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the american organist review 

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO READING GREGORIAN CHANT NOTATION

This wonderful little book is the chant-equivalent of Dick and Jane. With as few as one word on a page (and one neume), it takes us back to the root of learning to read (this notation) from the ground up. Beyond that, what can one possibly say?  It is a primer and a refreshing way to reduce an idiom carrying with it a mysterious theoretical and stylistic aura to the fundamental, even primal musical language that it is.

Jones does not pontificate about chant. He avoids sentences and paragraphs wherever possible. His preferred style of written communication is something between a word and a bullet list. How can one argue with the minimalist reduction of what is, to most, an indecipherable old craft to a series of statements such as "Staff covers just the range of the human voice" or "There are only two clef signs"?

Where content is minimal, so the book's design and layout are also simple and striking. While the printer wastes no ink, the typefaces recall the stroke of the medieval copyist's pen.  It is a lovely, simple treasure to behold.

In a scant 71 pages, most of which contain a single large illustration and one or two words, the code is broken.  And once that happens, chant is as easy as "See Spot run.  Run Spot, run!"

Haig Mardirosian
July 2009
The American Organist is the official journal of the American Guild of Organists

Reprinted with permission.

The AGO has over 21,000 members throughout the United States, Europe, Singapore, Korea and Sydney.

www.agohq.org


A simple and friendly guide to reading chant notation. 

In Gregorian Chant notes are arranged like a train....each note or grouping has a clear purpose and connected to its neighbors make as melody. 

This book teaches how to see them, read them  and sing them. It was created for self-teaching, individual instruction, choir training or chant workshops. 

Mr. Jones uses this book in a  class lasting only 45' in which those participating are able to begin singing and following chant notation by the end of the class.

Noel Jones

Noel Jones first sang chant in a choir of men and boys and followed that up by chanting daily masses before he was a teenager in a small town in Ohio. 

Summer studies with Benedictine monks took him further along the chant path prior to his leaving for New York City where he directed Catholic choirs and was organist at the Church Center for the United Nations as well as accompanist for the United Nations Singers. Later in Germany he was organist for the English masses at the DOM Cathedral in Frankfurt. 

Then, living in Italy, he played for masses at Il Duomo in Barga, Italy and produced and conducted the town's annual San Cristoforo Day celebration concert in the 11th century church. 

Working as a church organ designer, he eventually located in Tennessee, where he joined the staff of a St. John Neumann Catholic church as director of music, involved in returning church music to chant and polyphony. 

He and Mary C. Weaver have founded Musicam Sacram, a CMAA chapter in East Tennessee.  

He is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists. He serves as Creative Director of www.frogmusic.com.

His wife, Ellen Doll Jones, is a church musician as well and works with Noel as a co-editor on projects.  They both perform organ recitals, often playing duets.  They live on a farm in East Tennessee. 

Book graphic design and layout • Noel Jones

www.sjnmusic.com • Website of St. John Neumann Church
www.musicasacra.com • The Church Music Association of America
www.musicamsacram.com • East Tennessee Chapter of CMAA

Other Projects by Noel Jones:

www.thecatholichymnal.com

For information about workshops or concerts: noel jones