My wife and I have been using the Mundelein Psalter (MP) to pray the Liturgy of the Hours for about six weeks. We had quite a learning curve, since I have no musical training and we were also new to the Liturgy of the Hours. We relied heavily on my wife's high school band experience. After poring over the MP for several hours and comparing her conjectures to the recordings on the MP's official website, she finally figured out how the tones and notations differed from modern musical notation.
The problem is that the official website only has recordings of the hymns. If you are completely musically illiterate like me, or only semiliterate like my wife, then even learning simplified Mundelein chant can be a challenge.
So then the hard work began. She taught me how to pick out the notes on a keyboard, and we would spend a good half hour for each office just trying to get the tunes right and match them to the text. We spent much of our summer vacation time in long, frustrating prayer offices, during which very little actual praying got done.
I realized that it would be much easier if I had all of the modes recorded, so I could just pray with my computer or iPod open each morning, rather than spending fifteen minutes trying to get the tune right on the keyboard.
So this Web site is for those in our position. It's sort of like the deaf leading the deaf, and it could be we are doing everything wrong. But I'm pretty sure the recordings of the modes, below, are right.
And here is a brief demonstration of how we use the recordings to chant the office.
6 comments:
This blog is a great idea! I like your introductory audio clip, which points out some of the complexities of a book like the Mundelein Psalter that even those who compiled it may not have anticipated.
Just a quick tip on the psalm tones' notation: I'm looking at p. 702, tone VIIIa, which you use in your audio walkthrough.
The clef, which straddles the top line of the staff at the beginning, means several things, but the main thing for singers is that it marks a half-step between that line and the space below it. The interval between those two notes is a half step rather than a whole step.
So in your recording, in the second measure of the psalm tone, the second note should be higher by half a step, to create a half-step between the top open note and that second one. If I had perfect pitch I could tell you this in note names, but I don't know what note you started on. Just make that second note in the second measure one key higher on the synthesizer keyboard.
I'm glad you're doing this and will be following your blog with my Mundelein Psalter. I'll do a separate comment with suggestions for the intercessions.
The intercession tone on p. 50 is a little different from the psalm tones yet is based on a psalm tone. Once you get the hang of it, it'll come naturally.
I'm looking at the intercessions on p. 705 with my finger holding my place at p. 50 for the tone.
The first two black notes of the tone go with "Let us".
The first open note goes with "praise Christ, the shepherd and guardian of our souls, who loves and pro"
The next three black notes go with "tects his people."
The asterisk in the text corresponds to the bar line in the tone.
The next open note goes with "Placing our hope in him"
The final three black notes go with "we cry out"
The first white note of the response goes with "Protect your peo-"
The final two black notes of the response goes with "-ple, Lord."
The leader from then on will ignore the first two notes of the Introduction chant and use the rest of it to chant both lines of the "Eternal shepherd..." intercession like a psalm verse. The people respond as before, with "Protect your people, Lord."
SUMMARY: The intercessions are really like verses of a psalm, and the response follows each verse. The introductory "verse" (Let us praise Christ...) is only different in that it has that two-note lead-in. Otherwise it's just like chanting a psalm in tone VIF.
Your actual chant in the demo almost brought tears to my eyes! Please continue this prayer of the Church! May Our Lady of Mount Carmel protect you!
I need to spend a bit more time with this. Thanks so much.
I hope you will pop by:
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/ofthehours/resources.html
Blessings
OK - until visiting this site I had not known about the Mundelein Psalter. I'll be putting my order in a.s.a.p.
Since my last visit I've developed a badge to try and encourage praying the Liturgy of the Hours.
If you are interested, please visit
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/ofthehours/badge.html
Thanks for all these comments, which I've just now discovered. (I'm not much of a blogger--just using the platform to post the recordings.) These are incredibly helpful, and I look forward to working through Scott's comments.
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