GabrielCremeens
Music Director at St. George, Albuquerque, NM
Good evening to everyone, and I hope that this post finds all of you well.
I want to make something of an offer to the English-speaking members of the forum, in the hopes of simultaneously helping myself to finish a project that I have been working on sporadically for a while now.
As some of you may know, I am currently living in Athens, Greece, in an attempt to continue improving my knowledge of the Psaltic Art in general, and of composition specifically. One of my goals for this time period is, with God's help, to complete my main project, which is the composition of an English Doxastarion - essentially an English equivalent of Μουσική Κυψέλη, with settings of the idiomela for every day of the Church year. I have been working on this sporadically for the past couple years, and I would like to tackle it systematically now and finish it, God willing.
As a way to help myself work systematically, I would like to propose the following: upon request, I will attempt to compose music for the needs of some of the English-speaking members of the forum. (I assume that these will generally align, roughly, with the liturgical year as we progress through it.) I would, of course, ask that these requests come significantly in advance (at least a couple of weeks) so that I can try and give myself enough time to work on them. I can't promise that I will be able to complete all of them on time (due to my other commitments here in Greece, such as the churches I chant at regularly), but I will do my absolute best to try to have them ready for people to make use of them. I also think it will help keep me motivated.
Upon completion of the score, I will upload it to the forum, or (alternately) send it in a private message to the person who requested it. I note: the score will be a draft, not a type-set version.
The only thing I ask of those who request/use these scores is that, upon having chanted them, they contact me afterward (either using the forum topic where I post the score, or via PM or e-mail) with suggestions and/or corrections (orthographical, musical mistakes etc) concerning the score that I wrote. This will help me to correct and improve the score as much as possible, and also ensure that I am not working totally in a vacuum. Here in Greece, I don't exactly use or hear my compositions very often or receive feedback about them.
God willing, after a certain period of time, I hope to have completed the entire Church year in this fashion. Then, I can move on to compiling, correcting, and typesetting the scores - but that's a whole other chapter with its own challenges.
In Christ,
Gabriel
P.S. I just realized that this might not have been clear from the above message - the only things I will try to take "requests" for will be idiomela and doxastika from the Menaion. (And, specifically, from the Menaion of Holy Transfiguration Monastery.) In other words, I will not set to music hymns from the Triodion (when we find ourselves in the Triodion period again), nor from the Paraklitiki (of which there is no complete English translation) nor the Pentecostarion (yet. God willing I hope to do that someday, but that's farther down the road).
Also, this does not apply to hymns from the Menaion that are not idiomela or doxastika (e.g. canons, slow prosomia, etc). Basically, I will only compose music for the following:
Idiomela of Vespers (at Lord I have Cried, the Aposticha, or the Entreaty)
Doxastika of Vespers, the Aposticha, or the Entreaty
Idiomela after the Orthros Gospel (and the "Glory"/"Both Now" beforehand, if that is a special idiomelon, as happens on some feast days of the Lord and other occasions.)
Praises Idiomela
Praises Doxastika
...In other words, whatever one would search for in the book Μουσική Κυψέλη.
I want to make something of an offer to the English-speaking members of the forum, in the hopes of simultaneously helping myself to finish a project that I have been working on sporadically for a while now.
As some of you may know, I am currently living in Athens, Greece, in an attempt to continue improving my knowledge of the Psaltic Art in general, and of composition specifically. One of my goals for this time period is, with God's help, to complete my main project, which is the composition of an English Doxastarion - essentially an English equivalent of Μουσική Κυψέλη, with settings of the idiomela for every day of the Church year. I have been working on this sporadically for the past couple years, and I would like to tackle it systematically now and finish it, God willing.
As a way to help myself work systematically, I would like to propose the following: upon request, I will attempt to compose music for the needs of some of the English-speaking members of the forum. (I assume that these will generally align, roughly, with the liturgical year as we progress through it.) I would, of course, ask that these requests come significantly in advance (at least a couple of weeks) so that I can try and give myself enough time to work on them. I can't promise that I will be able to complete all of them on time (due to my other commitments here in Greece, such as the churches I chant at regularly), but I will do my absolute best to try to have them ready for people to make use of them. I also think it will help keep me motivated.
Upon completion of the score, I will upload it to the forum, or (alternately) send it in a private message to the person who requested it. I note: the score will be a draft, not a type-set version.
The only thing I ask of those who request/use these scores is that, upon having chanted them, they contact me afterward (either using the forum topic where I post the score, or via PM or e-mail) with suggestions and/or corrections (orthographical, musical mistakes etc) concerning the score that I wrote. This will help me to correct and improve the score as much as possible, and also ensure that I am not working totally in a vacuum. Here in Greece, I don't exactly use or hear my compositions very often or receive feedback about them.
God willing, after a certain period of time, I hope to have completed the entire Church year in this fashion. Then, I can move on to compiling, correcting, and typesetting the scores - but that's a whole other chapter with its own challenges.
In Christ,
Gabriel
P.S. I just realized that this might not have been clear from the above message - the only things I will try to take "requests" for will be idiomela and doxastika from the Menaion. (And, specifically, from the Menaion of Holy Transfiguration Monastery.) In other words, I will not set to music hymns from the Triodion (when we find ourselves in the Triodion period again), nor from the Paraklitiki (of which there is no complete English translation) nor the Pentecostarion (yet. God willing I hope to do that someday, but that's farther down the road).
Also, this does not apply to hymns from the Menaion that are not idiomela or doxastika (e.g. canons, slow prosomia, etc). Basically, I will only compose music for the following:
Idiomela of Vespers (at Lord I have Cried, the Aposticha, or the Entreaty)
Doxastika of Vespers, the Aposticha, or the Entreaty
Idiomela after the Orthros Gospel (and the "Glory"/"Both Now" beforehand, if that is a special idiomelon, as happens on some feast days of the Lord and other occasions.)
Praises Idiomela
Praises Doxastika
...In other words, whatever one would search for in the book Μουσική Κυψέλη.