Lesson 11 - December 6, St Nicholas, Doxastikon at "Lord, I have cried," Plagal of Second Mode

basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
Please find attached the Doxastikon at "Lord, I have cried" for the feast of St Nicholas (December 6) in the plagal of second mode.
 

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  • Doxastikon of St Nicholas.pdf
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basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
After thinking about this some more, I decided to break a few phrases at different places in order to better emphasize the text. Please find attached my first revision.
 

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  • Doxastikon of St Nicholas 2.pdf
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frephraim

Παλαιό Μέλος
Dear Basil,

Thanks for posting your latest composition. There are only two things I noticed that could be improved.

1. On page 2, line 7 is a "heirmologic bridge" (or a "filler melody") that leads up to the sticheraric formula on line 8. The problem with the melody on line seven is that one of the syllables ("-vine" of the word "divine") has two beats instead of just one, which is what heirmologic bridges are supposed to have.

One other problem is that the melody on line 8 for the word "afflicted" changes to the diatonic scale and has a cadence on Ke. This is a problem because when sticheraric hard chromatic melodies change to the diatonic scale with a cadence on Ke or Pa, it is usually done so in association with a happy word such as "joy". But since our word for this melody is "afflicted," we shouldn't use a melody that has a diatonic cadence on Ke.

It turns out that the original melody for the word "afflicted" in Greek (θλιβομένων) is accented on the second to last syllable, just like our word "afflicted" is. Not only that, but the melody for the words preceding θλιβομένων which are χαίροις τῶν also have the same accentuation pattern as the English words before the word "afflicted". So we can use the exact same melody for "-vine joy of the afflicted" that they used for χαίροις τῶν θλιβομένων. To compensate for the extra three syllables we have in English preceding this (which are "Rejoice di-"), we can just use the following filler notes:
Re- Pa
joice Vou
di- Ga

2. On page 3, the first note in line 2 should have the number "4" above it. Also, there should be a corresponding vertical line between the second and third words in line 2.


Great job! Those were the only two things I could see that needed fixing. But if anyone else out there notices something that evaded my notice, please don't hesitate to speak up.

+Fr. Ephraim
 

basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
Thank you for your comments. I made the changes you suggested and typed up the score.
 

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frephraim

Παλαιό Μέλος
Great! It looks fine now and very neat.
The only thing I myself would have done differently is to write the words "the" as "thē" when it is followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound (as it is on page 2 with: "thē earth," "thē uttermost," and "thē afflicted"). It isn't absolutely necessary, but it does make it easy for the chanter to pronounce the word properly, especially if he's chanting something he's not very familiar with. But this detail is a matter of personal preference, and so it's up to you if you want to implement this suggestion.
 

basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
Thank you for that suggestion. I've updated my final copy to reflect that convention.
 
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