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Byzantine Music: a video by Rev. Nikodemos Kavarnos (formerly Head Chanter Panayiotis Kavarnos)

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Liturgy in Hagia Sophia!!! Hagia Sofia is the Byzantine Orthodox Christian Church of the Holy Wisdom of God in Constantinople. (For us the Greeks, it's still Constantinnople, Asia Mior and not Istanbul, Turkey! Turks even made a whole song "Istanbul is not Constantinople, but they cannot beat history, no matter how militant a propaganda they launch because of their barbaric hatred and aggression). Touching moments in Orthodox Christianity. In 1453, Hagia Sophia, the symbol of Orthodoxy, fell to the Turks. Its melodies stopped for centuries. Until that moment: a Byzantine choir was finally given permission to chant for just a few hours conducted by Head Chanter Panayiotis Kavarnos who later on became "Fr. Nikodemos Kavarnos", as he was ordained a Greek Orthodox Archmandrite (lowest rank of high priest who is a monk, but is appointed to a Parish). It was just in a form of a concert as Turkish government does ot respect human rights and freedom of religion and does not allow Christians to pray inside Hagia Sophia!!!

Byzantine Chant

Χαιρετισμοί Γ'

Η κυρά Σαρακοστἠ (ψαλτοτράγουδο) και άλλα Σαρακοστιανά τραγουδια και έθιμα από παιδιά και εφήβους (σχολικές εκδηλώσεις)

Η Ιερά Λαύρα Αγίου Σάββα του Ηγιασμένου στην Ιερουσαλήμ - The Monastery of St Savvas the Sanctified in Jerusalem

Χαιρετισμοί Β'

Χαιρετισμοί Α'

Ancient Faith Radio: "Psalterion as Pulpit: The Privilege, Craft, and Discipline of Orthodox Liturgical Song"

Click here to listen to an mp3 of a speech on Byzantine Music as well as read the transcription of this speech aired by the Ancient Faith Radio:
http://ancientfaith.com/specials/orthodox_church_music/psalterion_as_pulpit#.URhy6ms5kng.email

Ancient Faith Radio is an Orthodox Radio Station in America of the Antiochian jurisdiction

My Personal Comment

Ancient Faith Radio brings the voice of God to people and especially the American audience.  It is a vehicle of conveying great theological, spiritual, historical, musical, and cultural concepts and values to this great country making Orthodox Christianity (Orthodoxy) known everywhere and reaching out to a wider audience.  One of their great broadcasts is this talk posted here that is very sincere, enlightening, experiential, and practical.  It's really great to see American people and people of other ethnicities to turn to Orthodoxy and devote their lives to its study, a strenuous, laborious, and demanding one that takes for ever.  The notions and concepts discussed profoundly deepen and enrich this elaborate presentation of how Byzantine chant is and should be delivered. Starting with a prayer asking for help from God in order to chant right is really moving and it shows a pure heart.  The presenter, a colleague, a fellow ancient historian, who is also a chanter, does a great job talking in a very honest and practical way about chanting and giving great advice for chanters on their conduct, protocol/typikon and how seriously they should take their undertaking.

I absolutely agree with all the points made and the topics discussed and especially with the standards of the chanters' conduct.  Psalterion or analogion is, indeed, another type of pulpit.  The regular pulpit is a stand where the Word of God reaches worshipers in the form of homily or sermon (preaching) that is prose.  The psalterion or analogion (chanter's stand) is a melodic pulpit.  Thus, liturgical music is a vehicle of reaching God, an art of prayer through melody and a spiritual preparation through the intuitive and divine patterns of music.  However, the term "spiritual" in Orthodox Christianity, also called Orthodoxy, has nothing to do with the New Age/consumerist/post-modern/agnostic fashion or sense in which this word is often used that is the popular way in which this concept of Orthodox Spirituality is usually interpreted.  That is hard to teach to people outside Orthodoxy, because it's very experiential, so it's great to see people from different cultures and walks of life to discover Orthodoxy and understand Orthodox Spirituality and how different it is from popular spirituality and teach it better than many of those have been born and raised within that tradition.  It's great to see American chanters be far more respectful and serious than many Greek chanters or chanter-wannabes who come to psalterion or analogion (chanter's stand) without any preparation or even training, without even knowing the tones/modes (the 8 chanting styles of Byzantine music), without respecting the priests and sometimes without even taking their approval and blessing before standing at the psalterion/analogion.  And I am not talking about students, not because I am a student and trainee, but I am talking about what I really witness quite often in many churches:  people who believe they are professional chanters or could be and actually some of them even make it to get hired through connections.  As a Greek Orthodox student and trainee of Byzantine Music who is looking for role models in order to learn something, I have found some great chanters and teachers, great musicians and great spiritual and religious people and true mentors.  But also I am often sick and tired of disrespectful and ignorant people who come to psalterion/analogion just to show off and they even disrespect their audience, which is not the audience of a theater, bar, restaurant, tavern or cafe where singers sing, but worshipers of God and the flock of the church and actually they are the church and they are in a building that is actually a temple ("naos" or ναός) and not a mere building for it is a holy place, the house of God.  Some of those chanters come up with a lot of drama, gossip and competition. Some have a lot of mannierisms and idiosyncratic ways of conduct and chanting that are often against tradition or they are too egocentric.  I have even met chanters that revealed to me that they don't even believe in anything, they just view Byzantine music as another genre of music and a way to make some spare money or a career in singing if they fail in other genres of music!  So it's really a relief and a source of great hope to see people from different cultures, as the American author/speaker of this radio, embracing Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine tradition and Byzantine Music and promote it and spread it to the world.  I wish many of the Greeks I know did the same, instead of trying to get assimilated or assimilate their children just to get better jobs or make more money or satisfy their complex of inferiority for being immigrants or having an accent, and I am talking here from experience as mid-career Greek Studies teacher.  I do have an accent and I do have Greek paideia (παιδεία) or learning, because I was raised in Athens and I continued my studies in that field, though I was born here in the United States and I am very proud of all of them.

I have visited churches of other Orthodox jurisdictions than my Greek one, such as Serbian, Romanian, Antiochian and many more and I was delighted to see how respectful and hospitable they were and how beautiful is the combination of Greek, English and their native languages (e.g. Arabic, Serbian, Romanian and many more).  Some of them were chanting in Greek way better than many Greek-Americans who hardly can utter a single word of Greek correctly, even modern Greek, not to mention ancient/Biblical/liturgical Greek.  However, few of them feel the need to take Greek lessons and also many Greek-American do not take their kids' Greek school seriously.  Again, as a Greek Studies teacher I am talking from experience...  Thank God, not all Greek parents are like that as well as there are not all Greek chanters, priests or church-goers like that.  There are chanters, parents, students of all ages serving as altar boys or trainees in Byzantine Music and other volunteers who are laity and who dedicate their time, money and effort far more than many corrupted priests that I know who became priests without knowing music, Greek, English (I am talking about here the US), theology, without having a good voice or even without having faith, just for money and power, just to have a better career (that's how they see priesthood...alas!) and some of them just because they don't or can't get married because of their different sexual orientation.  Many of them do not care about tradition or the holy canons and are clean shaven, others cancel religious services and Greek school festivities to go on vacations or play sports!  Some of them even serve at Catholic or Protestant churches while being appointed Orthodox priests!  Many of them also are jealous of chanters, give them severe negative criticism for little mistakes, but do not accept even constructive criticism for their own scandals and crimes, they do not mention the chanters or ignore them in their services, they even turn off their microphones, or they chant their parts on purpose, though sometimes it may happen by accident, which is of course very humane and just fine.  I've heard both priests and chanters cursing not only in the church, but even in the sanctuary next to the altar!  And yet there are both good priests and good chanters and I know many of them, some them very faithful and pious, even saintly.  In Greece, actually, the situation is even worse and they have less excuses there.  Post-modernism and globalization are some of the reasons.  Here at least there are some good American values adopted such as careful planning, preparation, organization and professionalism, especially by Greek-Americans who are eager to learn and some of them speak, read and chant Greek wonderfully, even in its ancient liturgical version ("koine" that is the Hellenistic & New Testament Greek with some Middle Greek variations of the Byzantine Times added, especially after the 10th century or 900s in the middle Byzantine era and in the late Byzantine era after the 1204 with the Fourth Crusade).  Many of them have beautiful voices and pure heart.  It's really a miracle to see these people excel in areas so remote from the common, mainstream or popular culture they were brought in.  Sometimes they even surpass chanters from Greece who think they know everything just because they happened to be raised in Greece where there is an abundance of schools of Byzantine music and Greek Orthodox churches.

However, there are people here in the states who were born and raised in the Orthodox faith and Byzantine tradition, who take liturgical music for granted as well as their cultural heritage believing that by just having it in their DNA is good enough and don't need to take any effort.  Others just look at liturgies and religious services as a way of socializing and a community thing, almost like entertainment, a cultural event or an experience similar to going to a concert or a museum.  Going to church and listening to the liturgical music is communion and communication with God through prayer and chanting, but even more than that, it's also a living tradition and a therapy of the soul, a way to salvation and a spiritual awakening.  That's the beauty of Orthodoxy and Byzantine music can serve as a vehicle to experience that high level of spiritual and therapeutic aspects of Orthodoxy.  For this reason, chanting is more than singing.

At this point, I'd like also to take the chance and the liberty to talk in general about issues that are more technical or related to music, apart from the particular topic of this post.  I prefer using the words "chant", "chanting" and "chanter" instead of "sing", "singing" and "singer", because as Surlantzis, Karamanis, Taliadoros, and many other great chanters have always said, chanters should not sound like singers and chant is not singing.  Of course having training and, even better, formal education in Western/European music, by all means, helps greatly to understand music in general.  It's not an accident that those who study Western/European music and especially if they play an instrument can learn Byzantine Chant way faster.  I myself soon realized that and since my second year as an Archdiocesan School of Byzantine Music (ASBM) student at Archdiocese of America, I started taking piano, music theory, and voice/singing classes, (mostely related to breathing/voice techniques and classical singing/opera, and operatic pop/music theater ballads.  Indeed, I have seen tremendous progress in Byzantine Chant after studying Western/European Music.  Still many people, both laiety and clergy, may think that Byzantine Music is a branch of theology and not of music, but it is actually both a branch of liturgics that is a branch os practical theology that is a branch of theology and it is also at the same time a branch of chant that is a branch of music.  After all Byzantine Chant or Byzantine Music is a type of vocal music also called singing.  By the same token, a Byzantine Musician/Chanter can easily function as singer of different genres of music.  However, a singer meaning a vocalist of vocal genres other than Byzantine Chant/Byzantine Music does not have the technique and the diction or style as well as the ethos and the cultural or even linguistic intutition to do so.  Music and music and once you don't mix up the genres and appreciate them for their different merits keeping them pure, then there is no problem.

When people say "this person sounds like singing not chanting" they simply mean that this person is mixing up genres in an obvious and unsuccessful way.  That may mean that this individual does not have the diction, style, culture or technique needed to sound like a Byzantine Chanter and they may also feel that a reminiscence of different secular genres turn them off as they may sound too unfit and even profane, sacriligious or scandalous.  There are even Greek priests who sound like singing Greek pop songs or tavern/night club songs!  Therefore, sounding like an opera singer be would way less funny or weird, but a little bit unfit and way different than Byzantine Music.  Sounding like an opera singer is very tricky, especially for those who have been formally trained only in Western/European music and rely on developing their Byzantine Chant merely by participating in the Church services.  Nevertheless, Byzantine chant requires a totally different technique in breathing, diction and style though they may be people who argue that it may sound too Western/Frankish, Catholic or Protestant, if it sounds more like pop and has less vibrato or no operatic techniques.

Byzantine Chant or Byzantine Music is more melismatic and a continuation and evolution of ancient Greek music rather than kin to Western/European music.  Byzantine music is rooted in and based on the Pythagorean Theory of Harmony as well as other ancient Greek music theorists whose techniques and theories were inherited to Byzantine Greeks who expanded and transferred those to the rest of the Byzantine Empire.  Byzantine music uses the tones or modes (ήχοι) that were used in ancient Greek music (Doric, Ionic, Aeolic, Frygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, chromatic scales, etc.), each one with its own scale.  Ancient Greek music was more chromatic (emphasis in tonal color, timbre and instrumentation) though than the melismatic way of Byzantine Music (emphasis in precise performance of microtones, scales, sharps and flats and so on).  That makes Byzantine Music more differentiated from mere singing and closer to chanting, as the microtones ('moria" in Greek: "τα μόρια των φθόγγων", where "fthogos" (φθόγγος)  is used in Byzantine Music than "nota" (νότα) or note,  a Western/European term) are not 12 in each note, as in Western/European Music, but it depends on the scale.  That's a harder and more sophisticated music theory and technique and it is not an accident that as Sourlantzis and other chanters claim, as already mentioned, if you are a Byzantine Chanter you can easily excel in singing Western/European music whether that's opera or folk, pop and so on.  Singers, however, cannot chant until they have Byzantine music education that starts with ear-training and listening as well as practicing, at the same, the Byzantine diction and style with focus on precise execution of microtones and the tones or modes and their scales. Then, training can be more seriously taken and perfected in studying the scholarly/academic discipline, and even science of Byzantine Music (not mere chant, but Byzantine theory of vocal music), as it is based on ancient Greek math and science (phonetics & phonology, voice physiology, and physics of music, such as pneumatics & acoustics) that can be done through the study of the unique Byzantine musical notation which takes years and years to learn.

There are great chanter who never recieved any formal training, but that requires a natural voice, immense talent, good ear-training and self-study of hymns for countless hours consistently and for many years.  Native intution of Greek also helps a lot., especially in terms of reading the scriptures, style and diction, as a heavy non-Greek accent and a clumsy treatment of the syllables may change the rhythm and even the pitch.  Therefore, study of the liturgical language is important and should be taken as much seriously as a professional opera singer studies Italian, German or French in order to perform songs in those languages.

In Byzantine Music, we see chanters and priests in Greece and Cyprus having an education background limited even to Elementary School and no understanding of the ancient liturgical text.  Some of them are transferred here to the states without even learning English.  On the other extreme, equally disturbing and even worse, there are Greek-American priests who not onlydo not speak Greek, but they also do not understand the ancient liturgical text.  The worst is that they have turned their deficiency and ignorance to "ideology" in order to justify their decision not to learn liturgical and modern Greek.  Some of them even refuse to speak modern Greak even if they can speak Greek beautifully or refuse to perform religious services in liturgical Greek though they may already have some proper training in their seminary.  This ideology "preaches" the new "all-American Orthodoxy" or a multicultural or culturally neutral approach to Orthodoxy, a culture-free Orthodoxy or usually a Greek-free Orthodoxy saying that Christ reached to everyone and not only the Greeks or a particular ethnic group.  When we say Greek-free, though, we also mean at the same time Greek culture-free and even traditional Orthodox-free, because language, culture, and religious go hand in hand whether some people like it or not.  So this new breed of priests and chanters use English in most or in some cases in all religious services (ακολουθίες), thus depriving the youth from learning and improving both their Greek as well as gaining knowledge and wisdom right from the horses mouth, the Byzantine Greek tradition and at the same time neglects native speakers of Greek to enjoy authentic religious services which is not a mere issue of aesthetics, gusto, lifestyle or entertainment, but an issue of worship and faith, an issue of finding expressive means to communicate with God and pray for the salvation of your soul as well as the salvation of other souls.

But even in practical terms, Byzantine chanting in English is hard to be applied to the religious services.  I am talking from experience, as the English phonetics and phonology are closer to Western/European music than Byzantine.  The last one is sewed and tailored to Greek and later it was successfully adopted by Arabic (Antiochean Church), medieval Church Slavonic and later on modern Slavic and other European languages that were also more suitable for Byzantine Chant than English. I myself as a Greek Orthodox student of Byzantine chant, I prefer chanting in Greek and for the brothers and sisters of the other Orthodox jurisdictions I would like to hear Byzantine chant in their native languages than in English.  Sermons and homilies can be in both languages, the native language of an Orthodox jurisdiction and English for the church goers/flock's better understanding, but liturgical music is communion and communication with God and it's more than a sermon, homily or just teaching a lesson in religion which can understandably be bilingual or even more languages depending on the flock.  When it comes to reading from the scriptures that's a different ball game.  Reading (just reading with a nice proclamatory prose) from the scriptures is okay to be bilingual or multilingual, including English, but with moderation, so that tradition and Byzantine style of the Orthodox Church may not be endangered.  Claims I have heard even by clergy men that musical instruments and Western/European-styled singing should be allowed in Orthodox churches, since David played his lyre and even sung in Jewish vocal music and did not chant in Byzantine Music, as it didn't exist at that time, those are anachronisms, meaning they are not sensitive to cultural and historical differences.  Also, those are anti-canonical arguments that ignore and overrule the Orthodox Canon Law that is based on divinely inspired interpretations of great saints and holy Ecumenical Councils and Synods.

Therefore, the way of communicating with God through music has profoundly deep theological dimensions.  By exploring the rich theological dimensions of Orthodox liturgical music through the study of patristics, church history, liturgics, typikon (rules & regulations of the order and organization of Byzantine Rite and Protocol), and canon law, we may conclude that westernized ways of liturgical music (e.g. Western Music choirs in Orthodox churches and, even worse, accompanied by musical instruments)  ignore and subvert the teachings and warning of the Church Fathers and the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils and Synods and thus subtly and deceptively open the gate to the pan-heresy of ecumenism or all-faith movement.  Just my personal opinion.