A Beginner's Guide to Reading Gregorian Chant Notation

"This short book is an effort to quickly outline and explain the simple system of writing and reading chant. Prior to organization of the writing of chant into this form there were squiggled signs above words that were the first attempts to preserve the oral tradition of sung chant. This form has been refined over the centuries and is also the basis of modern music notation. Note the engraving on the cover of the book for an example of one stage of the process in the notation of a familiar carol." - Noel Jones, Author

Noel Jones first sang chant in a choir of men and boys and then chanted daily masses before he was a teenager in a small town in Ohio. Summer studies with Benedictine monks took him further along with chant prior to his leaving to study church music in New Yor where he directed Catholic boy choirs, men's and girl's choirs and was organist at the Church Center for the United Nations Singers. Later in Germany he was organist for the English masses at the DOM Cathedral in Frankfurt. Later in life, working as a church organ designer, he eventually settled in Tennessee, where he joined the staff of a Catholic church as the director of music and became involved in returning its music to chant and polyphony. He, along with Mary Weaver, have founded Musicam Sacram, a Church Music Association of America (CMAA) chapter in East Tennessee.