"Special Hymns"

Daniel_Kyrillos · July 2017

Does anyone have a reference to the tune or a recording of the "Special Hymns" listed under certain Saint feast directories?
God bless.

minatasgeel · July 2017

Can you share the link?

Daniel_Kyrillos · July 2017

minatasgeel · July 2017

Aha. I forgot about those.

So, Albair has a book called "Al-moufeed fi taqs al-tamgeed" ("The beneficial [things] in the rite of the glorification"). I think, after doing the hymns of St. Mina's feast, being a mina, I ended up adding a lot more hymns unique to saints, either from Albair's book or someone shared coptic text with me for these, I edited and then added them.

In general, those hymns are similar to "Adam Abel" for the prophets, and "Fa ni-tenh en-hab" for Archangel Michael....or even "Etav-enni-eskhai" of the Cross, specifically for Emperor Constantine. Also, all those hymns have, what "tarteeb elbe'a" manuscripts called a "wahm"=Voohem=hymn, and a paralex. It is believed that there is a structure for all those hymns, for 'voohems' to be chanted in a specific way based on their placement into the liturgical year, and the tune of the paralex during that time. You can see that in Pi-epnevma and Enthoten dthe and Ni-roumi....almost all have paralexes. What strengthens this idea is how the paralexes tune during the fifties changes to match kata ni-khorus. For example, afrek etfe has the first part in a quick tune (the voohem tune here might of been lost) but the paralex is said into kara nikhoros way. This is the same as Thomas' hymn for the Thomas Sunday...the paralex there is recorded in kata ni-khoroos tune. These are not my ideas...a friend has looked into these and while talking him, we kept connecting the dots.

So, you see, that idea can get complicated and confusing, specially with having texts and not recordings for them of teachings written down.

Daniel_Kyrillos · July 2017

@minatasgeel wait... so does that mean the paralex of the hymn for St. Mark's feast on 5 May would be said in the Kata Nikhoros tune ???

minatasgeel · July 2017

I can't say that is the case since what I wrote is all speculation.

dg920 · August 2017

If I may just clarify a few things:

There is a relative structure to the hymns in the Coptic church that follow the woham and paralex style.

Wohams:

1) They are not chanted antiphonetically; they are chanted either as a solo or as a chorus

2) They do not change based on seasons but are specific to the hymn.

3) They are not written to be four lines to a stanza but are written as a full paragraph.

4) They tend to be longer than the tune of the paralex itself. (some exceptions)

Examples of wohams are: Kata nikhoros (now known as el hegab), Wouniatk, Apekran, Nikhora, Enthoten, Niromi, Etaven, Afrek, Thomas, Pjinimisi, Osio, Atai etc.

Paralexes:

1) They are always chanted antiphonetically

2) They change based on season or it may be said that the season itself has a specific tune

3) They are written to be four lines to a stanza, for the most part, with the exceptions being Astir Magis and Asomen.

4) The paralexes tend to be shorter in tune than the wohams.

Examples of Paralexes are: Kata nikhoros (tawzi3) Acshopi, jenethlion, avini naf, amoini, kirios, aniepiskopos and so on and so forth.

The idea here is where the hymn is said changes its tune. So regarding your questions about St. Marks hymn. It wouldn't be said in the kata nikhoros tune because the hymn is chanted in the veneration service. During the veneration you would use the standard tune of acshopy whether it be long or short.

Daniel_Kyrillos · August 2017

@dg920 that really helped. Thank you so much.

Now I have to wonder: where did the vohems for all of these Martyr hymns go? Since theyre specific to the hymn we can't generalize it to say it's the tune of Pachois or anok nim or whatever. Are they lost?

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