In chant, a reciting tone (also called a recitation tone) is a repeated musical pitch around which the other pitches of the chant gravitate, or by extension, the entire melodic formula that centers on one or two such pitches. In Gregorian chant, reciting tones are used for a number of contexts, including the chanting of psalm tones. Each mode has its own associated psalm tone, whose primary pitch is variously called the dominant, tenor, or tuba.
"Reciting tone" can refer to the repeated pitch in isolation or to the entire melodic formula for which that pitch is a structural note.
Read more about Reciting Tone: Reciting Tones in Other Chant Traditions
Famous quotes containing the words reciting and/or tone:
“If the oarsmen of a fast-moving ship suddenly cease to row, the suspension of the driving force of the oars doesn’t prevent the vessel from continuing to move on its course. And with a speech it is much the same. After he has finished reciting the document, the speaker will still be able to maintain the same tone without a break, borrowing its momentum and impulse from the passage he has just read out.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C)
“Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)