What does gregorian chant mean?
Definitions for gregorian chant
gre·go·rian chant
This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word gregorian chant.
Princeton's WordNet
plainsong, plainchant, Gregorian chantnoun
a liturgical chant of the Roman Catholic Church
Wiktionary
Gregorian chantnoun
Style of unaccompanied monophonic singing in the Catholic Church.
Etymology: Named after Pope Gregory I (540-604), and certainly dating back to that time in some form, but the exact origin is a matter of ongoing research.
Wikipedia
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of the Old Roman chant and Gallican chant.Gregorian chants were organized initially into four, then eight, and finally 12 modes. Typical melodic features include a characteristic ambitus, and also characteristic intervallic patterns relative to a referential mode final, incipits and cadences, the use of reciting tones at a particular distance from the final, around which the other notes of the melody revolve, and a vocabulary of musical motifs woven together through a process called centonization to create families of related chants. The scale patterns are organized against a background pattern formed of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords, producing a larger pitch system called the gamut. The chants can be sung by using six-note patterns called hexachords. Gregorian melodies are traditionally written using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern four-line and five-line staff developed. Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum, were an early stage in the development of Western polyphony. Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by men and women of religious orders in their chapels. It is the music of the Roman Rite, performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Although Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Christian liturgy, Ambrosian chant still continues in use in Milan, and there are musicologists exploring both that and the Mozarabic chant of Christian Spain. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship. During the 20th century, Gregorian chant underwent a musicological and popular resurgence.
ChatGPT
gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the western Roman Catholic Church. It is named after Pope Gregory I, who was said to have codified them during his reign in the 6th century. The chants are typically sung in Latin and performed in a free-flowing rhythm. They were traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by women and men of religious orders in their chapels.
Wikidata
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the western Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant. Gregorian chants were organized initially into four, then eight, and finally twelve modes. Typical melodic features include characteristic ambituses, intervallic patterns relative to a referential mode final, incipits and cadences, the use of reciting tones at a particular distance from the final, around which the other notes of the melody revolve, and a vocabulary of musical motifs woven together through a process called centonization to create families of related chants. The scale patterns are organized against a background pattern formed of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords, producing a larger pitch system called the gamut. The chants can be sung by using six-note patterns called hexachords. Gregorian melodies are traditionally written using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern four-line and five-line staff developed. Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum, were an early stage in the development of Western polyphony.
Suggested Resources
gregorian chant
Song lyrics by gregorian chant -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by gregorian chant on the Lyrics.com website.
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of gregorian chant in Chaldean Numerology is: 2
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of gregorian chant in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5
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"gregorian chant." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 7 Feb. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/gregorian+chant>.
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