# Plainchant - composing



## rcstaats

I have been a long time listener and enjoy religious chant. Plainchant has been a particular interest of mine.

A friend of mine had something terrible and unjustified inflicted on him, and my friend took a permanent action to correct a temporary set-back. Mike was devoutly religious, and I composed a Plainchant piece both as an honor to him and as a way of processing what had happened. The piece is here: Chant for Michael.

It made me wonder how many Plainchant songs are composed today, and why does an Internet search or a look on popular music streaming and download sites have so much Mumble Rap and so little beautiful Plainchant?

Do any of you compose Plainchant? Have you been able to produce and distribute it? What are some of the challenges and insights you have?

In service,

Rich


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## EdwardBast

Generally speaking, plainchant is not composed by anyone and most of the traditional chant found in the Liber Usualis, the collected monodic music used by the RCC, was likely not composed music at all in the sense you mean. The best theory going (IMO) is that chant was an improvised tradition for centuries before the RCC sought to codify and standardize what was sung in churches and monasteries. At that time their representatives transcribed the performances of some of the singers and collected them and published them. There is original composed monody (music for one voice or voice part), such as that written by Hildegard of Bingen, but most of what one will find on recordings is not credited to a composer and likely came to be by the process described above.


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