Every Orthodox Christian has admired church hymns at least once in his life. When performed correctly and beautifully, spiritual singing evokes feelings of reverence, tenderness and repentance. And all this thanks to the church choir, or choir.
Both among the faithful children of the Orthodox Church and among people close to the church, there will be those who would like to devote their energy and time to serving God. One of such services can be called singing in a church choir. Unfortunately, many still do not know how to implement such a pious intention.
Features of training in a church choir
During the formation of the Church, Christians did not have the concept of a choir. The community of believers prayed and sang liturgical hymns together. After the period of persecution, attention to the beauty of church services increased, since believers could worship openly. At this time, choirs or choirs appear.
Church choirs (choirs) appeared during the persecution of the Church
In modern churches you can find several choirs that sing alternately. Such choirs are located on a raised platform, on both sides of the altar. In the Orthodox tradition, it is not customary to use musical instruments: all harmony is built on the singing of several voices.
The regent is considered to be the main person in managing the choir. Often such people have a higher musical education. The course of the service depends on their professionalism, since there is a continuous relationship between the clergyman and the choir: the priest cannot conduct a service without the choir and reader, and the choir and readers, in turn, cannot sing without the blessing of the priest.
To study in the choir you need:
- be baptized in the Orthodox Church;
- have an ear for music and a beautiful voice;
- It is desirable to have a musical education.
Advice! If you don't have any musical talent, there is an option to become a reader. To do this, you need to be able to read texts in Church Slavonic loudly and expressively.
Pros and cons of singing online.
There are also disadvantages to learning church singing via the Internet, you will say, and you will be absolutely right. The downside may be that if you learn intonation incorrectly, you may not notice it, since there is no teacher nearby who can correct and help you.
But information technology has reached such heights that thanks to communication on Skype, for example, I feel like I’m talking to the person in the next room. And I have already answered your questions many times or given recommendations on Skype, correcting what was not sung or learned correctly; or giving visual advice on vocals or singing breathing. After all, church singing is subject to the same vocal laws as any choral singing.
Learning church singing via the Internet allowed me to feel needed and increased my talent to give to everyone in need. And I also met you, my dears, many wonderful people. I am happy to help anyone who wants it.
Contact me on Skype, I go there less often now because I’m more busy, but my mailing address is available to all of you. He is in the mailing list and here on the blog on the “About Me” page.
That’s probably all I wanted to talk to you about for today. Don't be afraid of difficulties, overcome them. Write to me by email about your achievements, successes, difficulties and failures and we will rejoice together or resolve your issues with God’s help. Good luck in learning church singing online, my dear readers.
Always in touch, Alena Semyonova.
School of Church Singing Octoplasty
Octoplasty or eight-voice is a musical system of eight voices. Voice is a special mode. Each day of the week and holiday has its own special voice.
Osmoglasie - musical modes on which all chants in the Orthodox Church are based
The first voice is solemn in nature, as it is used on the brightest and most joyful holiday of Easter.
The second voice contains a reverent and meek motive, and at the same time removes grief and sadness.
The third voice makes you think about the heavenly world, makes you think about exploits for the sake of Christ.
The fourth voice has a double quality. First it awakens joy, then it causes sadness.
The fifth voice has a soothing and at the same time sad character.
Voice six - attunes to pious thoughts and feelings.
The seventh voice is rarely used. It is touching and simple in nature.
The eighth voice has a glorifying character, magnifying the joy of the future life.
This system has been preserved in church traditions century after century and shapes its musical culture.
About school
ShDP is one of the “calling cards” of the Church of the Martyr Tatiana. This is a unique experience in teaching singing and regency, consisting of a synthesis of the classical music school and the traditional, reviving education of church choristers today. Its teachers and graduates talk about the School.
Nina Dmitrievna Lebedeva, founder of the school, first director of the School of Spiritual Singing:
“The “scissors” between professionalism and churchliness in the choir still exist, and we are trying to overcome them.”
Our school is unique in its own way. In Russia, the “zero link” of training a church chanter has been missed. They begin to teach singing and chanting in the choir - from the middle level - from college. We are the first signs in this area. There is no system like there was in the Synodal School, where boys were recruited, there is no system for educating not just a singer, but a church choirboy. That is why the level of those regents who come from the Lavra and from PSTGU - people with higher education - is so low. The “scissors” between professionalism and churchliness still exists. Because children do not learn these things from primary school age, but begin to learn only from the age of 15-16, when entering somewhere. We are trying to fill this gap. In the near future we want to organize a foundation “Orthodox Music Education in Russia”, thanks to which we could fill this niche. Today people often come to us simply for musical education, but they don’t stay in school. Still, our school has its own specifics that distinguish it from the usual “musical school”. It is important to hold out for the first two years; those who hold out, as a rule, then stay. And in such cases, parents usually follow their children and join the church. But at the initial stage it is difficult to understand why all this is needed. And if a person simply came for a musical education, the thought inevitably comes to him: wouldn’t it be better to go to a “music school”? The average student who has studied with us for at least three years, not to mention the full cycle, eight years plus three years of the fourth stage, is simply a ready-made singer of the left choir, and even an average good right one, who does not reach out for extremely complex works. And also ShDP – this is a special atmosphere. We have a lot in common. In addition to participating in regular weekday services, we traditionally sing antiphonally with the right choir at Christmas and Easter services, the patronal feast day of our church. After which we usually continue to celebrate, with students and teachers all together. We love getting together, and therefore new traditions constantly arise; recently we began to hold balls at the end of the school year. We love to travel somewhere: these include missionary trips, pilgrimage walks around Moscow, and participation in the services of other churches. The last places of such practice are the Sorrowful Church on Ordynka (antiphonally with the Synodal Choir) and the Novodevichy Convent, also as the left choir. Now we want to find a base for a choir camp where we could take students both in winter and summer. So that it is not too expensive and so that you can work closely with the choir for, for example, one or two weeks. The practice of missionary trips shows the effectiveness of such work. Tatyana Yuryevna Klyucheva, school director, teacher of solfeggio and church life:
“The main task is to develop the student’s coordination of hearing and voice.” Children now do not sing at home at all. Previously, home singing was common - at holidays, for example. In my generation, for example, children could tune in a second voice at an early age. Nowadays children do not have such skills, just as they have no concept of music at all. If parents do not specifically play music for their children, then all that remains is passive listening to what is heard on the radio and television. And when they come to learn music, they do not have the so-called coordination of hearing and voice. And even during music classes at school, they don’t actually sing, but listen to either music or just a story about music. My task is to restore this coordination so that they learn to sound, learn to hear themselves and control their voice. It is important to teach a child to sing two-voice by the 3-4th grade of school, and not just a simple voice, but a voice voice, which is much more difficult. I give them a text, and they have to sing in two voices according to the text, understanding how the melody moves. At music school they give a lot of theory, which I also teach, but in higher grades. I give them practical skills, and much later I explain how this or that practical skill is called in musical language. And the theory does not arise out of nowhere, but on already prepared soil. I try to give simple tasks - not for parents, but for children, so that it is easy for them to complete them, and they do it themselves. Therefore, I always focus on the weakest students. And of course, I try to instill in them a love of singing, so that they want to sing and learn to sing. I do everything so that children are happy to write dictations, so that, for example, a student would be interested in whether he can sight-sing a difficult number. The main thing here is not to alienate the child from music. And it happens that children who are completely deaf at the end of their training produce amazing results.
Sergey Yurievich Markelov, teacher of solfeggio and church life of the IV level, director of the ShDP concert choir:
“It’s quite possible to become a singer in three years.” People come to stage IV to learn how to sing. They are ready to learn, they want it. In a regular music school, you need to be prepared for the fact that people will have to be interested. In this regard, it is easier to teach in the ShDP. But often people come to level 4 “from scratch” or with several music school classes. In three years they must be prepared and placed in the choir. It is necessary to give them, in a concise form, a set of skills sufficient to sing a capella for several voices. By the way, already the second class of the school at the Choir Academy has mastered these skills. Their program can be extended over 3 years - the period of study in our IV stage, and this is more than enough. There are three main subjects that need to be mastered during this period. The vocal minimum is to teach a person to make sounds from himself so that it is physiological and so that he can do it for one and a half to two hours without damaging his voice. In principle, it's simple. Yes, vocal teachers say that this is work for years, and they are right. For the Bolshoi Theater these are years and decades. To sound normally in the choir, it is enough to master simple things - singing breathing and connecting resonators, and with careful and active work on yourself, a couple of months is enough. The hardest thing about being in a choir is learning how to do something together, you really have to learn it. Next is solfeggio, it can be linked to everyday life, it’s even easier. And here is the minimum - the steps of the major and minor scales, if you bring them to automatism, there will be no problems with sight reading. There will be no problems with singing in voice in any key. So that a student can freely sing by voice, and not “remember” the melody after someone, which often happens even among professional singers, because they have not specifically studied this, we learn voices in association with Sunday troparions, irmos and dogmatists. For example, when they say “The Second Tone” in the choir, the words of the troparion “When he descended to death” pop up in your brain, and that’s it, the process has begun. Thus, there are not many skills, and with painstaking work on them, becoming a singer in three years is quite possible.
Olga Savushkina, school graduate:
“My children are growing up in the service”
Main activity: English teacher.
Training at ShDP: 2000 – 2005
Church singing activity: regent of the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Kozhukhov. It never even occurred to me that I would ever start “waving my arms.” I looked at the regent, the singers - they were just angels, celestial beings. When for the first time Father Sergius, the rector of the Trinity Church in the village of Mosrentgen, put me on the choir and said: “You will sing,” my mother came up to him and said: “Father, she never sang at all, she didn’t even open her mouth.” I really never sang, I didn’t go to the choir at music school, and in solfeggio I had stable C’s, I didn’t even imagine what pitch was. But the priest was adamant. And I began to sing - out of obedience. And out of obedience I went to the ShDP and studied there for 5 years. The singing school was an outlet for me. In the college where I studied, the main topics of conversation were “tattoos” and relationships with boys. And only at the School, to which I flew as if on a holiday, did I not feel like a black sheep. Mom told me that I should have been born after the martyr Tatiana. I was born earlier, but this saint is connected with my second birth – spiritual. I don’t know if I could have resisted the temptations that surrounded me then if it weren’t for the ShDP. At school I saw normal Orthodox children who led normal lives, I saw a model of normal human relationships and felt that this model was close to me. While studying at the ShDP, I continued to carry out my main obedience - in the choir at the Trinity Church, where I took my first steps as a regency singer. Tatyana Yuryevna and Dmitry Stanislavovich Klyuchev gave me the most as teachers. When I came to study vocals with Dmitry Stanislavovich, my voice was sitting deep inside me, I still had to dig it out, and he did it. He revealed my voice to me, I heard that it exists, and that it is beautiful. Now I can’t live without singing: I feel empty inside when I don’t sing for a long time. I have two children, and they literally grew up on the choir, and I think it’s great. I would like to become not just a regent, but a good regent. Good, but not outstanding. Outstanding – I’m not ready for this yet. This is a lot of work that I’m afraid I won’t be able to bear. I understand that if I am in this place, in this temple, it means I am needed here. And when treacherous thoughts arise: “It could be better,” I remember the words that my vocal teacher liked to repeat to me: “The best is the enemy of the good.”
Irina Ogir, school graduate:
“The Ogir dynasty rules in the Kozhukhovsky temple”
Main activity: primary school teacher, student at Moscow State Pedagogical University
Studying at ShDP: 2004 – 2007
Church singing activities: chanter and church director, St. Seraphim of Sarov in Kozhukhov. I came to study at the ShDP after my sister, because I was assigned to the choir at the Trinity Church. They put me on the choir! This was the dream of my whole life. But at that time I knew only a few chants that are sung by everyone who stands in the temple. In the ShDP they taught me voices, this is the first breakthrough. But it’s not even the voices that are important. Probably, without the experience of surviving in the choir, which the school gave me, I would not have stayed in the choir. Especially in the harsh conditions of managing a choir of grandmothers who sang as they wanted, which no one could cope with. I, a 15-year-old girl, did it. We sang Easter without a single mistake! The parishioners came up and said: “Ira, thank you!” Thanks to Father Maxim, his liturgics course put all the scattered knowledge of the charter in my head. I went to the Kozhukhovsky Church, but I didn’t try to sing. But among the singers, my sister met someone she knew from Tatyana’s Church, and Olya was invited to the choir. But soon my sister left for a while, and I replaced her. The singers sang without a regent, that is, “some into the forest, some for firewood.” One day during a service, I couldn’t restrain myself and began trying to gather the scattered voices into a choir with my own hand. They looked at me in surprise: “Can you do this?” So I was given regency powers, which I naturally handed over to my sister when she returned from her trip. We have a hierarchy.
Ivan Bychkov, school graduate:
“I want to further develop as a singer”
Main activity: work in the field of IT technologies
Studying at ShDP: 2005 – 2008
Church singing activity: singer of the left choir of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Krylatskoye. I never studied music anywhere. But there was always a piano at home, and my parents taught me how to read music, so I already knew some theory. But in practice, I could calculate for quite a long time what this note between the second and third line is called. Before the ShDP, I had already been “singing” in the choir for six months, trying to learn the voices on my own, but things went slowly. By the time I entered the SDP, I already knew how to play a couple of voices for three or four voices on the piano, and I knew how to sing a fourth - my favorite bass interval. Of course, I did not hold my part in anything more complex than the everyday small litany. An acquaintance advised me to study at the ShDP, which I did and I don’t regret. The school gave me knowledge and skills that I still use today. The basis of the basics is solfeggio and everyday life, without which there is nothing to do in the choir. The liturgical classes taught by Father Maxim were very interesting. To be honest, I did not receive the knowledge that he gave later even at an Orthodox university. I studied at the ShDP for the required 3 years, but never formally finished school, because my final exams at the university coincided with graduations at the ShDP, and I simply did not come to the graduation at the ShDP. Now, after graduating from school, I am trying to further develop my singing skills.
Svetlana Klimova, school graduate:
“I was shocked at my first choir lesson”
Main activity: graduate student of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, teacher of Russian language and literature
Training at ShDP: 2006-2008
Church singing activities: choir at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Prussy How did I end up in the village of Prussy? This is not far from my home - in Mytishchi. I posted an ad on the forum of the “Chorist” website, and soon they called me and invited me to the temple, where I now sing. As a rule, the choir consists of 3-4 people, so each singer is alone in his part. And the fact that I can sing in such a situation is entirely the merit of the ShDP. Before SDP, it’s not that I didn’t sing, I didn’t even have any idea about music. I once played the piano, but by the time I came to school I had already forgotten the notes. At the first choir lesson, I was shocked: how people sing in different voices and don’t lose their parts, and it turns out very beautiful. I quickly got used to the choir. I was helped by my naturally good hearing and the enormous enthusiasm that gripped me from the very beginning of my studies. Within a year I could sing in the choir and hold my part. A teacher of church affairs invited me to the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary in Butyrskaya Sloboda, where she was then regent. First as replacements, and then as permanent members. I practiced there for quite a long time. I did not graduate from the ShDP, because in 2 years I basically acquired the necessary knowledge and skills that allow me to sing in a church choir - in solfeggio and everyday life.
Tatyana Rozhkova, school graduate:
“I finished school, but never received my diploma”
Main activity: accompanist
Studying at ShDP: 1998-2006
Church singing activities: the Church of the Three Saints - the home church of the classical gymnasium at the Greco-Latin office of Yu.A. Shichalin My parents brought me to school. I sang in a choir studio from the age of 5, but I came here to study church singing. In 1998 there was not even a division into classes or any clear schedule. During the 8 years of studying at ShDP there were all sorts of things. I even left it and sang in the State Television and Radio Choir for a whole year. But then she returned and decided to finish the SDP. Although I studied music in different educational institutions, I believe that it was the school of sacred singing that made me a singer. You can ideally sight-read complex works, but this is not enough for singing in church. For me, the classes on church life taught by Tatyana Yuryevna Klyucheva are still of great importance. She raised us as singers. I recently graduated from music school as a pianist. Now I don’t yet know what I will do next, but it will definitely be related to music. I am very glad that while I am at a crossroads, I have work in the temple.
Lyubov Makarova, school graduate:
“The school provides knowledge that any Orthodox person needs, but which, due to laziness or busyness, he will never obtain on his own”
Main activity: foreign language teacher
Studying at ShDP: 2003-2006
Church singing activity: charter director of the Church of St. Mt. Tatiana at Moscow State University Thanks to school, I generally began to study music, and this was already at a quite conscious age. When I turned to the director with a request to enroll in the ShDP, she asked me: “How old is your child?” She didn't expect that I was going to school on my own. I am very grateful to Nina Dmitrievna, who always treated all students with great patience and love - whether they were 15 years old or 25, whether they showed great promise or whether they needed to “dig out” their voice long and hard. And although I am not directly involved in singing activities, I still continue to develop the skills I acquired at school. Liturgics classes, of course, lay the foundations for ideas about the structure of worship. But it’s no secret that now, thanks to special publications, all the features of the current service can be determined without being a brainiac. The knowledge that the School provides is important to me, first of all, as an Orthodox person. A significant function of the school is familiarization with what happens during the service, understanding the deep meaning of each of its components. Even a parishioner interested in theological issues is unlikely to understand the nuances that were drawn to our attention in class.
Fyodor Balykleisky, school graduate:
“I have been studying at the ShDP all my adult life”
Training at ShDP: 2000 – 2011
Church singing activities: the Church of the Three Saints - the home church of the gymnasium at the Greco-Latin office of Yu.A. Shichalin. I studied at the School from the age of 5. I owe everything that I can do now in terms of singing to the ShDP. And especially to the teacher of solfeggio and everyday life Tatyana Yuryevna. I can freely hold my part and sight-read fairly complex pieces. They also gave me a lot of lessons on the Law of God. It seems to me that any singer should know these basics in order to understand what he is singing about. Although I have been studying at a singing school for 10 years, it is still interesting here. The most important subjects for me now are liturgics, Church Slavonic, solfeggio and choir. Communication with like-minded people also encourages you to come to class. I don’t think that in the future I will completely devote myself to music; I’m more interested in radio electronics. I would like to try to enter the faculty of the MIREA location. But in the additional profession that I received at the ShDP, two things attract me: the possibility of additional income and spiritual development.
Briefly about the training program
Learning to sing prayers on your own is difficult, especially without the required musical training. For those who have graduated from music school, it is undoubtedly easier - all that remains is to train your voice, “sharpen” it for singing for the Divine Service and learn the language in which the repertoire will be performed.
Informative! What do they pray for to the icon of the Feodorovskaya Mother of God?
The program for condensed training in singing in the choir and in the choir:
We study notes, meters, beats, shades and strokes in music. We learn to sight read, not only by pressing certain keys, but also taking into account the strength and nature of the sound.- Let's get acquainted with solfeggio - this is the theoretical part of music. The methodology for studying it will be more simplified than in schools. During the lessons, students will learn what intervals, chords, modes are, what pauses there are and other points in the theoretical section.
- Vocals The basis of the basics, during which the voice is “stretched” with the help of special chanting exercises. They are aimed at both enhancing breathing and increasing the range of the voice.
- Studying the texts of church hymns. You need to memorize them not just by heart, but with an understanding of what they say, as well as in accordance with each note, which corresponds to its own syllable.
For beginners, the simplest texts of prayers are offered, consisting of several phrases that are repeated to various musical motives.
