Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In medieval music, the practice or effect of adding passing-notes and other embellishments to a plain-song melody.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun rare, archaic A style of
singing , especially of sacred music, cultivated from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century, centered on Paris, and derived from the Gallican ritual; in this style vocal lines are decorated with improvised ornamentation, and differentiated from each other in a polyphonic composition also by tone color.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Thus their artistic heritage has become so altered and disfigured by successive additions, or "machicotage," as to bear no resemblance to the original, this being buried under a heap of useless complications.
Style in Singing W. E. Haslam
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First, the plainchant passages are done in the old "machicotage" style.
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