Chanting the night away

Having finished divine liturgy last night (we usually have divine liturgy Wednesday in addition to Sunday) I pondered chanting. As the number of Eastern churches varies from few to none in most of the state I've had little chance to experience the musical diversity of the East.

For those not familar with the Ruthenian way of doing things, our chant is unique to the Carpathian Mountains and its environs called by some Carpathian Ruthenia or "Carpathian Rus". Depending on your linguistic dexterity you can call it either the the more common "Carpathian Plainchant" or "Prostopinije" (meaning proste: simple and pinije: chant) or by other names like "Mukachevo" or "Uzhorod" chant. It follows the 8 tone system of other Eastern churches, but as you would expect the 8 tones of one church will not match up with the 8 tones of another.

The cantor (aka chanter, diak, kantor, etc.) leads the faithful who either sing with him or sub-sing (e.g. [humming along] "What the heck am I doing? What page is that guy on? [leans over] 82?! I'm on 49. How did he get there?" [unsteady, low singing of chorus with eyes shifting left and right nervously]). You really need the cantor. In fact you really need the cantor with one or two people who have been around for a while. For those familiar with the Roman Rite there is a linear-ness to that which doesn't exist in Byzantine liturgical practice. There is a lot of flipping back and forth with Choose Your Own Adventure style arrows pointing you to distant pages you never before imagined turning to.

This monodic (μονοιδα) chanting sung in unison doesn't have any of the musical gymnastics of today's choirs. We sing together, completely ignoring the polyphony of say Gregorian chant. What the heck is polyphony? The ever helpful Wikipedia states, "In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony)." I hope that makes sense.

This is an example piece:

If this subject interests you, take a gander at the always helpful byzcath website or the Metropolitan Cantor Institute.