Oral and Written Transmission in Chant: New Edition

This volume deals with the materials of chant from the point of view of transmission. The early history of chant is a history of orality, of transmission by mouth to ear, and yet we can study it only through the use of written documents. Scholars of medieval music have taken up the ideas and techniques of scholars of folklore, of oral transmission, of ethnomusicology; for the chant is, in fact, an ancient music transmitted for a time in oral culture; and we study a culture not our own, whose informants are not people but manuscripts. All depends, ironically, on deducing oral issues from written documentsKelly, Thomas Forrest is the author of 'Oral and Written Transmission in Chant: New Edition', published 2008 under ISBN 9780754626268 and ISBN 0754626261.