Medieval Music - A Quick Guide

The medieval music period was from the years until 1400. For more detailed information on the medieval music era go to: There are some key characteristics of medieval music covered in this video lesson: Monophonic Music - most medieval music has only one line of melody. Church Music - a large proportion of the music from the medieval era that we still have access to is from church music. The Catholic mass was a sung celebration in Latin that was (and still is) widespread. As a result, unaccompanied monophonic vocal styles such as Gregorian chant characterise the medieval period. Modes - Medieval music used modes. There were 8 modes in total. Modes were the forerunners of the major and minor scales. Instruments - there were a number of typical medieval instruments. These included the medieval flute (a wooden instrument with a sound much like the modern day recorder), the lyra (thought to be o