Objectives for this proyect

At the beginning of this project we were willing to learn about troubadours, distinguish how Medieval music sounds like and about instruments that stand out from this period. In the end, we ended up knowing almost everything about Medieval music; including the most relevant events from this period, its main characteristics, most of the instruments used and important composers too! So if you want to learn about Medieval music too, have a look at our blog!

Main instruments of the Middle Ages

STRING FAMILY
Plucked string instruments

• Lyres: similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences, and it is known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. 
  
• Gittern:Small gut strung round-backed instrument that first appears in literature, similar to a modern guitar. 
  
• Harp: Instrument which has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard, which are plucked with the fingers.
  
• Lute: Instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table. It is of Arabic origin, and normally has 5 or 6 strings.
  
• Psaltery: It is a cross between a harp and a lyre.
  
• Cittern: Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by all classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar.
  

Bowed string instruments

• Rebec: It is a type of medieval fiddle that has a round body that tapers into the neck and culminates in a peg box or disk.
  
• Fidel: Instrument with oval shape body with 3 or 5 strings. 
  
• Vielle: European instrument, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, five strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a figure-8 shaped body.
  
• Hurdy-gurdy: Instrument with 4 strings played by rubbing a wheel over them. In Spain they are also called chifonías or zanfonas.
  

WIND FAMILY

Flutes

• Pan pipes:Group of musical instruments based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). 
  
• Files: It is a small, high-pitched, transverse flute, that is similar to the piccolo, but louder and shriller due to its narrower bore. 
  

With double reeds

• Oboe: It is a musical instrument that is shaped like a tube and that is played by blowing into a small, thin piece at the top of the tube. It is soprano. 
  
• Chirimia: It is a primitive oboe.
  
• Dulcimer: It is similar to the crumhorn and rauschpfeife, in having a windcap over the reed; unlike those instruments, it has a single reed (like a clarinet), resulting in a different timbre. It is a kind of Galician bagpipe. 
  
• Bladder pipe or platerspiel: It is a loud instrument which has a reed which is enclosed by an animal bladder. It is a simplified bagpipe bladder for air and a horn with 6 holes. 
  
• Bombard: It is a woodwind instrument, and a member of the oboe family, but with a more powerful sound than the oboe.
  

In metal

• Cornet: It is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. 
  
• Serpent: It is a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape.
  
• Straight trumpet: Natural trumpet without finger holes, keys, slides or valves by which the pitch of an instrument might be altered.
  
• Sackbut: It is a type of trombone.
  
• Clarin trumpet: It is a valve less trumpet  used in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing rapid passages in the high register.
  
• Horn: It is a brass instrument made of tubing more than 20 feet (6.1 m) long, wrapped into a coil with a flared bell.
  

Mixed

• Organ:It is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands or with the feet.
  
• Portable organ: It is a woodwind instrument, and a member of the oboe family, but with a more powerful sound than the oboe. 
  

Percussion family

• Bedon drums: It is a drum with snares or jingles.
  
• Cymbals: They consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys such as bronze or brass. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch.
  
• Nacarios: It is a type of tymbal. It is formed mainly by a copper cauldron by a membrane.
  
• Bell sets:
  
• Darbukas: It is a single head membranophone with a goblet shaped body made of wood or ceramics played against the shoulder.
  
• Tejoletas: Rudimentary castanets made from pieces of tile.
  
• Tintirabulum:Type of jingle bell stick, of Roman origin.
  
• Triangles: 

                

Medieval main composers

There  are few composers from the middle ages that are known today, yet we know that music was an important part of the medieval culture. In the following headland the most relevant composers are listed, together to links to one of their compositions:

• Magister Leoninus

Born: 1150
Died: 1201
Nationality: French
Léonin was the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. His most famous composition is the great book for the gradual and antiphonary.

 Gloria in excelsis Deo

• Francesco Landini

Born: 1325

Died: 1397

Nationality: French

His most important compositions are ecco la primavera, orsu and questa fanciullámor. He was an organist, singer, poet and instrument maker too.

 Ecco la Primavera

• Philippe de Vitry

Born: 1291

Died: 1361

Nationality: French

Some his most famous compositions are Aman novi, Heu Fortuna, Heu me, tristis est anima mea. He was a music theorist, poet, and an acomplished, innovative and influental composer who may have been the author of the Ars Nova treatise.

 Vos Qui Admiramini

• Magister Perotin

Born: 1155-1160

Died: 1230

Nationality: French

His works are preserved in the Magnus Liber, the "Great Book" include Viderunt Omnes. He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style. 

 Viderunt Omnes

• Guillaume de Machaut

Born: 1300

Died: April 1377

Nationality: French

Some of his compositions are Esperance qui m'asseure, Je ne cuit pas or Se je me pleing. Machaut was "the last great poet who was also a composer", and he composed in a wide range of styles and forms.

 Messe de Notre Dame

Medieval timeline

Click on the following link in order to have a look at the most important events that took place in the Middle ages, from its beggining to its end:

medievaltimeline.com

Medieval music characteristics

Medieval music contains all the European music composed during the 5th and the 15th century.

• Performing medium

During the Medieval period, music was primarily vocal. Instruments were used to accompany vocal lines or to improvise instrumental dances, and very little instrumental music has survived.

• Rhythm

Rhythm was not notated during much of this period, and traditions regarding the treatment of sacred text, the meter of the text, and the musical abilities of singers and instrumentalists often determined the rhythmic complexity and tempo of pieces.

• Melody

Melodic intervals and the range of melodies were generally small during this era, and sacred melodies were often based on church modes (modes are notes arranged in a specific scale or pattern of intervals, and were often used to structure the melody or tonality of a piece).

• Harmony

Harmony and tonality as we know it today were not functional during the Medieval period. Music appears to have been constructed and heard as separate lines rather than vertical sonorities. Parallel fifths and octaves were favored, and triads or thirds were considered dissonant.

• Texture

Monophonic texture was predominantly used during the first part of this era, and polyphonic texture began to be used in the mid to late Medieval period. Heterophony may have been heard in performances.

• Form

Popular genres during this period included the following large forms: sacred vocal music such as plainchant, conductus, masses, and motets; instrumental estampies; and secular vocal songs.

• Secular Music

1. Vernacular languages of each area
2. Main subjects: “courtly love” and knightly spirit
3. Vocal music with monodic texture
4. Instrumental accompaniment
5. Doubling voices
6. Makes use of Gregorian modal scales
7. Marked rhythm

• Gregorian Chant

1. Main language: Latin
2. Monodic texture with no instrumental accompaniment
3. Uses special notation: neumes
4. Free rhythm
5. Modal scales derived from the Greek modes