> as lemmas

1597 T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke 76 Two plainesong notes for one in the descant..is commonlie called binding descant.

1597 T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke 86 Base descant..is that kinde of descanting, where your sight of taking and vsing your cordes must be vnder the plainsong.

1597 T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke 105 Double descant..is verie neere the nature of a Canon..which being sung after diuers sortes, by changing the partes, maketh diuers manners of harmonie.

1631 E. Bevin Briefe Instr. Art of Musicke 20 There is also a kinde of double discant which is no Canon, but somewhat of the nature of a Canon.

1667 C. Simpson Compend. Pract. Musick iv. 110 Plain Descant (in which was taught the use of the Concords).

1708 J. Harris Lexicon Technicum (ed. 2) I Descant, Figurate or Florid Descant, is that wherein Discords are concerned, as well (though not so much) as concords.

1776 J. Hawkins Gen. Hist. Music IV. ii. v. 199 Those sundry points and passages which constitute the difference between figurate and plain descant.

1818 Musical Tour Dr. Minim 25 There came such a Roundelay in double-descant at the door, that it set all the piano's a jingling.

1841 J. F. Warner Universal Dict. Musical Terms p. xxx/2 in tr. G. Weber Gen. Music Teacher Plain descant is confined to a simple series of concords.

1917 Musical Times 58 157/1 Speaking of fugues in double descant, Purcell says: ‘Of this sort, there are some Fuges used by several Authors in Sonata's.’

1940 G. Reese Music in Middle Ages 398 Bukofzer..gives the name ‘English discant’ to the English style [sc. with the plainsong in the lowest part], retaining that of ‘fauxbourdon’ for the Continental style.

1977 Music & Lett. 58 406 Typically of English descant, the plainsong is carried virtually intact in the middle voice.