Teaching Chant to Children

If we are to believe some writers, Gregorian Chant is a lost art only remembered by a few monks, so remote and unapproachable that a new generation could never learn it. Here is my experience teaching a simple chant to a grade school children's choir.

For the chant, I chose Salve Mater Misericordiae, one of the few chants with a known author -- Dom Pothier died less than a hundred years ago. I made copies of a version in the original square notation and took them to the classroom. (I prefer to use the original notation because it's not that hard to read, especially for a syllabic chant, and because to transcribe a chant into modern notation of any kind is to interpret it.)

Of course I had the cooperation of an open-minded teacher. I passed out the music and told the children that they were looking at an older, simpler version of musical notation. I knew that many of these children were studying instruments or voice, so I just asked them what differences they could see in the music. "Four lines instead of five." "No key signature!" "No time signature!" I explained: the little symbol on the left of the staff tells you where "C" is. There is no time signature -- the rhythm follows the words. The little square notes are short, and long ones have a dot after them, or sometimes a little dash above. Two notes together are also a long note. If the note goes up a step, you sing up a step -- if there is a skip, then skip up -- usually only a third. With that short introduction we began to sing.

I asked them just to repeat each phrase after me. They had heard Latin before and knew it was an old language -- the ancestor of our modern European languages. It's easy to pronounce, I told them as I helped them with any words they didn't get right away. Within 20 minutes they had learned the refrain. I sang the verses and they repeated the refrain. I improvised a simple accompaniment on the classroom keyboard, explaining that, while one could sing this music without any instrument, in the old days there was usually an accompaniment when large groups sang.

So it was no big deal. Soon the older children had learned the verses and they sang it at Mass and at concerts. I nearly cried when I heard it for the first time -- I hadn't heard that song sung by children in at least 40 years, and it was just beautiful. I hope old Dom Pothier could hear it in heaven!