Early Musicians
The Middle Ages (476-1453 ce) saw the fall the Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church in Europe, which was crucial to the spread of through the Western world. The first church music was called plainsong. It was monophonic—a single tune sung by either one person or a group, mostly from , memory before musical notation existed. M this period, secular (nonreligious) music began to flourish, but it was rarely written down. Most of it was performed. by minstrels who composed songs about coutly love and accompanied themselves on the lute, the forerunner of the guitar, and the vielle, a kind of violin .