Dear composers,
In this message, I will set forth some guidelines so that your compositions will conform to the style of Byzantine music I want the "Divine Music Project" to have.
1) First and foremost, it is imperative that all compositions I include in our website follow the formulaic rules of Byzantine music. As you may know, I have collected more than 10,000 formulas and posted them at:
http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/Formula.html
Those of you who already know the classical formulae might not need to refer to these lists of formulas. But when I compose music, even though I do know many of the formulae by heart, I still refer to the lists. I do so for two reasons:
a) The lists protect me from using a wrong formula that only exists in my faulty memory, and
b) They enable me to find the best possible melody for a particular situation, since they often present more than one option for a particular syllabic pattern. My criteria for the "best possible melody" are one that imitates the original melody better, matches the meaning of the text better, or introduces more melodic variety by not repeating the same formula too many times in the same hymn.
In order to see examples of what I mean, I urge you to read my
Article on Adaptation and the
Workshop I prepared for using my lists of formulae.
2) Second, I want the doxastica and idiomela to be in the style of Mousike Kypsele. (If you don't have it, you can download it for free if you
click here (The file is 69 MB so be patient or use a download manager such as
this one). I have explained the reasons for this choice of mine in an article I wrote at:
http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/Melodic.pdf
Since the English translation of a hymn usually has fewer syllables than the original Greek version, I expect the English version to be sometimes quite different from the original. But usually it is possible to use the same martyrias in approximately the same places that the original in Mousike Kypsele has them. You will see what I mean if you look, for example, at my compositions for the Elevation of the Cross at:
http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/Menaion/b5014.pdf In the first doxasticon (pages 2-4), I was able to preserve not only many of the martyrias, but even many of the specific melodies of the original. But usually, I am not quite so "lucky" and able to preserve so much of the original. For example, if you look at the Vespers Doxasticon of the Aposticha in that file and compare it with the original in Mousike Kypsele, you will see that there were far fewer martyrias and melodic phrases of the original I was able to preserve.
Also try to bear in mind how well-known the original melody is. If you are composing music for a doxasticon whose Greek melody has some well-known melodic lines, I think it is worth the effort to find ways to preserve reminders of those lines, if at all possible. But if you are composing music for an idiomelon of the liti of some relatively unknown feast day, I don't think it really matters if you manage to preserve any melodic reminders or not.
3) Third, I want the compositions to comply with the orthographical rules of Byzantine music. If you do not already know them, please review my collection of these rules at:
http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/ByzOrthography.pdf for the rules in English, or
http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/ByzOrthographyGreek.pdf for the rules in Greek. Try to do the best you can, but it's okay if you make a few mistakes, since I will be on the lookout for any orthographical errors.
4) I would like you to write your music in the non-exegetical style of Kypsele, as opposed to the analytical style of composers such as Karamanis. For example, in a melody where Kypsele would have a vareia followed by an ison followed by an apostrophos above an aple, Karamanis would typically replace this combination by writing an ison and kentemata with a gorgon all over an oligon, followed by an elaphron with a klasma.
5) For marking the rhythm, the standard I have decided on is the standard used by Simonos Petras in their publications. In particular, this means that only the numbers "3" and "4" will be used. Vertical lines are to be inserted three beats after the number "3" and four beats after the number "4", as can be seen in the attached file:
View attachment formatted_with_music.pdf. When a hymn begins on the upbeat, a vertical line will be inserted after the first note.
6) Although I hold in high regard Simon Karas' ideas of reintroducing symbols such as the oxeia, the lygisma, etc. and using many microtonal sharps and flats, I have decided against using them in the Divine Music Project (although I did use them in my compilation of
The Intonations of All Eight Modes).
7) I suggest that you use
my Microsoft Word template for formatting the texts I will send you. This template has a macro that hyphenates a text. (You run the macro by pressing the "HYPHENATE" button on the toolbar.) It also has macros that format a hyphenated text so that one can print it out and write the music on that printout. The "HeirmFormat" button will format the text with a few spaces between each syllable, which is useful for writing out heirmologic melodies. The "StichFormat" button inserts more spaces between each syllable, which is useful for writing out sticheraric melodies.
Since this description of the macros might not be clear, I will show you examples of what I mean:
Here is the unhyphenated text of a hymn:
Thy precious Cross, which Moses prefigured in himself of old, defeated Amalek and put him to flight; and David the sweet-singer cried out commanding that it be worshipped as Thy footstool. As we sinners worship it with unworthy lips today, O Christ God, we praise Thee Who didst deign to be nailed thereon and we cry to thee: O Lord, with the thief, count us worthy of Thy Kingdom.
Here is the text after it has been automatically hyphenated:
Thy pre-cious Cross, which Mo-ses pre-fig-ured in him-self of old, de-feat-ed Am-a-lek and put him to flight; and Da-vid the sweet-sing-er cried out com-mand-ing that it be wor-shipped as Thy foot-stool. As we sin-ners wor-ship it with un-wor-thy lips to-day, O Christ God, we praise Thee Who didst deign to be nailed there-on and we cry to thee: O Lord, with the thief, count us wor-thy of Thy King-dom.
Here is the text after it has been automatically formatted:
And here is the text after a melody has been written in by hand:
Although it is not absolutely necessary that you use this template to write your music on, I think you will find it very helpful, because having the entire text in front of you enables you to decide ahead of time where all the martyrias will be. It also allows you to compose the melody for certain difficult phrases (that might be in the middle) first. This is advantageous when you are trying to imitate a particular melodic phrase or use a specific form of melodic coloring (i.e., using a fthora).
Most of the texts I send you will already have been hyphenated, but keep your eyes open just in case they might still have a word here and there that didn't get hyphenated or was incorrectly hyphenated by
my automatic hyphenator.
* * * * *
Let me warn you that I am a perfectionist with very high standards for Byzantine music compositions (if you couldn't tell already after all the detailed instructions I wrote here!) So this means that I will ruthlessly criticize every little thing that I think can be improved. I will insist on changing it, unless of course you (or someone else) can explain to me why it is not incorrect. I will try to be courteous in my corrections, but I ask your forgiveness if at times I am abrupt.
After your composition has been corrected, please do not delete or replace any of the older versions with the corrected version, because if you do, other people will not be able to learn by seeing what was corrected. I will prefix a number to the title of your post that corresponds to the order it was submitted, so that people coming later to this seminar will be able to read the posts in sequential order.
If for any reason you would prefer to post your compositions anonymously, feel free to send them directly to me, and I will post them for you.
May God bless you and enlighten you to do this work for His glory!
in Christ
+Fr. Ephraim