The project brings together plainsong, English psalmody and the fretted dulcimer. Its immediate purpose is devotional: to make Morning and Evening Prayer from the Little Office singable by someone without specialist musical training.
The work uses pointed English texts, modal reciting tones and simple cadences. Solfège names the relationships between notes, while dulcimer tablature places those relationships on the fretboard without reducing chant to a fixed instrumental tune.
The dulcimer supplies a quiet drone and a spare melodic support. The voice remains primary. The aim is not concert performance, but a stable household practice in which text, breath, mode and instrument can be learned together.
A working toy
The first public piece of the project is a working toy of sorts: a browser-based ear and fretboard toy for sounding D Dorian against D and A drones. It belongs before the Office itself, as a place to hear how the mode settles under the hand and in the ear.
In preparation
Beginner rubrics; Morning and Evening offices; selected psalm tones; movable-do exercises; and tablature for a fretted dulcimer tuned for modal accompaniment.