GREGORIAN CHANTS

Exultate Choir likes singing gregorian songs for liturgical services. Here we post an article about another side of gregorian chants. Happy reading.

Gregorian Chants: Refreshing the Human Spirit

By Helen Russell

"Hear, O my son, the words of the Lord, and incline thy heart's ear"
-The Rule of St Benedict

True Gregorian chants, such as those of the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo De Silos in Spain, have no musical accompaniment and are monophonic - ie every monk sings the same line. As David Steindl-Rast says "What matters is not the singer but the song."

Gregorian chants seem to enclose the listener within a sacred and deeply calming space, perhaps an abbey, monastery, chapel or our own vast empty space within - the cathedral of the heart.

According to Campbell the rhythm in Gregorian chants is "organic, based on the natural flow of the text, breathing, and tonal patterns of prolonged vowel sounds" The text he refers to is Biblical, most especially the Psalms. There are few notes and no overriding melody to push the listener towards a future conclusion.

Those "glorious ooooo's and serene eeeee's" that Campbell finds in Gregorian chants ground us in the here and now and are deliciously restful. They have a calming, enlivening, cleansing and refreshing quality. The elongated vowels seem to rise and fall like a gentle wave that cleanses and calms as it washes over and through us.

Because of the regenerative nature of the sound it is possible to listen to Gregorian chant in the car, home or office. It is beneficial also to use it to denote a sacred time within our day, much like the Cistercian monks who divide their day into "canonical hours" that respond to the various qualities inherent in each hour of the day.

This allows us to attune to what David Steindl-Rast calls "the message of a particular hour's angel". We become more present; more attentive now to the way the morning light falls on our curtains or the shadow a piece of furniture throws on our wall. Listening to chant allows us to celebrate those fleeting qualities of the moment that we would normally rush by in our restless flight into the future. Gregorian chants bring us into an attitude of appreciation and humility and attune us to the sacred rhythm here in our everyday world.

Our daily routines here in the Western world pay little heed to our deep human need for intimacy with spirit. Gregorian chant is one way we can do that. We draw from spirit in this way and return to our everyday lives refreshed and replenished and able to cope with the trials, stresses and burdens of modern life.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com