Isorhythm Example - Guillaume de Machaut's "Messe de Nostre Dame"

Here is a short video where I do my best to visualize/explain the concept of isorhythm. This idea confused me in undergrad so I thought I could help you all out a little!
Cheers! :)
Recording: Messe de Nostre Dame: II: Kyrie - Guillaume de Machaut, Diabolus en Musica, Antione Guerber
Sources:
bbloomf.github.io/jgabc/prope...
imslp.simssa.ca/files/imglnks...
arsnovita.wordpress.com/medie...

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

How cannot you be fascinated by those mysterious sonorities? I love Machaut's Messe, it's practically where the modern conception of large-scale, multi-movement work has born.

[@institutodemusicamonteabar5181]

Thank you very much! In this way is very easy to understand, very clear.

[@user-ye6od8ve6b]

Seth!! I just randomly stumbled upon this video while studying and found it super helpful! I couldn't believe who had posted it haha. Thanks for making this, it's great!

[@sethhobi6618]

Hi Skyler! Thank you! Nice seeing you here! ☺️

[@samuelballard9716]

This was very helpful thank you!

[@joshhermantin]

by far the clearest explanation i’ve found on this. thanks!

[@fussick7121]

Thank you so so much. So clear and concise, thank you!!!!

[@user-lz5gd8xu8k]

Thanks!!!! Super clear to understand! 😊😊

[@johannakruger1338]

Thank you!!! Will try this on my students.

[@Singerbuddy_es]

Thank so much!!! finally I got it.

[@purrteani]

Thank you for this! :D

[@vhego]

So the talea applies only to the tenor voice here? Seems like isorhythm doesn’t apply to the other voices. Nice video btw thank you!

[@jryaj]

Very exquisite 😫👌

[@NovicebutPassionate]

Excellent demonstration! "Isorhythm was a way of giving unity to long compositions which had no other effective means of formal organization. True, the interlocked repetitions of color and talea, extending over long stretches of the music, might be anything but obvious to the ear. Yet the isorhythmic structure, even if not immediately perceived, does have the effect of imposing a coherent form on the entire piece; and the very fact of the structure's being concealed (of its existing, as it were, at least partially in the realm of abstraction and contemplation rather than as something capable of being fully grasped by the sense of hearing) would have pleased a medieval musician." A History of Western Music, Donald J. Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, Fourth Edition, Norton, P. 144.

[@sethhobi6618]

Thank you! Isorhythm is a tough thing to define in an absolute sense because the way it is manipulated is so different throughout western music history. I plan on making a video explaining the way Guillaume Dufay uses it in his isorhythmic motets!

[@y11971alex]

Grout and Palisca are quite right: I did not perceive it!

[@isaacmurilez6762]

0:39- 0:41 0:58- 1:01 1:12

[@StanleyGrill]

A great visualization. But Machaut was a master of lyrical song writing. Singing his music shouldn’t sound like groaning!