Metropolitan Cantor Institute

The Tone 3 prostopinije melody for prokeimena and Alleluia is one of the easiest, so this week we will take a quick look at it, and also discover why mi mi mi can give cantors heartburn.

Welcome to Chant Works, a series on the inner workings of the prostopinije or Carpathian chant tradition. This week, we’re looking at the basic melodies in Tone 3 that are used at the Divine Liturgy.

For Tones 1 and 2, I mentioned that the troparion melody is also used for singing the short hymns called kontakia. With Tone 3, the plot thickens.

Welcome back to Chant Works, a series taking on the nuts and bolts of the Carpathian plain chant (prostopinije) tradition. This week, we will take a look at the melodies in Tone 3, beginning with the troparion melody.

Tomorrow, the third Sunday after Pentecost, we begin the second week of the cycle of eight tones.  Today we’re going to take a quick look at the Tone 2 prokeimenon and Alleluia melody. 

Welcome back to the Chant Works series, in which we take a deep dive into the prostopinije (Carpathian plain chant) used in the Byzantine Catholic Church. Next week, the third after Pentecost, we will be in Tone 2, so let’s see what we can discover about the Tone 2 troparion melody.

Welcome back to the Chant Works series, in which we take a deep dive into the prostopinije (Carpathian plain chant) used in the Byzantine Catholic Church. To inaugurate the series, we are going through the melodies of the Eight Tones for the Divine Liturgy, one at a time. In our last installment we  looked at the Tone 1 troparion melody; this time we will explore the Tone 1 prokeimenon melody.

Anyone who regularly attends services in the Byzantine Rite has heard about the “eight tones.” These are eight sets of musical melodies, with their associated texts, which are assigned to successive weeks of the liturgical year, and also associated with particular hymns that fall on fixed days of the calendar.

In this first installment of Chant Works, we will take a closer look at the Tone 1 troparion melody in the prostopinije, or Carpathian plainchant, tradition used in the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Church in the United States.