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Gregorian Chant
Gregorian Chant is a single sung line with no harmony and no instruments: a small group of voices in near-unison moving stepwise between E4 and F5, in free rhythm with no beat. Nothing deep sits under the voices, and the sound stays in one place. It is plainchant, described as music.
Ready to play
Put this under rain or a fire, keep the blend you end up with, and play it through the night with your screen off. The Slo app does that on iOS, Android and Mac.
What the recording actually contains
Two things identify it. First, it is monophonic: you hear one line at a time, moving mostly by step through E4, F4, G4, A4, B4, C5, E5 and F5, with no second part underneath and no instruments. Second, the note you hear is not one clean voice but a tight bundle of voices a hair apart on the same pitch, which is what a small group singing in unison sounds like. There is no regular pulse to follow at any point.
A historical note worth getting right
Plainchant forms a documented musical tradition of the Western church: Latin, unaccompanied, and notated since roughly the ninth century. Writers online often tie it to the so-called solfeggio frequencies, and that tie does not hold. Whoever assembled the solfeggio set did so in the 1970s, working from a numerological reading of the Book of Numbers rather than documented Gregorian practice. Measuring pitch in hertz also came centuries later: the standard that fixes A at 440 Hz dates from 1975, and nobody could have given a medieval melody a frequency before there was a standard to measure it against. The chant carries real music and a real history; the frequency story attached to it belongs to neither.
For other single-line material, Mystic Flute is instrumental and Singing Bowl holds one pitch throughout. The full catalogue is on the sound library index. To place the voices in a larger space, try the Gregorian chant and dungeon air blend in the free sound mixer.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gregorian chant the origin of the solfeggio frequencies?
No. The solfeggio set dates from the 1970s, put together by a numerological reading of the Book of Numbers rather than documented chant practice. Measuring pitch in hertz also came long after the chant, so nobody could have given a medieval melody a frequency.
How many parts are being sung?
One. There is a single melody, sung by several voices together on the same note, which is why it sounds thicker than one singer would.
Are there instruments in the recording?
No. The voices sing unaccompanied, and there is nothing deep underneath them.
Does it have a beat?
No. Plainchant is sung in free rhythm, following the text rather than a regular pulse, and the recording reflects that.