After the Fall of Rome, Europe entered the ‘dark ages’ and started a 1000-year period of regression, absolute obedience to the Catholic Church, and little in the way of innovation artistic, technical and political achievements.

Foremost in the world of music, the Gregorian Chant (or Plain Chant) became the official music of the Roman Catholic Church.   These chants are monophonic (a single line of music without accompaniment) and consist of a melody set to sacred Latin texts.     This style gets its name from Pope Gregory I who reorganized the liturgy during his reign from 590 to 604.   However Chant existed long before that and can trace its roots to the singing of psalms and even from the Jewish synagogue of the first century.   Most of the several thousands melodies known and heard today were created between 600 to 1300 CE.

    The unfamiliar sound of the chant is derived from the use of different scales than used frequently today.   These odd scales (modes) consist of seven notes differently arranged ... and can be heard in their basic form simply by playing ONLY the white keys on the piano starting with any key and proceeding up the keyboard.     Starting on C, we have the Ionian (Major) mode; on D, the Dorian mode; on E, the Phrygian mode, etc.   Although we are accustomed to the Major and Minor mode (all the white keys starting from A), there are literally thousands of note combinations (scales) in word music.

    In addition to the church music, there was a lot of secular music, especially developing in the 12th and 13th centuries.    Traveling troubadours and court minstrels advanced the idea of ‘romantic love’.   We have a very few actual examples of this music and it is noted that the old notations do not include a rhythm but it is assumed they had a very clearly defined ‘beat’ - thus differing from the free, nonmetrical rhythm of the Chant.

    Sometime between 700 and 900, we see the first evidence of the music shape that was to define Western music.    Monks performing the Gregorian Chant began to add a second melodic line - simply duplicating the original melodic line but at a different pitch ... note for note at the INTERVAL (distance between notes) of a 4th or a 5th.     Between 900 and 1200, the addition of multiple and different melodic lines resulted in the ORGANUM - which is a truly POLYPHONIC (having two or more different melodic lines of equal interest).   Traditionally the original melody is sung in long notes the bottom register while the added lines included shorter notes.

    By the early 14th Century, a new system of musical notation evolved such that the composer could specify almost any rhythmic pattern and the scores begin to take on the appearance of today’s musical notation.   Music now began to take on a life of its own outside the church.

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