The angels, as purely spritual beings, sing God's praises while forever contemplating His Infinite Being. As humans, being body plus spirit, we are currently trapped in the earthly realm. This makes it difficult to escape the pull of temporal reality, and thus reach upward to partake in that angelic discourse reserved for those in heaven.
"It is often said that the music of the chant is a perfect vehicle for its words, but from the orthodox point of view, that statement is not quite on the mark. Chant is not primarily concerned with the literal text, as the ancient monastic culture which created the chant was not primarily concerned with the literal text. Chant is concerned with the Word with a capital 'W.' That Word doesn't exist on the page; it exists only in the heart."
This article appeared in the June 1995 issue of The Catholic World Report. It deals with chant as both vocal prayer and as contemplation of the Divine.
"For the singers, the active life is represented by the articulation of the text, and the contemplative by listening in silence. In order to practice this discipline with chant that is musically more complicated, singers must know what to do with the different kinds of musical material contained in the repertory. That material is commonly divided into three categories: 'syllabic' chant, which includes recitation using psalm tones and other formulas; 'melismatic' chant, in which a single syllable may be embellished with a long musical phrase; and 'neumatic' chant, which is a mixture of syllabic chant with words which are embellished slightly, with perhaps two, three, or four notes per syllable."
The author also discusses how a fourth element of chant, the silence, provides the open window for contemplation. He also re-groups the categories of chant material into "syllabic plus neumatic" at one end of the spectrum, "silence" at the other end, and "melismatic" which is the connection between the two.
Finally, he summarizes by establishing what ought to be the priority of the beginning schola:
"There can be no such thing as working on technique first, and working on the 'music making' later. From the beginning, the aim must not be beautiful music, but the stillness of the prayer of the Word. Chant is not to be sung as an artistic performance for listeners, but as inner preparation for the singers."
