On the issue of Simon Karas

[tudorvolcano]

Dear psaltes of Psaltologion/Analogion,

There is this very large controversy concerning Simon Karas.

I did read some material from GKM concerning Simon Karas and his pupils, but I think I do not have a good enough overview of what the issues really are.

Can someone reference me to some links that explain in detail all the issues concerning Simon Karas' school, in order to now what to avoid when singing Psaltike?

The school of Simon Karas has become far too widespread in the world right know, and the number of traditional psaltes is quickly shrinking, meaning it will be very hard to find someone who is critical of Simon Karas, that will be able to explain all the issues of his school, and I fear that the lack of action would lead to his school practices influencing even the traditional schools, simply because his movement has expanded so quickly.

 

[Nikolaos Giannoukakis]

There is a copious amount of discussion on the matter in the Greek, and here inside the English part of Psaltologion. There is no need, and I would add, it would be unconstructive and unhelpful, to begin the process over again. I would recommend that you use the search function to identify those discussions and then, based on the arguments presented make up your mind about what is based on facts and tradition and what is not. No matter what one might hold dear concerning theory and interpretation, as members of the "lower clergy" - as far as those under the auspice of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, one ought to also consider the formal position of the Church on the matter. That too, is findable inside the Greek and this English section. Last, the authentic received tradition, that of the Mother Church, is spreading much faster globally. It may not have the money and the PR of the Karas movement behind it, but it has the authenticity and the history of the ecclesia behind it.
In the end, it is you who determines what is tenable, and what you adopt to follow, and what is not.

 

[Dimitri]

You can find a lot of previous discussion in this older topic. Unless you have a specific question I suggest this thread here is not continued to avoid another flame war.

 

[brucewayne]

I believe the above mentioned topic was an offshoot of this topic. I do not recommend reading either one.

I do have a specific question, which I have not asked before now because I did not want to start another flame war. But since the can has already been opened...

The poster has asked the following.

Can someone reference me to some links that explain in detail all the issues concerning Simon Karas' school, in order to now what to avoid when singing Psaltike?

My question is perhaps similar. I have never had the occasion to read Karas' books and I have not read anything that specifically answers this question, which is the following.

Could someone provide a succinct list of what exactly Karas introduced? I'm not asking for justification or opinions as to why what he introduced was correct or incorrect because this has been discussed in the Greek and English forums. I'm just asking for a list. What I've gathered so far, which may be wrong is the following.

- Re-introduced old orthographic signs (question, which signs did he introduce and what does he suggest that they do?) I'm aware of the controversy of "how does he know what those signs mean?". I don't care about that controversy as it's been discussed already in previous posts. I just want to know what the signs are and what Karas' claims they mean.

- Suggested alternate intervals (not sure which ones, exactly)

- I think I read something about plagal second being referred to as diatonic instead of chromatic (I could be way off here).

- What else?

 

[evangelos]

I believe the above mentioned topic was an offshoot of this topic. I do not recommend reading either one.

I do have a specific question, which I have not asked before now because I did not want to start another flame war. But since the can has already been opened...

The poster has asked the following.


My question is perhaps similar. I have never had the occasion to read Karas' books and I have not read anything that specifically answers this question, which is the following.

Could someone provide a succinct list of what exactly Karas introduced? I'm not asking for justification or opinions as to why what he introduced was correct or incorrect because this has been discussed in the Greek and English forums. I'm just asking for a list. What I've gathered so far, which may be wrong is the following.

- Re-introduced old orthographic signs (question, which signs did he introduce and what does he suggest that they do?) I'm aware of the controversy of "how does he know what those signs mean?". I don't care about that controversy as it's been discussed already in previous posts. I just want to know what the signs are and what Karas' claims they mean.

- Suggested alternate intervals (not sure which ones, exactly)

- I think I read something about plagal second being referred to as diatonic instead of chromatic (I could be way off here).

- What else?

I've been student and I have a diploma from this school but I have radically discard this theory.
The main problem of S. Kara's approach and all approaches who continue in the same logic in general is that they don't start the research form the oral tradition, he did'nt ask the great Protopsaltes . Karas used his own feeling to explain what the old theories and papadike mean.
The way from theory to go to praxis is wrong, the correct way is opposit. The beginining must be the praxis, theory is the result of it, not the opposite (they do the opposite).
So many mistakes and the result is a non traditional chanting.
Some of this theory mistakes are:

1) Wrong intervals in all modes.
eg.
a) Ths Ni-Pa tone acording patriarchal committee of 1881should be bigger by defoult not temporary diesis (Pa should be constantly high, not elksis-not temporary diesis )
b)The second mode follows the equal third, so three tetrachords are formed, NH-Ga, Vou-Ke, Di-Nh. Karas' theory rejects equal third and the vou-ke tetrachord. So many hymns cannot be performed or are performed in a bad way, out of the tone
c) There are introduced many wrong diesis as elksis. For example ga diesis in first mode when you just go up from pa to di is wrong but Karas' theory has it.

2)There is a confusion betueen terms of chronos, metro, rhythm and does not follow the traditional-propper tempo of chanting pieces

3)They execute in wrong-not traditional way the quality signs, petasti, psifiston etc. They claim they use in correct way the old characters from ancient music code but no traditional cantor aprooves the way they do it.

 

[Nikolaos Giannoukakis]

At risk of giving life to this topic (a life that it does not need) and careful to avoid technical matters, all the Psaltae of Old-Time, and those today that comprise the large majority of the corpus of practising chantors, agree with the following thought:

With the Chrysanthine exegetic notation that can be learned in less than a year by someone dedicating at least 1/5th of their day studying and learning it, why go back to a time of hieroglyphs and "memorized cadences/musical passages/phrases"? What does this serve other than obscuring what, today, is simple, and - dare I say it - the creation of a class of "elites" to whom a student needs to reach out to to "learn" the "mysteries" of the.....hieroglyphs?

Any attempt to obscure something that is rather straightforward today (assuming one has access to a good teacher) and to create a class of "elites", in my opinion, is not in line with Christian ethos. The church assembled multiple groups of learned chantors in the 19th century to determine if the exegetic notation made it easier to learn and to provide the ecclesia with chantors. The consensus was that it did. And it continues to do so.

Injecting hieroglyphs of the past (as some are doing today) that are meant to serve as mnemonics for "vocal interpretations/ornamentations" disservices the ecclesia.

Put in another way - introducing the UNIVAC and ENIAC processor behemoths inside an office where everyone has a smartphone and insisting on the workers to use these behemoths for what a smartphone can do in microseconds is not rational.

NG

 

[Τρελός]

New notation is fine if you've received the interpretive tradition from a living ethos. Western notation has a host of heiroglyphs as well (all Italian names) that need to be learned if you want to execute the piece as the composer intended. I remember learning about oxeia long ago by telling the protopsaltis, "Oh, that's like an appaggiatura!" So some extra squiggles are not a disservice, but an essential way to archive the tradition when it goes underground again.
Team Karas!