The medieval musical experience is impossible to recapture, for most of the music of daily life is lost to us.

The sounds of street hawkers, the songs sung in the fields to lighten the tedium of labor, the dances that accompanied so many festivities, much of the music intended for the stage, and even the musical component of many troubadour songs have proven ephemeral.

Even the music that 'survives' does so in a fashion that leaves unanswered fundamental questions about how it originally sounded.

The medieval musician, professional or amateur, expected to improvise, adding and changing musical materials as he or she performed a piece.

The kind of instrument or voice to be used, the pitches in the melody, the kind of accompaniment (if any) might vary from one time to the next, as might the tempo, the volume, or even the rhythm.

Medieval notation can be frustratingly vague for the modern scholar attempting to reconstruct a plausible and historically-informed medieval sound.

Yet the music that does survive forms a sumptuous legacy, ranging from the sacred to the profane and from monophonic texture with a single melody sung alone to the richly polyphonic with several independent voices operating simultaneously.

The church, the court, the university, the town, and the tavern have all contributed tangibly to our musical heritage.

Most serious music in the Middle Ages, both sacred and secular, was song, involving words as an important element (not abstract musical design, as in the more recent European musical tradition.)

Therefore aspects of text-music relations, such as liturgical function or poetic form, are an essential element in understanding the music.