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Text and/or other creative content from Octoechos was copied or moved into Neobyzantine Octoechos. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
Actually "Octoechos" is a book in use in Orthodox Christian churches that contains chants with Ressurrection content in all the 8 Byzantine Music Modes... I will collect more information.
I think there is a slight confusion between "Octhoechos" and "Paraklitiki". The former contains only the Ressurectional chants per mode (that is saturday vespers-sunday matins), whereas, the latter, chants for every day of the week per mode. I found out the hard way when i purchased myself a copy of octoechos expecting that it would contain the chants of the whole week per mode and it actually didn't. Tryfon ( talk) 12:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually it is the origins section that it is disputed. It is without sources and ignorant of other theories. No mention of Ancient Greek modes etc. I am sorry to say, that very few Western scholars comprehend the modes of the Greek Orthodox Church and their relationship to the Hellenistic world. -- Kupirijo 06:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
First off, Kupirijo, are you a chanter? Second, it is a huge overstatement to say that very few Western scholars comprehend the modes of the Greek Orthodox Church. In basic terms, Byzantine Chant is a form of atonal music. Now if your telling me an average music professor can't understand what a microtone is or what atonal music is; then they have no right to be considered a "scholar". But yes, there is a problem with the origins section. How in the world is 8 modes with different tuning settings for each simple? Also, Western and Byzantine music seem to be inter-related at the end of the article when mentioning the 8 modes. Unless, of course, it can be shown that there were atonal aspects to Western music. But yes, Byzantine and Western music have had some sort of Jewish influence. Other than this, the article is pretty good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.2.36 ( talk) 02:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I've added a section about the liturgical book. I've also moved the {{ accuracy}} tag to the origins section where it appears, based on the comments above, to have been intended. I don't know if there is an accuracy tag that refers to a section rather than the entire article. If so, it would be good to replace it here. MishaPan 23:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that Byzantine enharmonic echoi are not, in general, playable on a modern Western 12-equal instrument. While the small steps of the Byzantine diatonic are slightly larger than those of a modern Western diatonic, the small steps of the Byzantine Enharmonic are typically smaller than those of a modern Western diatonic and may be as small as a quarter-tone. However I accept that the 12-equal version could be taken as a borderline case of a Byzantine enharmonic. My sources are scales described in the Scala archive http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/ as Byzantine Enharmonics. I wrote the section on Byzantine Enharmonics in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enharmonic some years ago and it has not yet been disputed. It is confirmed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_genus which I had nothing to do with. The almost complete disparity between ancient Greek enharmonic tetrachords and Byzantine enharmonic tetrachords only makes sense if enharmonic in this context was taken (misunderstood?) to mean "containing approximate quartertones". The ancient Greek enharmonic tetrachord contains two such intervals, the Byzantine enharmonic tetrachord contains only one and would be better called an improper diatonic or hard diatonic. D.keenan 06:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
This article, although it is long, has quoted very few bibliographical references and gives no evidence of the main sources, which should be quoted in an encyclopedical entry about the eight mode system. The whole rubric for the Cite:templates does still not exist (please use them, so that bibliographical data can also transferred by plugins like zotero).
Another fundamental lack is the ahistorical view on Byzantine chant. The eight modes are regarded here according to the living practice, as it is known among singers of various Orthodox traditions today, its point of reference is modern tonality in Western music, and the Latin theory concerning the Octoechos is still not mentioned at all, although the comparative article by Peter Jeffery is quoted. I recommend to refer to Peter Jeffery's essay "The Earliest Oktoechoi", because the New Grove article is rather a bibliography to this fundamental study. A discussion of the transformations that the Octoechos has gone through in the period of kalophonic art since 1261, would explain how it is possible to refer today to the Octoechos reform of the 7th century before John of Damascus. Because the whole period is not mentioned, there is also a profound ignorance of the papadic genre. There is no reference to the reception of the Hagiopolitan octoechos in the treatise type Papadikē (παπαδική), and the papadic or papadikan chant genre consists of melismatic (in kalophonic elaboration) troparia originally used as a simple refrain in the practice of psalmody. The text is free and does not necessarily refer to the recited psalms or biblical odes, please think of the cherouvikon or of the trisagion...
I rewrote larger parts of the section "scales" and changed its title. The reference here is genus (gr. genos). The scales and its structure divided by a pentachord and tetrachord is described here according to Chrysanthos' Mega Theoretikon, not according to the medieval theory that the echoi of the diatonic protos, devteros, tritos and tetartos pair use each the same octave, but the kyrios finalis is on the top of the pentachord and the plagios finalis on the bottom. I recommend to mention also the presence of three tone systems (eptaphonia, tetraphonia, triphonia), because the Western theory knows only the first and is used to refer to it as to the σύστημα τέλειον.
So there is still a need for a profound revision.-- Platonykiss ( talk) 11:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't comment on the hypothesis of a Jewish origin of the oktoechos. The main problem is that there are very few Hebrew sources about the practice of synagogal chant, although there was certainly an influence on the Greek recitation of the Halakha between Christians and Sephardim, it was hardly in the time of the hymnographic reform (7th-9th century). The usual references to a Hebrew origin are Arabic sources which memorize the prophets to 12 melodic modes, which are called in Arabic "naġme". There is an Old-Persian system of 7 advar, and since al-Kindi (8th century) there are certain Arabic terms which are translations of Greek terms used in ancient music theory. Medieval piyyutim became interested in the new poetic genres of Andalusia and its modes (tubū‘, created by the school of Ziryab in Cordoba, the unloved student and rival of Ishaq Mawsili in Bagdad), and after their expulsion by the Inquisition they soon adapted to the Eastern makamlar and its poetic forms, after they had come to Alexandria, Kairo, Smyrna, Istanbul, Edirne, and Thessaloniki.
According to Neubauer's article about the oktoechos, Arabian music was regarded in an Arabic divan as a synthesis of Byzantine (Damascus) and Persian music, which are generally the main reference points for the Islamic civilization. There was a deep interest for the Greek oktoechos, because every sound could be classified according to this system. In his article you will find all the sources and references which are relevant for the octoechos issue.-- Platonykiss ( talk) 12:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
This article is a prototype for an article of the complex topic "Octoechos", because it integrates the current knowledge and the most recent studies and combines them with the advanced technology of wikipedia and the current possibilities to study digitized manuscripts. If you know a better one, please let me know. I am always curious to learn something new.
It is without any doubt much too long, not because it is redundant, but because its content should be shared with plenty other articles. But for the current state of this encyclopaedia and its way of treating related topics, it was easier for now to leave it in one article. In return you got a lot of very precious material.
But please don't be afraid to think about how to balance its content with some related articles. Some of them offer very few information on their issues, while others still do not exist at all. I beg your pardon, that I had not the time to improve 20 articles and create 10 missing ones, instead I preferred to write a long one about this central topic, and respected all issues of former authors. My intention is to use this public place to distribute a usually rather incompletely presented topic and confront experts as well as interested readers with the current (lack of) knowledge. I would be very pleased, if some could rewrite their own abridged and simplified version at the "Simple English" platform. Anyway I am confident that content of this article will improve not only one article.
I apologize for my use of technical terms. I prefer to use the terms of the quoted treatises and I assure that even experts do not understand them completely. But someone who is experienced in chant and cares about its tradition, might in contrary find my decision helpful and be more satisfied as before.
Unfortunately the restructured section "sources" was not a very helpful solution, because different treatise types are now mixed together (for instance 5th century treatises with papadikai of the renaissance period). Readers will get even more confused. But I see the good intention and thank everybody who cares about this entry, so please don't feel discouraged by my criticism. I already found an alternative solution and repaired the chronological order... I hope that you are satisfied now that the bibliography has become clearer.
At the moment a subsection of the second part has to be reworked to improve the content. Please don't worry, if I still work on some subsections. When I personally remove the construction tag, it will indicate that I have finished my work on this article.
-- Platonykiss ( talk) 09:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Split - Article should be split into "Hagiopolitan Octoechos", "Papadic Octoechos and the Koukouzelian Wheel", "Neobyzantine Octoechos", "Theoretical sources", "Chant Books with Octoechos Notation". Thoughts???-- Jax 0677 ( talk) 00:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I tried to remove the clarify tag, because the change whoever did it, to 21st century is correct. For further details visit the article " Neobyzantine Octoechos." Platonykiss ( talk) 08:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I am not an expert, but it appears to me that the Latin names for 6 of the 8 tones are out of sequence.
Second tone: Tonus tertius (3rd?)... Third tone: Tonus quintus (5th?)... Fourth tone: Tonus septimus (7th?)... Fifth tone: Tonus secundus (2nd?)... Sixth tone: Tonus quartus (4th?)... Seventh tone: Tonus sextus (6th?)
As I said, I'm no expert, and my linguistic skills are limited, but I'm pretty sure this a mistake. Perhaps the whole section needs to be revisited by someone with greater expertise than myself? If I am mistaken, I humbly apologize for my ignorance. LdR777 ( talk) 17:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
While Coptic might have melodic type, no source says they are eight. It is removed. Syrian changed to Syriac. Cheers.-- Connection ( talk) 21:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Octoechos | |
---|---|
Octoechos and parakletike Heirmologion Sticherarion |
Hagiopolitan Octoechos (6th-13th century) Papadic Octoechos (13th-18th century) Neobyzantine Octoechos (18th-21st century) |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Text and/or other creative content from Octoechos was copied or moved into Neobyzantine Octoechos. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
Actually "Octoechos" is a book in use in Orthodox Christian churches that contains chants with Ressurrection content in all the 8 Byzantine Music Modes... I will collect more information.
I think there is a slight confusion between "Octhoechos" and "Paraklitiki". The former contains only the Ressurectional chants per mode (that is saturday vespers-sunday matins), whereas, the latter, chants for every day of the week per mode. I found out the hard way when i purchased myself a copy of octoechos expecting that it would contain the chants of the whole week per mode and it actually didn't. Tryfon ( talk) 12:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually it is the origins section that it is disputed. It is without sources and ignorant of other theories. No mention of Ancient Greek modes etc. I am sorry to say, that very few Western scholars comprehend the modes of the Greek Orthodox Church and their relationship to the Hellenistic world. -- Kupirijo 06:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
First off, Kupirijo, are you a chanter? Second, it is a huge overstatement to say that very few Western scholars comprehend the modes of the Greek Orthodox Church. In basic terms, Byzantine Chant is a form of atonal music. Now if your telling me an average music professor can't understand what a microtone is or what atonal music is; then they have no right to be considered a "scholar". But yes, there is a problem with the origins section. How in the world is 8 modes with different tuning settings for each simple? Also, Western and Byzantine music seem to be inter-related at the end of the article when mentioning the 8 modes. Unless, of course, it can be shown that there were atonal aspects to Western music. But yes, Byzantine and Western music have had some sort of Jewish influence. Other than this, the article is pretty good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.2.36 ( talk) 02:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I've added a section about the liturgical book. I've also moved the {{ accuracy}} tag to the origins section where it appears, based on the comments above, to have been intended. I don't know if there is an accuracy tag that refers to a section rather than the entire article. If so, it would be good to replace it here. MishaPan 23:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that Byzantine enharmonic echoi are not, in general, playable on a modern Western 12-equal instrument. While the small steps of the Byzantine diatonic are slightly larger than those of a modern Western diatonic, the small steps of the Byzantine Enharmonic are typically smaller than those of a modern Western diatonic and may be as small as a quarter-tone. However I accept that the 12-equal version could be taken as a borderline case of a Byzantine enharmonic. My sources are scales described in the Scala archive http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/ as Byzantine Enharmonics. I wrote the section on Byzantine Enharmonics in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enharmonic some years ago and it has not yet been disputed. It is confirmed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_genus which I had nothing to do with. The almost complete disparity between ancient Greek enharmonic tetrachords and Byzantine enharmonic tetrachords only makes sense if enharmonic in this context was taken (misunderstood?) to mean "containing approximate quartertones". The ancient Greek enharmonic tetrachord contains two such intervals, the Byzantine enharmonic tetrachord contains only one and would be better called an improper diatonic or hard diatonic. D.keenan 06:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
This article, although it is long, has quoted very few bibliographical references and gives no evidence of the main sources, which should be quoted in an encyclopedical entry about the eight mode system. The whole rubric for the Cite:templates does still not exist (please use them, so that bibliographical data can also transferred by plugins like zotero).
Another fundamental lack is the ahistorical view on Byzantine chant. The eight modes are regarded here according to the living practice, as it is known among singers of various Orthodox traditions today, its point of reference is modern tonality in Western music, and the Latin theory concerning the Octoechos is still not mentioned at all, although the comparative article by Peter Jeffery is quoted. I recommend to refer to Peter Jeffery's essay "The Earliest Oktoechoi", because the New Grove article is rather a bibliography to this fundamental study. A discussion of the transformations that the Octoechos has gone through in the period of kalophonic art since 1261, would explain how it is possible to refer today to the Octoechos reform of the 7th century before John of Damascus. Because the whole period is not mentioned, there is also a profound ignorance of the papadic genre. There is no reference to the reception of the Hagiopolitan octoechos in the treatise type Papadikē (παπαδική), and the papadic or papadikan chant genre consists of melismatic (in kalophonic elaboration) troparia originally used as a simple refrain in the practice of psalmody. The text is free and does not necessarily refer to the recited psalms or biblical odes, please think of the cherouvikon or of the trisagion...
I rewrote larger parts of the section "scales" and changed its title. The reference here is genus (gr. genos). The scales and its structure divided by a pentachord and tetrachord is described here according to Chrysanthos' Mega Theoretikon, not according to the medieval theory that the echoi of the diatonic protos, devteros, tritos and tetartos pair use each the same octave, but the kyrios finalis is on the top of the pentachord and the plagios finalis on the bottom. I recommend to mention also the presence of three tone systems (eptaphonia, tetraphonia, triphonia), because the Western theory knows only the first and is used to refer to it as to the σύστημα τέλειον.
So there is still a need for a profound revision.-- Platonykiss ( talk) 11:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't comment on the hypothesis of a Jewish origin of the oktoechos. The main problem is that there are very few Hebrew sources about the practice of synagogal chant, although there was certainly an influence on the Greek recitation of the Halakha between Christians and Sephardim, it was hardly in the time of the hymnographic reform (7th-9th century). The usual references to a Hebrew origin are Arabic sources which memorize the prophets to 12 melodic modes, which are called in Arabic "naġme". There is an Old-Persian system of 7 advar, and since al-Kindi (8th century) there are certain Arabic terms which are translations of Greek terms used in ancient music theory. Medieval piyyutim became interested in the new poetic genres of Andalusia and its modes (tubū‘, created by the school of Ziryab in Cordoba, the unloved student and rival of Ishaq Mawsili in Bagdad), and after their expulsion by the Inquisition they soon adapted to the Eastern makamlar and its poetic forms, after they had come to Alexandria, Kairo, Smyrna, Istanbul, Edirne, and Thessaloniki.
According to Neubauer's article about the oktoechos, Arabian music was regarded in an Arabic divan as a synthesis of Byzantine (Damascus) and Persian music, which are generally the main reference points for the Islamic civilization. There was a deep interest for the Greek oktoechos, because every sound could be classified according to this system. In his article you will find all the sources and references which are relevant for the octoechos issue.-- Platonykiss ( talk) 12:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
This article is a prototype for an article of the complex topic "Octoechos", because it integrates the current knowledge and the most recent studies and combines them with the advanced technology of wikipedia and the current possibilities to study digitized manuscripts. If you know a better one, please let me know. I am always curious to learn something new.
It is without any doubt much too long, not because it is redundant, but because its content should be shared with plenty other articles. But for the current state of this encyclopaedia and its way of treating related topics, it was easier for now to leave it in one article. In return you got a lot of very precious material.
But please don't be afraid to think about how to balance its content with some related articles. Some of them offer very few information on their issues, while others still do not exist at all. I beg your pardon, that I had not the time to improve 20 articles and create 10 missing ones, instead I preferred to write a long one about this central topic, and respected all issues of former authors. My intention is to use this public place to distribute a usually rather incompletely presented topic and confront experts as well as interested readers with the current (lack of) knowledge. I would be very pleased, if some could rewrite their own abridged and simplified version at the "Simple English" platform. Anyway I am confident that content of this article will improve not only one article.
I apologize for my use of technical terms. I prefer to use the terms of the quoted treatises and I assure that even experts do not understand them completely. But someone who is experienced in chant and cares about its tradition, might in contrary find my decision helpful and be more satisfied as before.
Unfortunately the restructured section "sources" was not a very helpful solution, because different treatise types are now mixed together (for instance 5th century treatises with papadikai of the renaissance period). Readers will get even more confused. But I see the good intention and thank everybody who cares about this entry, so please don't feel discouraged by my criticism. I already found an alternative solution and repaired the chronological order... I hope that you are satisfied now that the bibliography has become clearer.
At the moment a subsection of the second part has to be reworked to improve the content. Please don't worry, if I still work on some subsections. When I personally remove the construction tag, it will indicate that I have finished my work on this article.
-- Platonykiss ( talk) 09:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Split - Article should be split into "Hagiopolitan Octoechos", "Papadic Octoechos and the Koukouzelian Wheel", "Neobyzantine Octoechos", "Theoretical sources", "Chant Books with Octoechos Notation". Thoughts???-- Jax 0677 ( talk) 00:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I tried to remove the clarify tag, because the change whoever did it, to 21st century is correct. For further details visit the article " Neobyzantine Octoechos." Platonykiss ( talk) 08:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I am not an expert, but it appears to me that the Latin names for 6 of the 8 tones are out of sequence.
Second tone: Tonus tertius (3rd?)... Third tone: Tonus quintus (5th?)... Fourth tone: Tonus septimus (7th?)... Fifth tone: Tonus secundus (2nd?)... Sixth tone: Tonus quartus (4th?)... Seventh tone: Tonus sextus (6th?)
As I said, I'm no expert, and my linguistic skills are limited, but I'm pretty sure this a mistake. Perhaps the whole section needs to be revisited by someone with greater expertise than myself? If I am mistaken, I humbly apologize for my ignorance. LdR777 ( talk) 17:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
While Coptic might have melodic type, no source says they are eight. It is removed. Syrian changed to Syriac. Cheers.-- Connection ( talk) 21:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Octoechos | |
---|---|
Octoechos and parakletike Heirmologion Sticherarion |
Hagiopolitan Octoechos (6th-13th century) Papadic Octoechos (13th-18th century) Neobyzantine Octoechos (18th-21st century) |