 "Quilismas are so called by their resemblance, for quilos [moist] in Greek is 'soil' and mus, 'earth', as if the earth was moist from the reception of waters" [Walter, 95; McGee notes that this etymological origin is pure fabrication, but the intent appears to be a reference to the wavy marks left on a beach as the tide recedes]

And there are many more. As McGee concludes, these descriptions bring to mind Middle Eastern or Indian vocal styles, much more than the present 'classical' voice. 

An interesting exception

I've mentioned previously how all the evidence - particularly from pictures (or 'iconography' as the scholars say) - points towards medieval instrumentalists always playing from memory, and probably learning by ear.

So I was intrigued (while following up references to medieval ornament, which I plan to return to in future) to come across a chapter entitled "A sight reading vielle player from the thirteenth century" in this book. The picture discussed comes from a manuscript of the songs of Gautier de Coincy (Brussels, Biblitheque Royale de Belgique, MS 10747, fol. 3r). It does not appear to be online, nor is the picture viewable in the link to the book given above, so I have made my own little sketch from the book itself:

There seems no question the vielle player (probably intended to be Gautier de Coincy himself) is portrayed as reading music, resting on the same bench as he is sitting on, as he plays. The author of the chapter, John Haines, notes also that the artist seems to have made some effort to show the music accurately (I've tried to copy this accurately as well). There is a single stave with neumes but no words, with details like the uneven number of staves on the two pages suggesting the artist had an actual example they were working from.

One could argue for the "exception that proves the rule". Gautier was a composer, and produced books, and was a literate monk, so perhaps the artist wanted to emphasise that he was not a mere minstrel, and did so by this exceptional depiction of the book. Nevertheless the pose seems naturalistic enough to suggest it was not a complete invention. Certainly food for thought...

The flowers of musical science

So continuing on the theme of what to do in making a multi-instrumental arrangement of a monophonic medieval tune, the next obvious step is to think about finding some variation in playing of the tune. Here I mean variation other than 'just' changing the timbre, dynamics or tempo, but rather, playing something different from the given notes. This could include either simplification or elaboration of the tune, the latter what we would now call 'ornamentation'.

Looking for some information about what actual medieval evidence there is for how to go about this, I was reminded of the existence of the book "The sound of medieval song" by Timothy McGee, which I have come across before but not looked at closely. An omission I feel I should rectify before saying too much more on this topic! Based on the introduction, the book specifically sets out to survey the evidence for 'ornament' (understood broadly) in medieval sources. It also contains this nice quote from the early 14th century treatise of Petrus dictus Palma ociosa:

They speak of the flowers of mensural music when many sounds, or notes (which is the same thing), variously ornamented according to the quality of each one, are placed in due proportion against a single sound or a simple note of only the same duration. Although some say and affirm, however, that the flowers of musical science are numberless depending on the various methods of discant, and that it is not possible to have certainty about things numberless, for wishing for this reason to compose a technical treatise concerning such flowers.

The other commonly used term for ornament in medieval treatises (according to McGee) is 'colour', a term borrowed from rhetoric. Together the addition of 'colour' and 'flowers' seems to me to make an excellent mental image for the enhancement of a tune - like some lovely medieval manuscript...

Setting the tone

So you've decided to use several instruments together to play your monophonic song or dance. Perhaps one instrument will take the lead on the tune all the time, or perhaps this will switch around. So the next 'obvious' step for the experienced consort player is that you should 'set' the tune, i.e., write some 'harmony' lines for the other instruments to play. Right?

Again, this is not a bad instinct per se, but contains many potential pitfalls. I'll talk about those in a future post (précis: think counterpoint rather than harmony)  but first want to discuss some other options that should perhaps be considered first, both as being simpler, and also often more justifiable. So assuming one instrument at any time is going to be carrying the tune, what could the other instrumentalists do?

(As in previous posts, the following is an attempt to summarise what we have learnt over a long period of playing, and listening to others play, this music. For some it might seem very obvious, but thinking back, it was not so obvious to us when we started out, so I hope it may be useful to others!)

1. Drone on the tonic (if in doubt, this is almost certainly the last note of the tune). Nearly all medieval tunes stay in one mode and sound good with a drone; indeed as I have discussed before, instruments with an in-built drone (e.g. hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe) were popular, and many others were probably played, by default, with a sounding drone (e.g. fiddle and harp). It makes an instantly recognisable sound that differs from renaissance and later harmony. If you are not used to it, it is a good way to educate the ear into enjoying 'tension' and 'resolution' (e.g. from a second interval to unison or seventh to octave).
2. Make the drone rhythmic. This is a great way to add some life and variety. If you are feeling a need for a drum, try this first. It is also a useful way to gain practice in being able to vary emphasis and attack in phrasing (however your instrument allows) without having to worry about the notes. For plucked strings (and actual drums for that matter) don't forget damping as a way to emphasise or change the pulse.
3. Add a drone and a fifth. Generally a tune that works with a drone will also sound good with the fifth added sometimes: either together with the drone if the instrument allows; or changing to the fifth for some phrases; or using the tonic and fifth in a  rhythmic pattern.
4. Add a 'movable' drone. Okay, by definition a drone is the same note throughout the piece. So this is a step towards 'setting' the tune. Listening to the tune with a drone, there will often be sections of a bar or longer that stay in 'tension'. Changing the drone to a neighbouring note of the tonic for those sections will usually work. I sometimes call this the 'home and away' approach, as propounded by the fantastic harpist Bill Taylor, who links it with the intriguing 'binary measures' found in the Robert ap Huw harp manuscript. For a more scholarly discussion of how this might be justified by existing medieval polyphonic sources see this article by Margo Schulter. 
5. Simplify or elaborate the tune... see my next post!

Three final points about drones: all of the above are possible for recorder players if you have one in your ensemble; all are good places to start if accompanying a singer; and I'd also recommend them as an approach to 15th century dance music as well as medieval music.