Ever since seeing the YouTube video of the Magnificat in the CIEL 2006 conference at Oxford, I've been inspired to figure out what exactly that style of chant is. What I found during my Google quests is a style of music called fauxbourdon, which is a kind of harmonized chant. There is also apparently a style called faburden. I'm not really sure what the difference is.
If you know anything about this or harmonized chant, is there any wisdom you could share here? I'd like to incorporate the style used in the video perhaps for singing the Alleluia verse on Ascension or Pentecost, just to break the monotony of using the same old acclamation & psalm tone every time, but without going so far as using the chant in the Graduale (Latin, Ordinary Form, 3 voices for an all-men's schola). Unfortunately, I'm not a professional musician and I don't want to ask my choir director because he's just too darn busy to worry about this kind of stuff. But if you know about this and can give some basic guidelines on composition, I'd be quite grateful. I could then pass the info on to someone I know in real life who knows more about music theory and composition than I do. If we're lucky, we could use harmonized chant on a regular basis.