How Did A Monk Change Music Forever?

If you enjoyed this video, please click subscribe as it will really help out my channel in these early stages! :)
Imagine teaching maths without any way of writing it down - you can only use your voice to describe equations and formulas. Not only would teaching maths be rubbish for both the teacher and the student, but without a way to visualise them, most mathematical concepts wouldn’t have had the foundations to be thought up in the first place. Well 1000 years ago, this was the case for music. It was slow, difficult and inaccurate to teach across generations, and musical ideas were limited to an incredibly simplified set of understandings.
In the early 11th century, the Italian town of Arezzo was home to an elusive monk named Guido. This monks fascination with the possibility and colours of musical harmony - before any systems existed to be able to understand it as we do today - lead him to an awesome invention. An invention that allowed music to flourish in directions previously unimaginable.
0:00 Introduction
2:24 Plainsong
4:20 Pope Greg the Great
6:50 Guido the Greater
9:03 What this meant for music
Thank you for checking out Jamatopia. This channel is a new pursuit and I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for topics I can tackle in the future! Leave a comment below if you have any ideas or discussions you'd like me to do some research on.

[@Azmarith]

So glad that KZbin recommended this channel. It's going to be awesome to say I've been there from the start.

[@Jamatopia]

I’m glad it did too! 😄 thanks so much!

[@commenteroftruth9790]

Oh my goodness. I did not know I would stumble across musical notation origin lore. this is very good information. Thank you for this video. It is interesting to think, that without the ease of conveying complex notation, that there simply isnt any access to achieving certain heights of musical beauty. Truly, music has evolved and we have dove into it. it is something so cumulative of everything making it. I love music.

[@kenburtonmusic2]

Brilliantly done! Great balance of info and humour, and the clarity of explanation was spot on.

[@Jamatopia]

Thank you! Really glad you enjoyed!

[@brick-king482]

You got my sub 30 seconds in! The quality is amazing!

[@fvrrljr]

i misread "How Thelonious Monk Changed Music Forever" still watched full video, Thanx

[@katholikostroll]

Cool channel and video, I am catholic but can handle the way you poke fun at us, glad you like our development of music. I thought you would have way more subscribers based on the high video quality but all in all great video.

[@mrlucasa223]

really good video! excellent quality, keep it up :)

[@corneliusnowicki5363]

Lovely video, hope the channel is successful!

[@marissahondros5141]

I'd be interested to see your take on byzantine chant (aka where we still use squiggles) because it does allow for complexity, but just not in the "multiple parts" way. Except for the ison, the drone note. I recommend "byzantine chant: the recieved tradition" by John Michael Boyer. It is more of a lesson book, but very incredibly in depth that it can be picked up by anyone who desires to understand the eastern orthodox way of chant that's still preserved

[@Jamatopia]

That sounds so interesting, thanks so much for the recommendation. Will definitely look into that and check out the book. Thank you!

[@blobofdespair]

This video is so good and well paced. Great visuals and editing style as well. Really excited to see where this channel goes! ❤

[@Jamatopia]

Thank you so much!!

[@stewiegriffin993]

I need the algorithm to make you more popular so you can eventually get the resources to make more videos so here's a comment :)))

[@Jamatopia]

Thank you Stewie Griffin 🫶!!

[@-trisld-]

Good job.... it's hard to start a channel but you've got it! Good luck. Yay Guido 🎉

[@dbandhoo]

I love this kind of stuff

[@rabidsamfan]

Very nice.

[@Indubb]

Great job! I like history, but I've never looked into musical history. I do like how you provided brief musical examples. I didn't realize Pythagoras was involved in music and I'd never heard of Guido. You even explain what some monks were doing with a lot of their time with how hard it was to memorize and teach music.

[@___________________________._]

What a cool ass video. Glad I stumbled across it 👍

[@OmarTravelAdventures]

Two days ago the question of who was the first to invent written music came up in my mind. Suddenly your video pops up. I did not specifically seach for the answer...I guess I was just clicking on closer and closer topics and the statistical procedure guessed what I would like next...which happened to answer the question. We live in amazing times, just like those time right after guido figured things out!!!

[@margaretjohnson6259]

thank you, guido.

[@Jguitar450]

You are so informational! I love your channel man, keep it up! 👍

[@Jamatopia]

Thanks soooo much! Super chuffed you enjoy it man. Cheers!!

[@AlexanderJolley]

5:57 damn, that was loaded.

[@rebekahcuriel-alessi2239]

Thank you!! Right up my alley!! 😊

[@libbynoska7379]

Very interesting and informative.

[@gildedr0se]

love the style of these videos! great job 👍🏻

[@rushelm8101]

A quality video in an age of low quality (of everything). Something on the "Lyre", would be nice! A rare instrument, yet enchanting.

[@kendebusk2540]

Very nice, presented well, and easy to understand. Or, as Dick Clark used to say, "It's got a good beat and you can dance to it. I'll give it an 88." :)

[@JasmineJiang2012]

glad I stumbled across this channel! you got one more subscriber

[@Jamatopia]

Thanks so much!!

[@paulheffron4836]

In just a very short time you packed in so much information that I was so glad to know as a singer. It was also done so cleverly showing a very imaginative and interestingly organized body of facts that also served to entertain. Your personality added a lot to this as well. You showed such enjoyment in it all. I kook forward to watching more of your presentations. Thanks so much!!

[@Jamatopia]

So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the comment :)

[@78s_TheArtists_AndTheHistory]

what a great video never stop uploading 👍

[@Jamatopia]

Thank you!! 😁

[@patrickevans8501]

I wish you luck

[@Y0gurt123]

It's funny that you used the math analogy because mathematical development went through a very similar process, the notation we have for it today was a work in progress throughout history. The reason the letter x is our go-to for variables is because of how Spanish mathematicians translated works of Arabic ones. Spanish does not have an "sh" sound and the Arabic word for "thing," which was being used for variables in their work, starts with this sound. So the Spanish just started using the Greek letter Chi in the place of the word, and then as this spread across Europe using the printing press, print shops without Greek letters would substitute Chi for its Latin counterpart x.

[@Jamatopia]

Oh wow that's so interesting! Thanks for the comment!!

[@ANIND123]

As far as I know the Dove only told St Gregory the Great the Dies Irae chant. The other chants are just codified by the Gregorian system and were composed

[@ANIND123]

Schola Cantorums are still used in Catholic Churches today I am a part of one and we use the Liber Usualis or Graduale Romanum to sing at mass or the office

[@T-J-S]

Nice video! I enjoyed watching it. I subscribed, hope your channel's growth isn't "ASLSP" lol

[@Jamatopia]

Hahaha. Thank you!!

[@matthewgilmore4307]

Nice

[@Erintel]

YOU MADE ME LARF AND LARN. GOOD ON YE

[@johnbullington4688]

What are the names of the songs in this video

[@Green4321]

Why isn't Guido a saint?

[@thekingshussar1808]

Secular music in the middle ages was very diverse even before Guido. A lot of medieval music used Pythagorean tuning and incorporated a lot of fifths and fourths, even consecutive fifths. Western medieval music shares lot in common with Middle eastern music. I recommend learning from Farya Faraji and Early Music Muse

[@HimanshuSharma-xp1vy]

Best of luck for your journey. Very nice content And information. And I don't know your name please tell me

[@econecoff1725]

I wonder why they didn't try putting the note letter above the text like the ancient Greeks did. I believe they knew about the Greek system.

[@maclayyc]

Appreciated the rickroll

[@universalflamethrower6342]

You condescending tone is highly appropriatie, without Rome you wouldn't be able to have it, but yeah I guess sounding cool and edgy has it's temporal merits

[@peporgan]

Good video, well done. But you should be aware, it was possible for cultures to create complex counterpoint and rhythms without any notation. Balinese gamelan is a classic example of this, and today is still primarily taught by ear, with no reliance on notation.

[@shipwrecked560]

THANKS YOU, I was thinking the exact same thing. You don't /need/ notation in order to write counterpoint, it just helps visualize it. Gamelan is such a perfect example too! full orchestras, with incredibly complex rhythms and harmonies (microtonal ones too!) all done without standardized written notation. Not to mention, the notation invented in Italy in the 9th century, ISN'T EVEN THE FIRST FORM OF WESTERN NOTATION. While it is arguably the earliest version of the notation we use today, there were other completely different systems of notation that came before, namely the greeks. See this wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_system_of_ancient_Greece

[@Sunbeargirl-]

The content and presentation of this video were very excellent! It would have been better if you hadn't insulted religion, though. Even if a man abuses religion for power (which is morally wrong), that's not a direct reflection of the faith itself.

[@MePeterNicholls]

10:31 once it was developed *hand waves 900 years of musical progress* just like that 😜

[@zidanidane]

cool video, huge story, 0 sources listed or mentionned anywhere, care to share them?

[@JackWabbitTV]

Apologies for the long comment, I thought it'd be best given that you're a new channel to give some pointers! I'd advise being more nuanced when it comes to this kind of topic. The void of musical record caused by the lack of a way to write music down means that we cannot conclusively know exactly how music was before the Western invention of notation. For example, the 9th Century chant you referenced is one of the few examples we have, but it does not and could not represent what all of music was like at the time. Liturgical chant has always been separate from secular music such as folk song, which wasn't even written down after the advent of notation. There is good reason to believe that folk song was far more melodically and harmonically complex, all while being passed around orally and aurally. This process of transmission is actually highly effective, as demonstrated today by the fact that musically illiterate people can still learn and sing complex melodies from their favourite [insert genre here] songs. Also, your statement that all of modern music developed out of these chants is just false, as though the tradition that developed out of them has certainly had impact, it is this unrecorded folk song that has undoubtedly had the greatest influence on musics both sacred and secular. I find your conclusion that notation allowed for greater complexity quite puzzling given the fact that you're in a punk/grunge band, as those kinds of genres have developed immense complexity despite generally being quite distant from written tradition (hence the prevalence of TAB). As stated above, local transmission through memorisation has worked completely fine in the past but is also demonstrated by bands such as your very own. What written transmission did allow was for a piece of music to depart from its composer in a much more controlled way, whereas before one would vary between every performance and particularly every performer. Guido's attempt, however, did not necessarily allow for this safeguarding, as it only recorded pitch and not rhythm. This means that his notation was more of a reference point for pieces that a cantor already knew; a sort of memory guide. It wasn't until around the 14th Century that we find notation capable of recording rhythm ('ars noveau'). There is a lot more I could say, though I think I've addressed most of what I noticed wrong. Though much of the information in your video was poorly researched and misleading, your presenting style is really natural and entertaining, though the unnecessary comments on religion can only alienate potential viewers. I look forward to seeing how your videos evolve!

[@DavidGarcia-je8jv]

This is pretty ill-informed. Pythagorus tuning is only one of the first written descriptions of these tunings. People around the world have used complex scales and modal systems for thousands of years. We know that Chinese Han had a nearly identical note system eight-hundred years earlier. The monks were not by any means the first to use these notes. Neumes were very useful as a memory aide, so Guido's development wasn't recognized as something so important at first. Plenty of other notations like tablatures existed in many other places around the world and for specific instruments historically. Many music systems historically also played with polyphony in different ways without notation. Staff notation was still incredibly limited just like tablatures (which are a very valid and useful way of notating music), because they had no rhythm notation system for hundreds of years. Perotin is definitely an important figure, but he only expanded on his instructor, Leonin's ideas. Polyphony was a major cultural development not started by any one person. I also think a very important quick mention would be the two major music printing press inventions that began the Renaissance period.

[@MeZimm]

not to mention, sacred music is not about "appeasing God"!

[@nope24601]

It's sad that you ridicule the way people created solutions to problems that were already solved for you.

[@SwordsmanRyan]

Your sad contempt for the Church will not earn a like from the same folks who listen to this music. Maybe you should have re-considered who your audience is.

[@HiltonT69]

Deserved contempt, I think is more correct. Especially considering your comment.

[@piotrmalak8936]

This is the present of European culture. Nonsense and superficial opinions based on selectively treated events. The author of the film should probably return to repairing motorcycles. May God keep us in His care. Best regards, Piotr Malak Warsaw