Lesson 22 - St. Seraphim Liti

Kavouras

Νέο μέλος
Hi folks. I think this is my first time posting ever. I have attempted to compose music for the first troparion of the Liti to St. Seraphim of Sarov. To tell you the truth I'm not really happy with it, but it's my first time trying this, I don't know how good it is. I think it is full of mistakes. Please comment on any error you may see, even if it is totally obvious. I look forward to all corrections and pointers you may have!

I also don't know how to scan and upload anything as smaller files, so even basics like this would be good.

Have a blessed Pascha everyone.
 

Attachments

  • st. seraphim pg1.pdf
    1.4 MB · Views: 65
  • st. seraphim pg2.pdf
    1.4 MB · Views: 12
  • st. seraphim pg3.pdf
    1.3 MB · Views: 17

frephraim

Παλαιό Μέλος
Dear Dimitri,

Thanks for posting your composition, and I apologize for the delay in responding.

Here are my comments:

  1. On p. 1, line 4, the word "prayer" is treated as a two-syllable word. (I realize that this is how it was in the text I gave you which had been automatically hyphenated by that online hyphenator (http://www.juiciobrennan.com/hyphenator/) ). One drawback of that hyphenator is that if a given word has two entries in the dictionary: one with two syllables and one one, it chooses the two-syllable version. The word "prayer" has two syllables when it means "a person who prays" but it has only one for its other meanings. So in this context, the word should only have one syllable.
  2. Lines 7-9 on page 1 are heirmologic formulae. It's permitted to use those formulae for bridges (i.e., as something tacked on to the beginning of a sticheraric formula) but not for an entire phrase.
  3. The word "as" on line 10, is strongly emphasized by the melody, but I don't think it deserves such a strong melodic emphasis.
  4. The heirmologic bridge for "honour thee" on page 3 (with the jump up of 4) does not sound like a typical filler melody for this mode.
  5. The melody for "faith and love" just before the end strikes me as perhaps breaking the formulaic rules. Do you remember where you got this melody? Another problem is the way it ends with a petaste (for "life") not followed by a descending note, which breaks the orthographical rules.

Please see if you can rework the melody to address these issues I raised.

Thank you.
+Papa Ephraim
 

Kavouras

Νέο μέλος
Hi Father. Xristos Anesti!

I've made corrections for the first 4 things on the list. However for the semi-final verse where 'faith and love' are, I used a formula from the St. Anthony's Byzantine Music Formulae book. I pretty much used that book for the whole thing since I don't really know where else to find this stuff. The one I had picked is in section M for First Tone Sticheraric, under the subsection of '3rd to last syllable' and the one I chose was '010101' going from 'Ga' to 'Di'

I have removed the jump up of 4 for 'honour thee' and it looks a little better, but the petaste at the the end on the word 'love' is part of the formula and I don't know if I should use it, if it is not orthographically correct.

I will wait to post the corrected version I made, in case it is an error in the formulae .pdf, and will put in another formula if it is the case. Does anyone else here think it is also improper?

-Dimitri K.
 

Kavouras

Νέο μέλος
Greetings and Happy All Saints Day to everyone. Hopefully they can all guide us to compose better music.

Now that I have figured out how to scan a bunch of pages into a single .pdf file, I have attached the 2nd version to the 1st verse, which is in 1st tone. I'm pretty sure that second last formula from the end does not work with the final formula due to the orthographical error on the word 'love'. After the last posting by Papa-Ephraim, I combed through his Orthography rules to check, so I guess the lesson I should learn is to watch my combinations of formulas from now on so I don't introduce any more errors, even though I'm pulling them out of a book it is possible the selected formulas won't work together. If it is surely wrong (I still haven't heard back for sure yet) then I when I try and type it up all nice, I'll change the ending formula. And any more errors anyone else finds of course.

I have also attached my 1st version to the 2nd verse, also in 1st tone. A little more confident with my 1st attempt at this one.

I skipped the 3rd verse for now because I'm struggling with 2nd tone, haven't finished composing it, and I wanted a local guy here to double check it before I uploaded it.

I have also uploaded the 4th verse in plagal 1st. Don't know if I should have stuck with Ke and Di more, I think I put in more Pa stuff when it was unnecessary.

I'll be out of town for about a week and away from a computer, so pardon me if I don't respond.

Take care and God Bless! Thanks for reading my post!

-Dimitri K.
 

Attachments

  • st.seraphimverse1version2.pdf
    3.2 MB · Views: 24
  • st.seraphimverse2vesion1.pdf
    3.2 MB · Views: 9
  • st.seraphimverse4version1.pdf
    2.1 MB · Views: 6

Kavouras

Νέο μέλος
Hi everybody!

I've attached a PDF with my first attempt at composing music for the 3rd verse of the St. Seraphim Liti, in 2nd tone, which I missed in the previous posting.

Hope you all like it, and that there is not much to correct, like my previous postings. Please Let me know what you think.

Thanks for checking in. Take care and Glory to God for all things.

-Dimitri K.
 

Attachments

  • st.seraphimverse3version1.pdf
    2.1 MB · Views: 17
Top