Talk:Organum

Music sample
The musical sample, "Resonemus hoc natali," is not drawn from the Magnus liber, but belongs to an earlier repertory associated with St. Martial de Limoges. We need to fix this. I believe the same CD has an organum duplum attr. to Leonin ("Propter veritatem") which would be perfectly appropriate. Epn10 (talk) 17:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

content discussion: Melismatic organum, organum purum, Apel & Waite having transcribed 'entire' MLO
IMO, the definitions given, the supposed differences etc. given on melism.org. and org.purum are not yet clear enough. As for transcriptions entire: there is an ongoing project at L'Oiseau Lyre Monaco, otherwise no integral transcription exist. Waite focused on dupla by Leonin and did a partial transcription. I will take to my books and come back later on this. Martinuddin (talk) 22:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Too much of this article is a long way from NPOV - especially the discussions on rhythm. To say "In monophonic song, be it chant or a conductus simplex by Perotin, there is no need to vary from the classical standards for declamation that were a rooted tradition at the time, going back to St. Augustine, De Musica. It has been firmly established by extensive research in chant traditions (Gregorian Semiology) that there is a fluency and varyancy in the rhythm of declamatory speech that should also govern chant performance. These principles extend to the not strictly modal sections or compositions, as a contrasting quality with musica mensurabilis." without any references is simply indefensible. It would be equally defensible to say, "In monophonic song, be it vers or a conductus simplex by Perotin, the tradition had changed so much over the preceding centuries from the mensural rigidity of the fourth and fifth centuries to the syllabic rigidity of neumed chant in the tenth, that the most that can be said confidently is that the variance in the rhythm of declamatory speech should not influence performance. It must be understood that monophonic organum is not chant, and is not in the chant tradition. These principles extend to the not strictly modal sections or compositions; there is no contrast with other forms of musica mensurabilis."

Neither is NPOV; but at least my version has references, and is compatible with the sources quoted. I do not see how the text as it stands is compatible with Augustine's description of rigidly mensural longs and breves, the longs exactly twice the length of a breve. The whole concept of monophonic sections in Leonin is open anyway, since we know that secunda and even tertia were improvised as a matter of course against 'monophonic' chant melodies.

OldTownAdge (talk) 00:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

3rd meaning
There's yet a third meaning of organum, see Organum Mathematicum at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science site.

I guess if we ever get an article on this, we'll also need to create an organum (disambiguation) page, but I don't think it's necessary when we only have two articles to list. Andrewa 14:26, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

pronunciation
I noticed an anon today (apparently from the UK) changed the pronunciation to put the stress on the second syllable. I've never heard it this way: always the stress is on the first. Is this possibly a US English/British English difference? Since "organum" isn't exactly an everyday word (except in fields like mine) it may not be something many people pay attention to. I'm putting in that the word may be pronounced either way. Antandrus (talk) 6 July 2005 20:36 (UTC)

Yes - it's a British Isles / European English pronunciation. SleepyHead 18 April 2006 16:38 (GMT)

Is it? I don't think so. I've never heard it pronounced orGANum except by a American. All the Brits here in the UK that I know say ORganum. OldTownAdge (talk) 23:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

style vs. genre
is organum a style or a genre? Jackzhp 12:49, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

"genre" isn't really an appropriate term for music that early. It's a style distinct from discant and conductus. Chubbles 17:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a question
Would this be the equivalent of ison in Eastern Christian Chant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.171.2 (talk) 22:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Drone
How was it possible to write an article about this subject without mentioning the term "drone"? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 07:50, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * drone (music) is already linked in the 2nd sentence: "a supporting bass line (or bourdon)". A little better might be "a supporting bass line (or bourdon or drone". The target article though is pretty underdeveloped.  Sparafucil (talk) 19:29, 21 June 2021 (UTC)