- Key signatures and harmony not developed yet
- Modal melodies used
- Plain chant / gregorian chant - used by monks and sung in monasteries / churches
- Free flowing melodies
- Contrasts of sounds and instruments rather than blending together
- Music is polyphonic - many sounds interweaving
- Common intervals heard = unison, 4ths, 5ths and octaves
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- Pipe & tabor - a pipe and two headed drum played by one person
- Shawm- a double reed instrument, ancestor of the oboe
- Cornett - ivory or wood instrument bound with leather. Has a trumpet-like mouthpiece and finger-holes like a recorder
- Harp - smaller than the modern harp and with fewer strings
- Fiddle - slightly larger than the modern viola this had a flatter bridge to allow more than one string to be played at once.
- Hurdy-gurdy - stringed instrument, whose strings were vibrated by turning a handle at the base. Sliders were pressed onto the strings using the fingers.
- Also recorders of various sizes, bagpipes and percussion instruments
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Introduction