Unmercenary Sacred Music Technical Notes and Standards

All music was orginally available is in MS Word for Window 6.0/97 format.  Before 1997, the music images in these documents where made in Arts & Letters Graphic Editor.  It was a very painstaking process, but it made for professional quality graphics.  After 1997, I wrote the music in Music Time by Encore and then copied from the screen as a Bitmap and then trimmed and placed the music into a word document.  Again, it was time consuming, but quicker than A&L, and I could at least listen to the music before putting it into a document.  However, I am converting them all to PDF.  The PDF versions are of a higher quality and can be read by those using PCs, Apples and Unix machines.  All requests are for items not on the website and not yet in PDF format will be converted to PDF as they are requested.

Space is limited:  all Word files are zipped using WinZip.  They can be unzipped by using PKunzip or any other archiving software that can decompress zip files.  PDF files are not normally zipped and can be viewed online with the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be downloaded free from Adobe. After November of 2003, Acrobat 6.0 will be the norm for PDF files.

If you use my material, please let me know.  If you see errors, let me know.  If you like it, hate, love it, or are confused by it, let me know.  I am slow answering mail, but I do answer all requests.

The files and music are free.  I have several requests that I ask be honored.  DO NOT sell my material.  DO share it with people who need it.  DO NOT steal my work and claim it as your own; that is not nice.  DO Feel free to use my music and arrangements as references for your own writing.  This is what I have done.  I have many people and books that I have turned to as reference sources.  In gratitude to those people, allow me to list a few:

1. Joseph Roll.  His book, Music of the Ukrainian Catholic Church for Congregational Singing, is one of the best.  The liturgical texts are in modern Ukrainian and Old Church Slavonic, but the descriptions are in English.  His work is in turn based on Fr. Isidore Dolnitsky’s Hlasopisnets (L’viv 1894). Mnohaja i blahaja l’ita–God grant you many happy years, Joseph.  Orginal texts are not easy to find.
2. Tserkovnoje Prostopinije.  The standard for Carpatho-Rusyn chant.  However, one must have some grip on not only the Cyrillic alphabet, but the full Old Church Slavonic alphabet.  Unlike the Russian Obikhod, the music is in western notation.  This book is readily available from Saints Cyril and Methodious Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh.  I have bought it twice.
3. Napivnyk Tserkovnyj.  This is also is an Old Church Slavonic text.  It, however, uses the modern Ukrainian alphabet.  The only English that is in here is what I have written in the margins.  As my knowledge of Old Church Slavonic grows, I find more and more interesting music in this book (the same goes for the Prostopinije).  This source is the Galacian Chant version of the Protopinije published in 1959 by the Ukrainian Pontifical College of St. Josafat (Ukrajins'ka Paps'ka Kolehija Josafata) in Rome.   I have Dr. Andy Browar to thank for getting me a copy.  Mnohaja i blahaja l’ita–God grant you many happy years, Andrij.
4. Obikhod Notnago Penia and Sputnik Psalmschika.  Absolute musts for learning Russian chant.  However, it is also in Old Church Slavonic.  These books are hard to find.  I had to use the ones at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, New York.
5. The rassaphor-monk Laurence.  I do not know who he is, but I have copies of his Divine Liturgy and Octoechoes done in English.  These texts are photocopies I bought at a store in Chicago that is now closed.  Finding another copy would be difficult.  I used it when my Old Church Slavonic failed me. Mnogaja ljeta–God grant you many years, monk Laurence.
6. Liber Usualis.  If you want to know Gregorian chant, you can’t leave home without it.  The music is written in four line notation and the liturgical texts are in Latin.  However, all the instructions are in English and this includes a very comprehensive introduction on the notation, intepretation of chant and pronounciation of ecclesiastical Latin.  One can still purchase this book, but many libraries should have it.  Most older churches have a copy.  [I suggest visiting Franciscan friaries since these fellows just don’t chant much any more, excepting the Byzantine Franciscans of Sybertsville, Pennsylvannia (which won’t help you since they are Eastern-Rite).  A good place to hear both Galician and Carpatho-Rusyn chant.]

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