First Lesson

I started developing Byzantine Beginnings over two years ago and am excited to have my first set of students!  I am teaching my friend's 8 and 10 year old daughters.   Each week I go to her house at 7 am and we work on iconography until 11:30 (I started studying with her 3 years ago).  Then we eat lunch and in exchange for her guidance in iconography, I teach her daughters chant!

We had our first lesson three weeks ago and I thought that it would be nice to give a summary of the lessons here on the blog.   The games we played in the first lesson are the ones that I have listed as "lesson one" on the "lesson order" page.  

My most recent icon painted in egg tempera with gold leaf

Since they have hardly any background knowledge about Byzantine chant, I started the lesson by giving a brief history lesson.  I explained about the development of Byzantine chant within the Byzantine church and its roots in Greek music.  I also explained how they would be learning a new musical language.  I think that this is important for new students to understand.  Byzantine chant is a specific musical language with its own sound that is particular to the Orthodox church.  It has developed its own "alphabet" (all of the notation) and "grammar" (the system and rules of writing Byzantine music).  I explained that in order to really know this new language, we would be learning the notation symbols and some Greek as well.  

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