At higher grades you must be able to discuss with the examiner musical features such as texture, form, style, and period of a piece of music. My own web pages to help with these parts of the test at Grade 5+ and at GCSE are available here!
Medieval musicians (a vielle)
Medieval 476 - 1400
Medieval style
At the start of the era, the notated music is presumed to be monophonic with no instrumental support.
We know that instead of major and minor scales that sound 'normal' to modern, Western ears, medieval music was primarily modal. The rhythms used in performance are not notated and can really only be guessed at. In the church, plain chant (also known as Gregorian chant) was most common.
Alleluia, Angelus Domini, recorded by Dominique Vellard on harmonia mundi HMC905261
Polyphony develops during the later period. Harmony centres on, at first, consonant intervals of perfect fifths and octaves, although in later music, perfect fourths will be introduced. Once rhythmic notation started to happen, songs could be more easily recorded and repeated.
Miri it is, recorded by the Dufay collective on chandos records CHAN9396
Renaisance 1400 - 1600
