Editing Medieval music (section)

===Genres===
{{further|Gregorian chant|Ars nova|Organum|Motet|Madrigal (Trecento)|Canon (music)|Ballata}}
Medieval music was created for a number of different uses and contexts, resulting in different [[Music genre|music genres]]. [[Liturgical music|Liturgical]] as well as more general [[Sacredness|sacred]] contexts were important, but [[secular music|secular]] types emerged as well, including love songs and dances.  During the [[Early Middle Ages|earlier medieval period]], [[liturgy|liturgical]] music was [[Monophony|monophonic]] chant; [[Gregorian chant]] became the dominant style. [[Polyphony|Polyphonic]] genres, in which multiple independent melodic lines are performed simultaneously, began to develop during the [[High Middle Ages|high medieval era]], becoming prevalent by the later 13th and early 14th century. The development of polyphonic forms is often associated with the [[Ars antiqua]] style associated with [[Notre-Dame de Paris]], but improvised polyphony around chant lines predated this.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Organum |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000048902 |access-date=2023-11-14 |website=Grove Music Online |date=2001 |language=en |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.48902 |last1=Smith |first1=Norman E. |last2=Reckow |first2=Fritz |last3=Roesner |first3=Edward H. |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 }}</ref>

[[Organum]], for example, elaborated on a chant melody by creating one or more accompanying lines. The accompanying line could be as simple as a second line sung in [[parallel intervals]] to the original chant (often a [[perfect fifth]] or [[perfect fourth]] away from the main melody). The principles of this kind of organum date back at least to an anonymous 9th century tract, the ''[[Musica enchiriadis]]'', which describes the tradition of duplicating a preexisting plainchant in parallel motion at the interval of an octave, a fifth or a fourth.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Musica enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000019405 |access-date=2023-11-14 |website=Grove Music Online |date=2001 |language=en |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.19405 |last1=Erickson |first1=Raymond }}</ref> Some of the earliest written examples are in a style known as [[Aquitanian polyphony]], but the largest body of surviving organum comes from the [[Notre-Dame school]]. This loose collection of repertory is often called the ''[[Magnus Liber]] Organi'' (''Great Book of Organum'').<ref>{{Cite web |title=Magnus liber |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000017458 |access-date=2023-11-14 |website=Grove Music Online |date=2001 |language=en |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.17458 |last1=Roesner |first1=Edward H. |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 }}</ref>

Related polyphonic genres included the [[motet]] and [[Clausula (music)|clausula]] genres, both also often built on an original segment of [[plainchant]] or as an elaboration on an organum passage.{{sfn|Yudkin|1989|pp=382, 391}} While most early motets were sacred and may have been liturgical (designed for use in a church service), by the end of the thirteenth century the genre had expanded to include secular topics, such as political satire and [[courtly love]], and French as well as Latin texts. They also included from one to three upper voices, each with its own text.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Everist |first=Mark |title=French motets in the thirteenth century: music, poetry, and genre |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-61204-3 |edition= |series=Cambridge studies in medieval and Renaissance music |location=Cambridge, UK |pages=4–5}}</ref> 

In Italy, the secular genre of the [[Madrigal (music)|Madrigal]] became popular. Similar to the polyphonic character of the motet, madrigals featured greater fluidity and motion in the leading melody. The madrigal form also gave rise to polyphonic [[Canon (music)|canons]] (songs in which multiple singers sing the same melody, but starting at different times), especially in Italy where they were called ''caccie.'' These were three-part secular pieces, which featured the two higher voices in canon, with an underlying instrumental long-note accompaniment.{{sfn|Yudkin|1989|p=529}}

In the late middle ages, some purely instrumental music also began to be notated, though this remained rare. Dance music makes up most of the surviving instrumental music, and includes types such as the [[estampie]], [[ductia]], and nota.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McGee |first=Timothy James |title=Medieval instrumental dances |date=1989 |publisher=Indiana University press |isbn=978-0-253-33353-7 |series=Music |location=Bloomington}}</ref>