Can someone teach me Gregorian Chant?

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Luigi_Daniele

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Love Divine’s thread reminded me of this.

I “chant” the Liturgy of the Hours (LotH). I am almost certain that I am probably doing it incorrectly.:o

Can someone teach me how I should properly chant the LotH, please?

Thanks
 
Hmm, pretty hard to do over the Internet. Is there a place nearby where you can hear the Divine Office in Gregorian chant?

Besides teaching, you’ll need an antiphonary with Gregorian antiphons. You’ll also need to learn the psalm modes and how they work with the Latin accents. That takes a while, and a lot of practice.

However a good start would be this:
  1. get a copy of Liber Hymnarius; it contains all the hymns for the Office. You can buy it here: Liber Hymnarius
  2. Obtain a copy of this CD from here: CD Les Heures Grégoriennes
That CD includes all the first stanzas of the hymns of the Office, as well as all the antiphons and first verses of psalms in the mode accompanying the antiphon.

That should get you started on how to chant the hymns, and how to psalmody.

The next part: what to do about the rest of the Office.

You have several choices: you can, for now, chant the antiphon “recto-tono” (on the same note) and the psalms “in directum”, a very simple and easy to learn psalm tone. That will get you used to reading and pronouncing the Latin (in fact start by reading in Latin only); you won’t need any books with chant notation to do this as In Directum is very easy to chant without the notes.

Or, if you do the Monastic Office, you can buy the three first volumes of the Monastic Antiphonary here:

Chant Book Catalogue

Lastly, if you do the current 4-week Liturgy of the Hours (Roman Office), you can do Vespers for Sundays, feasts and solemnities with this book:

Antiphonale Romanum II

The latter choice is good, as it includes the hymns, so you won’t need to buy the Liber Hymnarius. But it limits you to Sundays and Feasts of the Roman Office. But it is designed for “beginners”, as all the psalms are pointed making them much easier to chant (pointing means they are marked at the inflections where the melody changes).

A couple of good CDs would help too. I recommend from this page CDs

Vespers and Compline (compline will teach you how to psalmody “in directum”, and Vespers has the Sunday hymn for Vespers as well as a few psalm modes), and Learning About Gregorian Chant.

Good luck and God bless, a worthy enterprise indeed, if not easy at the start.
 
Wow, thanks so much. I will try to absorb it.

Pax, brother!
 
I understand that you want to chant the Liturgy of the Hours and OraLabora’s suggestions are, in themselves, good ones. Even so, I think you would be getting ahead of yourself if you started that way. I think you should follow a different route.

First of all, before you do anything else, get yourself a copy and read Plainchant For Everyone, by Mary Berry. This is the book I’ve found that is closest to being like a “Gregorian Chant for Dummies”. It’s a short book and an easy read but she packs a ton of information in there.

One crucial reason for you to read it is that she manages to explain the Gregorian psalm tones, all of the eight standard ones. She explains what they are and how they work. This is important if your goal is to chant the Liturgy of the Hours one day.

I would do this first before trying any of OraLabora’s suggestions. Things will make more sense for you this way.
 
Tepeyac said:
I understand that you want to chant the Liturgy of the Hours and OraLabora’s suggestions are, in themselves, good ones. Even so, I think you would be getting ahead of yourself if you started that way. I think you should follow a different route.

First of all, before you do anything else, get yourself a copy and read Plainchant For Everyone, by Mary Berry. This is the book I’ve found that is closest to being like a “Gregorian Chant for Dummies”. It’s a short book and an easy read but she packs a ton of information in there.

One crucial reason for you to read it is that she manages to explain the Gregorian psalm tones, all of the eight standard ones. She explains what they are and how they work. This is important if your goal is to chant the Liturgy of the Hours one day.

I would do this first before trying any of OraLabora’s suggestions. Things will make more sense for you this way.
Click to expand...
Thank you so very much:thumbsup:
 
corsair said:
Or here thechantkit.com/
Click to expand...
I ordered this and was very satisifed. It includes 2 cds with alot of the standard prayers and songs of Chant. It is chanted slowly and without alot of accent so its easier to understand. It also includes abooklet with the sheet music and words of all the songs of the cd. It only includes the Latin (I would have enjoyed side by side english so I know what im chanting but you cant have it all i reckon)

10/10
 
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