Pla’cito(It.) Pleasure

4 be’ne placito, at (the performer's) pleasure; means that the tempo may be altered, graces or cadenzas added, or that certain specified instr.s may be used or not, as fancy may dictate. Plagal cadence, mode, see Cadence, fode...Plagal melody, one whose range extends about a fourth below and a fifth above its tonic or final.—Péaga/ is opp. to Authentic in all senses. Plain chant, Plain song. (Lat. can’tus pla'nus, cantus chora’lis.) -The unisonous vocal music of the Christian Church, probably dating from the first centuries of the Christian era, the style being still obligatory in the R. C. ritual, Handed down at the beginning by oral tradition, it was first regulated by St. Ambrose (see Ambrosian chant), and later revised by St. Gregory (Greg or i an chant), ‘The comparatively modern name cantus plan us distinguished this style from that of the strictly rhythmical cantus mensura’ bilis, which originated early in the r2th century, after which period plain chant began to be sung in notes of equal length; in its earlier form, however, the tone-values of plain chant were determined by rules very similar to those for poetical metre. Just as a poem consists of lines, the lines of feet, and the feet of 2 or more syllables, a melody was divided into so called distinctions consisting of a more or le extended group of neumes (notes), a distinction being in turn divided into single neumes (single notes), each neume, finally, representing one or more fones, Thus a metrical line corresponded to a musical distinction, a metrical foot to a musical neume, and oe to atone. (Comp. Notation,