jongleurs
popular musicians in the MA
plainchant
unaccompanied monophonic music for voices
religious texts being sung at services
medieval modes
the systems by which the gregorian chants were construed
reciting tone
the pitch on which the text is sung
antiphon
a genre of plainchant, services for the dead, sung in procession on way to graveyard e.g in paradisum
troubadours
noble poet-composers of the middle ages – worked in the court
organum
earliest type of polyphony – traditional plainchant to which a composer has added another melody in counterpoint
melismas
passages of pure vocalism with many notes to a single syllable
motet
organum with words
isorhythm
writing successive lengthy passages in identical rhythms but with distinct melodies
hocket
a certain point in a stanza when there are fast echoes between the soprano and alto