Our Website is about to undergo a major change. The title will become: St. Tikhon's Music.org and we will make available a lot of new music, traditional chant in two, three and four parts for all kinds of choirs (small, male, etc.) Tutorials will be added as well other new things to help facilitate choirs in acquiring the phronema of the Orthodox Church. We hope to begin work in the fall so stay tuned.
Orthodox two part music is based primarily on Znamenny Chant and is given as an offering to the Church in America with the hope that it will transcend jurisdictional boundaries. Nevertheless, there are many different kinds of chants from different Orthodox traditions which are to be found on the pages of this website, all of which share a common life and vision in Christ. All the music on this site is free and includes sheet music in PDF format, audio files (in mp3) (some of which are not absolutely perfect but will be revised as time permits...more files will be forthcoming in the next few months) and Midi files. It is hoped that people within the Church will find this site useful and that it will be another step in the process of establishing an organic expression of Orthodox Liturgical Life in America. These particular adaptations are designed to be relatively simple(r), beautiful, full sounding (only two parts needed,) and relatively easy to learn (especially with the audio files.) Many of them are not strict note for note translations but rather a synthesis, blending and melding elements that are common to several Orthodox chant traditions.
Click here to listen to St. Symeon's Prayer from an adapted version of Znamenny Tone 6. These arrangements can be sung by all men (a few on the 2nd voice, bass clef, and the rest (most) on the melody,) all women (same arrangement,) or mixed choir (70% of the men and women singing the melody, the other group (30%) singing the second part in the bass clef.) In any case, if these melodies must be sung by a choir of one, it will hopefully not be a bore, a challenge, or a depressing event. May the Lord bless His Church in America through your prayers and good work.
Click here to listen to Kastalsky's Two Part Znamenny Dogmaticon Tone 3. (This piece of music is difficult but this level of difficulty is an exception for this website and by no means the norm. It is meant to show the potential of two part music for beauty and creativity within the canonical context while setting a high bar to reach to, although, very few will be able to sing these in Church. The unison Dogmaticon are more practical for Church usage. You can find all eight tones of the two part and unison dogmaticon's on the Vespers page.)
