Nikolaos Giannoukakis
Παλαιό Μέλος
Dear John (saltypsalti):
These are the major reasons why the Karas method has no basis in history or oral continuity:
1) It brings back a number of paleographic neumes that were explained and transcribed first by Petros Pelloponesios into a simpler exegetic manner and then further by Chourmouzios and Gregorios into the linear Chrysanthine system in use to this day. 1) Those paleographic neumes that were transcribed into the linear exegetic notation; and 2) other paleographic neumes that served no purpose - since the linear Chrysanthine notation reproduced their features, BY CONSENSUS OF THE CHURCH IN AN OFFICIAL MANNER, and all the Patriarchal and Musical Societies (and the overwhelming majority of the psaltae who KNEW the old stenographic paleography) - were abandoned.
Karas revived some of the paleographic neumes and assigned a NEW, ARBITRARY and REVISIONIST exegesis that has no basis in oral or manuscript evidence. Even Karas did not provide any sources in any of his written works to support WHERE AND FROM WHO HE HEARD THE EXECUTION OF THE OLD STENOGRAPHIC NEUMES.
2) Disregarding the centuries-old accepted system of 8 tones and three genera, the Karas method goes on a tangent and invents more than 100 variations of tonal interval relationships (some with very strange names alluding to the practice of the Turkish makamat) that he terms Tones and Sub-Tones (middle, sub-middle, and even stranger novelty).
What the Three Genera/8-Tone system offers to students in a digestible and understandable manner learnable in less than a year, Karas offers a product that is at best confusing and at worst a pathologic rambling. Where the Chrysanthine system intends to simplify (and the results are evident in the thousands of individuals who can chant well inside a five-year period), the Karas method obscures and forces onto the learner a return to a period of stenography and hieroglyphs. The very opposite of what patriarchal committees and chantors in the 1800s intended.......
3) It invents tonal ratios that have no oral historic and no mathematic historical precedent. Some intervals cannot even be distinguished by the human ear.
4) The Karas method invents scales that are undecipherable in the context of any rational temperament and rooting in the tradition of the fifth (pentachord) or fourth (tetrachord).
A team was assembled recently to test the chromatic genera of Karas using the MELODOS software (http://www.melodos.com/index2.htm) and the outcome is not representative of the oral witness of the chromatic genera of the past 60 years
(see here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=79964&postcount=1
AND here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80062&postcount=37
AND here, in response to a request by Mr. Arvanitis: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80147&postcount=45).
We are in the process of examining the diatonic "variations" of the Karas method and the results to the ear are horrible and have no basis in 60+ years of oral and recorded witness. Soon, we will post those results....
We have asked the Karas experts to identify the fractional ratios that lead to some of Karas' more exotic integers (i.e. 23, 21, 3) to help us reconstruct the "scales" of Karas in the MELODOS software, and so far they are unwilling or unable to offer those fractional ratios
(see here:http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=81059&postcount=78)
5) The execution and performance of the qualitative neumes as well as the accentual Chrysanthine neumes by the Karas school is not in line with 60 years of oral witness and more important, the cadences are exaggerated to the point where the melody adopts a profanity while sacrificing the strict simple and judicious execution of the qualitative neumes as witnessed in 60+ years of oral evidence (tapes, records of old psaltae)
6) Even as the tonal intervals offered by Karas are problematic in the context of even just intonation, the practitioners of Karas seem to not obey even those intervals as they perform even MORE EXTREME intervals to the point where one cannot distinguish a clear tone and generum from common dissonance of closely spaced quarter and eighth tonal intervals (for example, the clear intervals of second tone stichiraric become so condensed that they resemble the execution of the spathi chroa by the Karas school. There are many more examples of this extreme revisionism and arbitrary invention of intervals and manner of execution and exegesis).
These points serve as an overview of the problem. We could spend megabytes on the details, but I believe that the Greek side of the forum is instructive in providing us those megabytes of discussion. If the moderator believes that it serves a useful purpose to go over those (how many times has the Karas issue been discussed Mr. Koubaroulis???) issues, I would be delighted to go over them in excruciating detail.
In closing, I am still waiting for the champions of the Karas method (whether they are experts or not) to fill in the blanks in the table I seek in an earlier post
(see here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80322&postcount=3
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80683&postcount=5
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80687&postcount=7
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80283&postcount=43
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80182&postcount=37)
I believe all these questions I have raised in older posts (above) can be a starting point for further academic discussion. Even though the same questions have been posed across numerous posts, I sense that the champions of the Karas method either do not have the luxury of time (as I apparently have) or the capacity to answer. Instead, they engage in laic and childish playful cajoling instead of mature and serious fact-based and data-driven discussion.
Last, Mr. Arvanitis provides a letter from the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (see here: http://www.analogion.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81943&postcount=12) that, unless he provides the following data (sought further below), offers no evidence that the Patriarchate SANCTIONED THEN, OR SANCTIONS TODAY, THE KARAS METHOD.
I will paraphrase the letter to English, and then I will ask Mr. Arvanitis to answer some questions:
"Ecumenical Patriarchate
Arch-Secretariat of the Holy Synod
Number 49, protocol 24
To the erudite musicological Mr. Simon Karas, President of the Society for the Dissemination of the National Music
To Athens:
His All-Holiness, our venerable Father and Bishop, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, received and, in Synodical conference (after the specific introduction by the specific committee on Holy Worship), reviewed the letter of your kind and erudite musicology submitted, dated the 2nd of November of last year, describing the efforts of the Society you have founded towards the preservation and dissemination of the national and ecclesiastic music through specific initiatives and seeking the support of the Mother Church.
In response, as decided by the Synod and directed by the Patriarch, I transmit to your erudite musicology and all your associates, that the Ecumenical Throne blesses and supports the efforts of the Society and lauds the indicated initiatives through its blessings. In recognition of the personal multiyear and valuable contribution of your erudite musicology, [the Patriarchate] submits and distinguishes you through this appropriate Ecclesiastic offikion, which will be granted and bestowed to you personally, in the future, by a Patriarchal representative.
On this, I convey to you and your associates of the Society the holy blessings of our all-Holy Patriarch in support of, and in best wishes for the success of the indicated initiatives. I submit this in the love and blessings in Christ,
In the Patriarchal Edifices, February 13, 1995,
Meliton of Philadelphia,
Arch-Secretary of the Holy Synod"
Now, this letter to Karas, as presented, offers nothing factual other than:
1) Karas submitted a letter to the Patriarch on November 2nd 1994, outlining the entity called "the Society for the Dissemination of the National Music" and, I speculate, its general objectives and accomplishments. Karas evidently seeks some form of "support" in his efforts which we have no evidence about (see questions later)
2) The Patriarch, as he always does on such matters, delegates such requests to appropriate committees of the Holy Synod. Karas' request was delegated (as evidenced in Metropolitan Meliton's letter) to the Synodical Committee on Holy Worship.
3) The Committee at some point submitted a summary and appropriate details and possibly a course of action on Karas' request(s) to the entire Synod. The Synod evidently followed the committee's recommendation.
4) The Synod decided, and the Patriarch directed, that an offikion be bestowed to Karas in RECOGNITION OF THE INITIATIVES AND OUTCOMES DETAILED IN THE LETTER BY KARAS, and that the offikion be bestowed to him by a representative of the Patriarch at some time in the future.
My comments on the letter:
a) If Mr. Arvanitis is trying to persuade us that this letter proves that the Patriarch and the Holy Synod (and the committee on Holy Worship) in 1995 BLESSED THE KARAS METHOD as a teaching and chanting method by chantors then he is MISREPRESENTING THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER OF THE RESPONSE OF THE HOLY SYNOD TO KARAS, or otherwise engaging in other disingenious sophistry and questionable tactics in persuading us to equate a BLESSING FOR THE EFFORTS OF THE SOCIETY, ITS OBJECTIVES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN ITS MISSION as equal to APPROVAL AND BLESSING OF THE KARAS METHOD.
b) For a full and proper contextual evaluation of the INTENT of the Synodical letter, Mr. Arvanitis should supply the letter that Karas submitted to the Patriarch (i.e. scan it and post it here). What initiatives did Karas list in his letter? How did he phrase these initiatives? How general or specific was the description? How factual was the description? Did Karas supply his THEORY WORKS as a companion to the letter and did the Committee on Holy Worship examine this and any related works?
c) The Synodical response alludes to an offikion to be bestowed to Karas at some point in the future. What was this offikion specifically? When was it finally bestowed and by which patriarchal representative? Can Mr. Arvanitis post an image of the offikion so we can get an accurate picture of the precise reasons for its issuance.
d) In line with my point (a) above, nowhere in the letter of Metropolitan Meliton is any reference made to the Karas Method. In fact, and Mr. Arvanitis knows very well that any submission of a specific work (book for example) to the Patriarchate for evaluation and blessing receives a direct and signed response from the Patriarch himself and SPECIFICALLY STATES IN DETAIL that the blessing is granted for THE SPECIFIC BOOK AND WORKS. The letter by Metropolitan Meliton has no such reference.
Awaiting the Karas champions to answer my questions earlier in this long post, and hoping that John Presson (saltypsalti) is clearer on the Karas problem, Father Ephraim can pray for my sinful soul as a weak human, I await Mr. Arvanitis to post the letter Karas submitted to the Patriarch in 1994 which triggered the reply of the letter dated the 13th of February 1995.
NG.
These are the major reasons why the Karas method has no basis in history or oral continuity:
1) It brings back a number of paleographic neumes that were explained and transcribed first by Petros Pelloponesios into a simpler exegetic manner and then further by Chourmouzios and Gregorios into the linear Chrysanthine system in use to this day. 1) Those paleographic neumes that were transcribed into the linear exegetic notation; and 2) other paleographic neumes that served no purpose - since the linear Chrysanthine notation reproduced their features, BY CONSENSUS OF THE CHURCH IN AN OFFICIAL MANNER, and all the Patriarchal and Musical Societies (and the overwhelming majority of the psaltae who KNEW the old stenographic paleography) - were abandoned.
Karas revived some of the paleographic neumes and assigned a NEW, ARBITRARY and REVISIONIST exegesis that has no basis in oral or manuscript evidence. Even Karas did not provide any sources in any of his written works to support WHERE AND FROM WHO HE HEARD THE EXECUTION OF THE OLD STENOGRAPHIC NEUMES.
2) Disregarding the centuries-old accepted system of 8 tones and three genera, the Karas method goes on a tangent and invents more than 100 variations of tonal interval relationships (some with very strange names alluding to the practice of the Turkish makamat) that he terms Tones and Sub-Tones (middle, sub-middle, and even stranger novelty).
What the Three Genera/8-Tone system offers to students in a digestible and understandable manner learnable in less than a year, Karas offers a product that is at best confusing and at worst a pathologic rambling. Where the Chrysanthine system intends to simplify (and the results are evident in the thousands of individuals who can chant well inside a five-year period), the Karas method obscures and forces onto the learner a return to a period of stenography and hieroglyphs. The very opposite of what patriarchal committees and chantors in the 1800s intended.......
3) It invents tonal ratios that have no oral historic and no mathematic historical precedent. Some intervals cannot even be distinguished by the human ear.
4) The Karas method invents scales that are undecipherable in the context of any rational temperament and rooting in the tradition of the fifth (pentachord) or fourth (tetrachord).
A team was assembled recently to test the chromatic genera of Karas using the MELODOS software (http://www.melodos.com/index2.htm) and the outcome is not representative of the oral witness of the chromatic genera of the past 60 years
(see here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=79964&postcount=1
AND here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80062&postcount=37
AND here, in response to a request by Mr. Arvanitis: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80147&postcount=45).
We are in the process of examining the diatonic "variations" of the Karas method and the results to the ear are horrible and have no basis in 60+ years of oral and recorded witness. Soon, we will post those results....
We have asked the Karas experts to identify the fractional ratios that lead to some of Karas' more exotic integers (i.e. 23, 21, 3) to help us reconstruct the "scales" of Karas in the MELODOS software, and so far they are unwilling or unable to offer those fractional ratios
(see here:http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=81059&postcount=78)
5) The execution and performance of the qualitative neumes as well as the accentual Chrysanthine neumes by the Karas school is not in line with 60 years of oral witness and more important, the cadences are exaggerated to the point where the melody adopts a profanity while sacrificing the strict simple and judicious execution of the qualitative neumes as witnessed in 60+ years of oral evidence (tapes, records of old psaltae)
6) Even as the tonal intervals offered by Karas are problematic in the context of even just intonation, the practitioners of Karas seem to not obey even those intervals as they perform even MORE EXTREME intervals to the point where one cannot distinguish a clear tone and generum from common dissonance of closely spaced quarter and eighth tonal intervals (for example, the clear intervals of second tone stichiraric become so condensed that they resemble the execution of the spathi chroa by the Karas school. There are many more examples of this extreme revisionism and arbitrary invention of intervals and manner of execution and exegesis).
These points serve as an overview of the problem. We could spend megabytes on the details, but I believe that the Greek side of the forum is instructive in providing us those megabytes of discussion. If the moderator believes that it serves a useful purpose to go over those (how many times has the Karas issue been discussed Mr. Koubaroulis???) issues, I would be delighted to go over them in excruciating detail.
In closing, I am still waiting for the champions of the Karas method (whether they are experts or not) to fill in the blanks in the table I seek in an earlier post
(see here: http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80322&postcount=3
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80683&postcount=5
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80687&postcount=7
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80283&postcount=43
AND here:
http://www.psaltologion.com/showpost.php?p=80182&postcount=37)
I believe all these questions I have raised in older posts (above) can be a starting point for further academic discussion. Even though the same questions have been posed across numerous posts, I sense that the champions of the Karas method either do not have the luxury of time (as I apparently have) or the capacity to answer. Instead, they engage in laic and childish playful cajoling instead of mature and serious fact-based and data-driven discussion.
Last, Mr. Arvanitis provides a letter from the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (see here: http://www.analogion.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81943&postcount=12) that, unless he provides the following data (sought further below), offers no evidence that the Patriarchate SANCTIONED THEN, OR SANCTIONS TODAY, THE KARAS METHOD.
I will paraphrase the letter to English, and then I will ask Mr. Arvanitis to answer some questions:
"Ecumenical Patriarchate
Arch-Secretariat of the Holy Synod
Number 49, protocol 24
To the erudite musicological Mr. Simon Karas, President of the Society for the Dissemination of the National Music
To Athens:
His All-Holiness, our venerable Father and Bishop, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, received and, in Synodical conference (after the specific introduction by the specific committee on Holy Worship), reviewed the letter of your kind and erudite musicology submitted, dated the 2nd of November of last year, describing the efforts of the Society you have founded towards the preservation and dissemination of the national and ecclesiastic music through specific initiatives and seeking the support of the Mother Church.
In response, as decided by the Synod and directed by the Patriarch, I transmit to your erudite musicology and all your associates, that the Ecumenical Throne blesses and supports the efforts of the Society and lauds the indicated initiatives through its blessings. In recognition of the personal multiyear and valuable contribution of your erudite musicology, [the Patriarchate] submits and distinguishes you through this appropriate Ecclesiastic offikion, which will be granted and bestowed to you personally, in the future, by a Patriarchal representative.
On this, I convey to you and your associates of the Society the holy blessings of our all-Holy Patriarch in support of, and in best wishes for the success of the indicated initiatives. I submit this in the love and blessings in Christ,
In the Patriarchal Edifices, February 13, 1995,
Meliton of Philadelphia,
Arch-Secretary of the Holy Synod"
Now, this letter to Karas, as presented, offers nothing factual other than:
1) Karas submitted a letter to the Patriarch on November 2nd 1994, outlining the entity called "the Society for the Dissemination of the National Music" and, I speculate, its general objectives and accomplishments. Karas evidently seeks some form of "support" in his efforts which we have no evidence about (see questions later)
2) The Patriarch, as he always does on such matters, delegates such requests to appropriate committees of the Holy Synod. Karas' request was delegated (as evidenced in Metropolitan Meliton's letter) to the Synodical Committee on Holy Worship.
3) The Committee at some point submitted a summary and appropriate details and possibly a course of action on Karas' request(s) to the entire Synod. The Synod evidently followed the committee's recommendation.
4) The Synod decided, and the Patriarch directed, that an offikion be bestowed to Karas in RECOGNITION OF THE INITIATIVES AND OUTCOMES DETAILED IN THE LETTER BY KARAS, and that the offikion be bestowed to him by a representative of the Patriarch at some time in the future.
My comments on the letter:
a) If Mr. Arvanitis is trying to persuade us that this letter proves that the Patriarch and the Holy Synod (and the committee on Holy Worship) in 1995 BLESSED THE KARAS METHOD as a teaching and chanting method by chantors then he is MISREPRESENTING THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER OF THE RESPONSE OF THE HOLY SYNOD TO KARAS, or otherwise engaging in other disingenious sophistry and questionable tactics in persuading us to equate a BLESSING FOR THE EFFORTS OF THE SOCIETY, ITS OBJECTIVES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN ITS MISSION as equal to APPROVAL AND BLESSING OF THE KARAS METHOD.
b) For a full and proper contextual evaluation of the INTENT of the Synodical letter, Mr. Arvanitis should supply the letter that Karas submitted to the Patriarch (i.e. scan it and post it here). What initiatives did Karas list in his letter? How did he phrase these initiatives? How general or specific was the description? How factual was the description? Did Karas supply his THEORY WORKS as a companion to the letter and did the Committee on Holy Worship examine this and any related works?
c) The Synodical response alludes to an offikion to be bestowed to Karas at some point in the future. What was this offikion specifically? When was it finally bestowed and by which patriarchal representative? Can Mr. Arvanitis post an image of the offikion so we can get an accurate picture of the precise reasons for its issuance.
d) In line with my point (a) above, nowhere in the letter of Metropolitan Meliton is any reference made to the Karas Method. In fact, and Mr. Arvanitis knows very well that any submission of a specific work (book for example) to the Patriarchate for evaluation and blessing receives a direct and signed response from the Patriarch himself and SPECIFICALLY STATES IN DETAIL that the blessing is granted for THE SPECIFIC BOOK AND WORKS. The letter by Metropolitan Meliton has no such reference.
Awaiting the Karas champions to answer my questions earlier in this long post, and hoping that John Presson (saltypsalti) is clearer on the Karas problem, Father Ephraim can pray for my sinful soul as a weak human, I await Mr. Arvanitis to post the letter Karas submitted to the Patriarch in 1994 which triggered the reply of the letter dated the 13th of February 1995.
NG.
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