After studying and listening to the music of the Medieval and Renaissance period, where in the world do you think this music came from? What word...

The answer
to this question is both simple and complex. Medieval and Renaissance music are, believe it or
not, ancestors to what we call contemporary or modern music. Music has its own interesting
history, and here we are discussing only Western musicwith early origins in Western Europe.
There are many, many other types of music from around the world, and these also have their
distinct histories. The world of music is much more varied than we can imagine, and there are so
many different ways of creating musical sounds.

Chronologically, Medieval
music (c. 500€“1400) was created before Renaissance music (c. 1400€“1600), and the latter grew
out of the former. What we know as Medieval music started in communities as folk music for
celebrationsa natural outcome of the human drive to create and to express emotion. The Medieval
"saltarello," for example, came from a folk dance in the Naples region of what is now
Italy. Medieval choral music featured Gregorian chants, monophonic (single melody) singing that
was an important part of Church ceremony, with words taken from the Bible. Medieval instruments
were varied and made sounds that may be unfamiliar to the modern ear and had some peculiar
names, such as an ancestor of the trombone called the sackbutt.

Like Medieval
music, Renaissance music was created either for sacred purposes (the Roman Catholic Mass) or for
secular purposes (non-Church events). If you want to hear a good example of how choral music
evolved from monophony (single melody) to polyphony (having many melodies) within choral
singing, listen to any Gregorian chant (Medieval) and compare it to the to a choral composition
by William Byrd (Renaissance). You will hear the difference between monophonic and polyphonic
choral singing.

Picking "one word" to describe both Medieval and
Renaissance music would be like picking one word to describe all vegetables and fruits. First of
all, there are distinct differences between the two eras. Secondly, even within one time period,
one particular piece can evoke different feelings from another piece. The Medieval
"Saltarello della Pioggia" ("Little Dance of the Rain") makes me want to hop
around in pointed slippers, but Gregorian chants transport me to quiet, sacred places.

As with other aspects of the Renaissance, the world of music offered new and exciting
possibilities for individual expression outside the boundaries of church tradition. Musical
instruments changed and evolved, coming a bit closer to some of the sounds our modern Western
ears are familiar with and opening doors for the next epoch in Western music, the Baroque era
(c. 1600€“1740), with the arrival of geniuses such as Bach and Vivaldi, whose names and
compositions are still often heard in our day.

As for your question of
picking a word to describe both Medieval and Renaissance musical stylesgood luck. The best I can
tell you is to pick a word (or words, if your teacher will allow more than one) that best
describes how you feel when you listen to the samples provided in your classroom. People have
very personal and individual responses to musical pieces. The old saying, "One man's meat
is another man's poison," applies to music as well. Did you like what you heard? Was it
strange and spooky to you? Was it mysterious or different? Was the music you heard pleasant and
beautiful to your ears, or strange and annoying?

As for whether you would
recommend Medieval and Renaissance music to a friend, I think that the answer would depend on
the friend you might have in mind and how open he or she might be to discovering sounds that
could perhaps be new or unfamiliar to him or her.