037 - Bouncing Off The Walls

A primary feature of many Gregorian chants is the reciting tone.

Somewhat oversimplified, the reciting tone is typically the dominant scale degree. For those of you unfamiliar with the terms tonic and dominant, the tonic is the final key tone, the C in C major, and the dominant is the fifth degree of the scale or mode, G in the case of C major.

Gregorian chants typically start on the tonic then leap to the reciting tone (the dominant) where they hover and create melodic interest before descending back down to the tonic, before starting all over again.

Here’s a typical example:

The brackets on the third line identify that line as the note C so from that we can determine the first two notes are G’s which leap to the dominant D where the melody remains for a while before working back down to the tonic. Setting aside the rhythm which is entirely different from modern practices, you can play these notes, noticing the highest note is an F natural (as is the lowest note), which sets this chant firmly in the Mixolydian mode.

I decided to use the concept of a reciting tone in this tune, going directly from the tonic to the dominant, hanging around there for a while, before descending back to the tonic then going for it again.

In point of fact lots of music does this. It’s not just a holdover from the medieval period, it’s musically pleasant.

Today’s tune was pre-determined to be in Ab. Every once in a while I hear from someone annoyed about some of these tunes being in awkward keys and why don’t I write or transpose them to easier ones.

My answer is first of all there are no keys that are universally “easy” for all instruments. In fact, often keys with numerous sharps or flats are easier to play on a piano or a woodwind than ones with just a few or none.

But there is a work around. In the case of this piece, mentally replace the five flats with three sharps and read as written - voila! you’re now in A major! What about the flats in the melody? replace them, mentally, with naturals. What about the flats in the chords? Remove them. If a chord doesn’t have a flat, add a sharp! That turns the Fm chord in the 2nd line into an F#m chord.

The other solution is to become a paying subscriber because then upon request I’ll provide you with any of these pieces in any key you like, including transposed so you can play along with others in case your instrument is a clarinet or saxophone or some other transposing instrument that works in a different key.