Try your hand at composing your own chant!
There is no better way to learn about composing chant than...composing your own chant! Whether you are an experienced composer or just an interested enthusiast, setting texts to your own music can teach you a lot about the "how and why" of chant. Like all musical endeavors, patience is critical but the rewards for the time spent are great. Whether you compose simple chant responses just for your own parish schola, or complete Mass settings that you send out into the world via the internet, why not begin now?
Source Texts
By and large, composing chant means using the approved liturgical texts of the Church. These consist of the Ordinary Texts, the Responsorial Psalm Texts and the Proper Antiphons from the Graduale. The texts of the Ordinary are posted below, along with the link to the USCCB Readings website, where the Responsorial Psalm texts can be found for every day, and the Gregorian Missale which contains English translations of the Proper Antiphons. For more information about current translations of the Proper Antiphons, read Graduale or Missale: Confusion Resolved .
Ordinary Texts (New Translation)
Responsorial Psalm Texts (USCCB Readings Site)
Proper Antiphons - (The Gregorian Missale)
Notation Fonts
Meinrad chant notation fonts are used to create notated music in either traditional square-note or modern notation. Although far more sophisticated notational software exists, this rather ingenious method was developed by the St. Meinrad Abbey and has been released to the public free of charge. It remains a favorite of chant enthusiasts.
In short, these are True-Type fonts that are used in WORD (or other WORD compatible programs such as Publisher or Power-Point) that allow you to simply "type" chant notation once you have adequately learned the system. My suggestion would be to first read the applicable User Manual, then install the fonts following the instructions there and print out a copy of the Font Chart. Begin by "copying" a simple chant that uses only the punctum, then one that includes the podatus and so forth. Once you "get" the keyboard layout system, it goes pretty quickly! Once mastered, there is precious little that can't be notated with Meinrad! Before you know it, you'll be composing your own original chants!
MEINRAD SQUARE-NOTE FONTS
Meinrad Font (Windows)
Meinrad Font Chart (Windows)
Meinrad User Manual (Windows)
Meinrad Font (MacOS9)
Meinrad Font (MacOSX)
Meinrad Font Chart (Mac)
Meinrad User Manual (Mac)
MEINRAD MODERN NOTATION FONTS (Melody)
Melody Font (Windows)
Melody Font Chart (Windows)
Melody User Manual (Windows)
Melody Font (MacOS9)
Melody Font (MacOSX)
Melody Font Chart (Mac)
Melody user Manual (Mac)
MuseScore
MuseScore is an open source music notation software that is useful and free! Although limited to modern notation, it is useful for layouts of choral music and I use it for setting "choral" psalm-tones and responses. Although a bit unfriendly at first (as all open-source software can be), it is easier than Finale. Click on the link below and download all three files to a single folder. Then click on the "exe" file to install.
MuseScore 1.1
