What is the definition of 'medieval music'?

Answer 1

Most of medieval music was sacred and written in order to worship god - for the liturgies. There were three main genres - Gregorian chant (monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song), Mass (sacred music for liturgy - divided into several mass parts: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) and Chivalrous music/ courtly music/ lyrical poetry (the one that troubadours, knights or bards sang).

Answer 2

Music written in the medieval period, which means in Europe in the period more or less between 500 and 1500 AD. I say more or less because at the end of the period (when it starts being "renaissance music") it's not really all that clear whether musicians should be called medieval or renaissance. Some Italian music of the 1300s is called renaissance. In any case, medieval and renaissance music is often lumped together which avoids the problem.

Answer 3

Most of their music was probably chants and hymns. Not that much variety of music was around then because this was during the Dark Ages and a lot of Classical Music you hear wasn't composed until much later.

Answer 4

Most of what was known of music in the Early Middle Ages was what had been in the times of the Roman Empire. There were some important developments in European music during the Middle Ages.

One was the development of music notation, which was a slow process because a lot of technical details had to be worked out. The last of these was representation of duration of a note. Once that was done, it was possible to record music on paper so it could be performed by people who had never heard it before. This accelerated exchange of musical ideas of the time.

Another development was the introduction of the whole class of bowed instruments. The violin family of instruments came from this. These instruments were introduced from outside Europe, and exposed the people of the time to new ideas on music.

Another was the development of organum, and then of counterpoint, which ultimately made it possible to have complex melodic voices to interact with each other. Prior to this, people sang and played pretty much in unison.

Answer 5

the hokey pokey

Answer 6

Gregorian chant

Answer 7

for farting