What do you feel when you listen to a Gregorian Chant?

Question

I'm writing a paper on how music effects the listener on an emotional, mental and physical level. But basically I'd just like to know how you feel when you listen to the gregorian chant "Dies Irae." Below is a link and I know it's a little long but I'd appreciate if you took 30 seconds to listen and come up with an answer.

Thank you

Mamianka · Answer

Since this is the music of my church - and I am also a music theorist - I feel calm and connected to my roots.   I can sing many of these in Latin - thank you, Sister Mary Charles - and thank you, various musicology and theory profs.

Dies Irae has so many classical music connections - never mind bad computer games - that I just get eye-rollingly disgusted with the way that it is treated - as if it were another Carl Orff power-play.  People act like this is the TOP chant ever written.  Hardly.  Adore Te Devote, Tantum Ergo, In Paradisum, and many others are just so much more satisfying.  They actually affect the breathing of the listener, since the phrasing of them is so tied to body rhythms.

You know you did not provide a link - no matter, it can be found all over - just in far more awful manifestations that a good one.

bolander · Answer

Gregorian Chants Listen

What do you feel when you listen to a Gregorian Chant?

2 Answers