machicotage
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]machicotage (uncountable)
- (rare, archaic) A style of singing, especially of sacred music, cultivated from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century, centered on Paris, and derived from the Gallican ritual; in this style vocal lines are decorated with improvised ornamentation, and differentiated from each other in a polyphonic composition also by tone color.
- 1995, Peter Jeffery, Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant:
- A similar practice in French cathedrals, called machicotage, is documented from 1391 through at least the eighteenth century.