Todd Michel McComb <[log in to unmask]>:

>Pablo Massa writes:
>
>>It's probable that gregorian chant was *always* sung with some
>>kind of improvised polyphonic ornament.
>
>I am sorry, but this suggestion is quite untenable.  Practice of polyphony
>may well predate its first mention or notation by quite some time, but the
>idea that it was the norm (let alone *always*) contradicts all available
>evidence.

A shot in the darkness.  I would like some people to read well the posts
before giving a response!!!.  I don't remember of having written "the norm"
nowhere in my post.  "Always" doesn't mean necessarily "the norm" (I.e:
a synchronic, widespread custom), and of course you will not find any
evidence of that.  It's possible (and this is not my theory) that gregorian
chant was sung with polyphony in *different times* and in *some places*
(surely those where the first polyphonic souces appeared) since long time
before the appearing of the first written sources, or even since it's
very beginning (that did I mean by "always").  I would like to know what
evidence do you have that this is *impossible*, or evidence enough to
discard reasonably that posibility, or at least evidence to establish
an hypothetical time boundary?.

Pablo Massa
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