• Romanesque Musical Developments

Later on, the invasions of the Roman Empire by barbarians not only influenced the culture but also had an impact on the music. During this era, sacred music became organized and the medieval musicians created the system of writing musical notations.

The musical characteristics include invention of musical notation including neumatic notation and staff notation, which was exclusively devised for Plainsong. During this era, musical compositions replaced music improvisation. The innovative techniques led to the development of 2-part music, which had become immensely popular. Additionally, 4-line staffs were used in music and modern methods of solmization were used where conventional syllables were used for designation of pitches instead of the names of the letters. It was an Italian monk, Guido d' Arezzo, who perfected staff notation for plainsong and re-established solmization in music.

The music during this era was dominated by the monophonic chant. The various genre and forms developed during this era include plainsong, sequence (which evolved from trope) or trope (which employed certain poetic musical words in between the phrases of religious texts), organum, liturgical drama, monophonic conductus, minnelied (love songs sung by men), antiphon (short text from the scriptures, sung in a syllabic style before or after a canticle or psalm), and alleluia (added at either ends of two sections within a chant) apart from plainsong mass.

With the feudal government’s efforts to facilitate greater social awareness the changes in the society were also reflected in the development of music. The large volumes of secular music and poetry produced during this era are an evidence of this fact. The royal families took the initiation and supported the development and growth of music during this era. Music was organized according to the particulars specified by the church’s prayer service and its functions within the worship service. The music that was created during this era incorporated many Roman elements.

The function of secular music was not only for entertainment, but also for information sharing, to encourage dancing and as a means of perpetuating the folk culture and tradition. The style of music popularly used during the Romanesque era was the plainsong. The plainsong was performed to worship God in monophonic liturgical musical tunes and provided the literature for the hymns, psalms and tropes. The melody of the plainsong was created according to the church’s specifications. Although the organization of the plainsong was designated purely by text, the organization of the trope and sequence was designated by the musical elements present in the melody itself.