For example, "Bo - - - - dy."
1. In line 1, the gorgon should be beneath the elaphron rather than above it.
I composed a brief Koinonikon for Pascha using Papa Ephraim's First Mode Papadic Formulas. Any other Koinonika compositions I will post here. Criticisms and comments welcome.
Although writing the vowel after it does have some advantages, the serious drawback (in my opinion) is that the pronunciation of syllables ending in consonants becomes confusing. For example, near the bottom of page 1, you have: "Lord___Uo_____" My concern is that by giving the "meaningless n" its own consonant, I think some people will be more likely to forget to pronounce the "rd" at the end of this phrase.
Another drawback with trying to include the vowel after a "meaningless n" is evident when trying to insert one for the first syllable in the words "hear-ing" and "heark-en". If you write an "ea" in both cases, the chanter will have to remember to pronounce each one differently.
1. a) One other thing about the "meaningless n" is that the "U" is used before the "eh" sounds in Greek, whereas the "?" is used before all other vowels. I don't think there is any point in preserving the distinction between these two in English, so I would recommend using only one of those symbols. In my compositions, I have chosen the latter, since it is the more common version of the "meaningless n" (since it's used before all vowels except the "eh"-sounding ones).
2. Repeating the word "the" just before the word "Praise" in the second to last line on page 1 makes "praise" sound like a noun. I would delete that "the".
3. I question how well you have followed the formulaic rules in lines 3 and 4 of page 2 for the word "Heavens". I haven't codified the rules yet for papadic fourth mode, so I can't say for sure, but I have a hunch that a phrase accented on the second to last syllable should have a different formula.
5. I am not completely satisfied with the cadence you have for the word "Praise" in line 3 of page 1. Unfortunately, I can't really say why or give you any better suggestions (or even be sure that my dissatisfaction is justified) until I codify the formulas for this mode. Hopefully I'll get around to it later this year. If you don't want to wait until then, feel free to examine on your own some papadic compositions with formulas that are accented on the last syllable.
I don't claim to have a good answer to that question (not yet, at least), but one trick that comes to mind is that since the monosyllabic word "Praise" is the first word of the hymn, I think we could cheat by using a prelude melody for it instead of a regular formula. For example, we could take the prelude melody from the μέγιστον (=huge) cherubic hymn by Gregorios in this mode (on p. 279 in Volume 4 of the 1851 Mousike Pandekte), and use it for the word "Praise".
I would like to know if anyone else has any better ideas about how to deal with this challenging problem of setting the word "Praise" to a papadic melody.
I for one am interested in finding a formulaically valid solution that allows for the deliberate emphasis of both "Praise" and "Lord." Papa Ephraim has suggested that perhaps we could use a prelude melody for "Praise." I dislike this option because after hearing an extended prelude melody, I expect to hear the same phrase repeated with a briefer melody. If this doesn't happen, I feel that the composition would be structurally awkward (in the same way that it would be awkward if you were to watch a film where someone says "Without further adieu..." and then the camera jumps straight to the middle of a storyline). Furthermore, the periodic repetition of syllables (especially after an extended cadence such as a prelude melody) assists the congregation with comprehension.
A possible advantage of using a prelude on "Praise" is that it would be more acceptable to use a 001 formula to kick into a long, deliberate "Lord"? It seems to me this is a fair time to use an unaccented melody on an accented word if a Prelude formula has preceded the use of a 001 formula. Agree/disagree?
I think it is best to use a symbol for the "meaningless n" without anything after it.So are you advocating that when one includes the "U" symbol that they do not put anything after it, or that I should include the rest of the word after it brackets, or at the end of the phrase include the rest of the word in brackets?
Yes, I think that will work fine, but I'd like to see it, just to make sure I get what you're saying.The best option would seem to be to re-write the piece to use a similar approach to "Heavens" while still using the drawn out ending of the original. (Am I making sense, or should I just write out what I am saying?)
If you had only chopped off the "Ai-" of "Ai-nei-te" and then replaced the remaining two syllables of the word with two English syllables (e.g., using Basil's nice idea: "Praise ye"), this approach would be fine. But the problem is that you only had one syllable in English ("Praise") to fill the space taken by two syllables in the Greek original. As a result, you were forced to chop off the end of the Greek melody at a place that sort of sounds like a cadence, but I'm not so sure that it really is a valid cadence. But as I said, I can't say for sure until I start codifying the formulas for this papadic mode.All I did was chop of "A-" in "Aneite" and started where the "-nei" picked up in the piece. I could not think of any other way to approach it as "praise" in my opinion, is an emphasized syllable. To be honest, I don't see the problem in this approach.
I'm having a hard time visualizing what this would look like. It would be great if you could post an example of this for us to see.El-Murr compromised by going back and repeating "Sab-bi-hur-rab," usually with a 1001 formula... But I suspect that his manner of repeating syllables may be unprecedented. I don't have enough experience with syllable repetition in Greek to know for sure.
Good point. But what if we were to use a prelude melody for "Praise", followed by a 001 melody for "Praise the Lord"?Papa Ephraim has suggested that perhaps we could use a prelude melody for "Praise." I dislike this option because after hearing an extended prelude melody, I expect to hear the same phrase repeated with a briefer melody.
I think this is a great idea.The first proposition that comes to my mind is to revert to the King James translation "Praise ye the Lord from the heavens."
This sounds promising, but I would still like to see an example of how it would work in practice.If we were to "borrow" his [Mitri el-Murr's] solution in English, we could use an extended melody for "Lord" and then repeat the words "Praise ye the Lord." As I mentioned above, I don't have enough experience with syllable repetition in Greek to know if this is valid, but it seems more reasonable to me than the alternatives.
I think this would probably work well.A possible advantage of using a prelude on "Praise" is that it would be more acceptable to use a 001 formula to kick into a long, deliberate "Lord"? It seems to me this is a fair time to use an unaccented melody on an accented word if a Prelude formula has preceded the use of a 001 formula. Agree/disagree?
By the way, that compilation of papadic formulae for first mode is much larger now because I have included several formulae from Slavonic adaptations of Greek cherubic hymns as well as from unpublished manuscripts of transcriptions from the old notation. You can download this newer version now from our papadic formulae webpage, but it still isn't finished yet because I am about to include some formulae from Romanian cherubic hymns. I've had to make the "Key" more complicated to account for those non-Greek adaptations....in the papadic formulae for first mode that Papa Ephraim codified...