Following from a general discussion from around this message and onwards, I thought the following remarks by Dr. Alexander Lingas, Professor of Music History, City University of London, founder and director of Cappella Romana, might help shed some light on the relationship between Chant and Polyphony and their possible misunderstanding and misapplication in America.
In Greek America there has been a misapplication and a misunderstanding of even the Western model of how chant and polyphony work together. Because Chant in the High Western Liturgical Traditions, that are as ancient as our own, is the basis of the repertoire. It is the default. It was you do all the time. And then polyphony is originally something like kalophonia. It's something that's added on top, as a way of decorating. And I think there's been a fundamental misapplication of that model. So if you don't know how to do the chant first, which is the basic thing to do the services, you really then precede on to polyphony if you want for certain purposes. And I think there's a whole way of defending that from the history of western music and liturgical music as well.