Friday, June 13, 2008

Chant Intensive is intense...

Today is the last day of the Chant Intensive course here at Loyola University in Chicago. The entire week has been wonderful. The weather couldn't have been any better (nice and cool, as opposed to the weather down south). We have had a bit of rain, but mostly at night, when it didn't matter.

The course has progressed very quickly through the various aspects of Gregorian chant. We started out with a pretty basic overview of neumes, interpretation of the Solesmes editions of the ordinaries and propers, including rhythmic notations...

Along the way we have also begun to learn the basics of chironomy and have worked a lot on the solfege, modes, ear training... As you can probably guess, it has been a very packed week.

Our instructor, Scott Turkington, has been great. He makes the difficult concepts very clear and understandable, even to those of us who don't have a great deal of experience with it. I would highly recommend this course to those who want to gain a bit more depth in their understanding of chant, although maybe not so much to the absolute beginner.

The facilities here at Loyola have been outstanding. The staff here have been so very helpful and friendly. The recently-renovated chapel here at the university which sits at the edge of Lake Michigan is quite beautiful and has great acoustics for the chant.

It has been a wonderful week!

1 comment:

Mary Jane Ballou said...

Trust that you have recovered from the Intensive and are now in the thick of settling into your new home. Keep plenty of Merlot on hand for this kind of work.

And then, of course, it's time for your new schola!