Saturday, April 8, 2017

CHANT....

I found it in a flea market, tucked away in a broken-down cardboard box that was shoved halfway beneath a display table.
What caught my eye was a corner of an old newspaper—and I’ve always been a newsprint fan—so I pulled the box out into the aisle, sat down on the floor and went through every magazine, newspaper, booklet, and folded broadside inside.
          There was a lot of it: a few editions of the Boston Transcript, some 1930s Good Housekeeping magazines; there were some old Shubert Theatre and Boston Symphony Orchestra programs. It all had that particular smell that old paper carries…

I found this on the very bottom, the last piece of ephemera in the stack.
          Miraculously, it was not distressed; there were no folds, no rips, no smears or smudges—kept flat and safe for years at the bottom of this old cardboard box. I recognized Gregorian Chant notation: four clef lines, single note (punctum), two stacked notes (podatus); although I had no idea what any of it meant (my high school Latin long gone, long gone…).
I fell in love with it…bought it on the spot.
          Five dollars.
I had it matted, framed; it now hangs in my study.

I’ve always thought that one of the most powerful moments in human history must have been when two (or more) people realized they could sing together—sing as one rather than independently; they must have found the sense of unification and community that still draws us together today.


Raise your voices high!

9 comments:

  1. It's hard to think of a time when harmony, as we know it today, was nonexistent. How could people not recognize the possibility??? But it wasn't until the 9th century that anything like it began and then the second voicing was only a descant sung above the main voice. Eventually the disharmonic pairing of 4ths & 5ths was added. It took till the 14th-15th centuries before true harmony finally came along when two or more voices could sing different tones together and sound pleasing. That said, I must admit I sometimes like the sound of 4ths and 5ths sung together. :)

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    1. Do you know of the jazz pianist Eddie Heywood? Played in the 40s-60s; used lots of diminished 7ths...VERY classy player! But, yes -- true harmony must have been another one of those milestones in human evolution!

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  2. What a fascinating post. Well done you, for the rescue and the caretaking since then.

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    1. Thanks, Lorraine...it is, indeed, a treasure! I was so lucky to find it, probably because nobody else had the patience to sift through all that stuff!

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  3. What a wonderful find - I would love to make such a discovery

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    1. I always say, "you never know what you'll find." It's true...the hunt is more than half the thrill!

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  4. Since I don't hunt around in old stuff in stores, I would never have discovered your treasure! Great to think about the beginning of harmonies in vocalizations...and then how other scales have different harmonies, like Asian music and Pentatonic or shape note scales. I prefer ours, and fifths and thirds!

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    1. So, what with you and Gail and me, we're a 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 7ths and diminished group! I'm in fine company, that's for sure!

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  5. Your patience was rewarded with this treasure.

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