Lesson 2

We had our second lesson this week and the girls were very enthusiastic.  We had a lot of fun!  We started out the lesson by reviewing the Greek letters and playing a new game for them:Snake*.  Snake is slightly more difficult than Fat Snake*.  To splay Snake, we mixed up the Greek Letter cards and then, starting with ni, went up the scale, starting over again once we reached zo.  Once the Snake was done they pointed at the cards and said the scale until they got to the end of the snake.  I forgot to have them say it backwards. Oops!

The completed snake!

After Snake, we sang the Nightly Ni and then used the Ni Pa Vou cards to play Fine.  The girls were requesting to do the Parallage Phrases so we did that next.  

We started with the first phrase and they did very well with the phrases from their previous lesson.   Phrase 13 was tricky so I got out the Ni Pa Vou cards and we wrote the pitches out above the phrase.  We did one note at a time, starting at the beginning and repeating up to the note that we were on.  I forgot to take a picture, but this is what it looked like.

Parallage Practice phrase 13 written out with scale cards

After phrase 13, I kept asking them if they were ready to stop because I could see they were getting tired.  They didn't want to stop though.  When they saw a new symbol in the 16th phrase (the oligon with the kentema below it- jump up two notes) they both got very excited.  I think they wanted to learn a new symbol and that's why they were persevering!  I told them to watch me and listen and they were able to do it with me the first time by copying.  They even figured out what the symbol meant right away without me explaining.   Phrases 16 - 20 were a little tricky for them and we had to do some of them twice.  They wanted to finish the stack of phrases that I brought so we went all the way to the 20th phrase and then stopped.  

After the Parallage Phrases I gave them their new interval card for "up 2" and we played fine to put them in order.  As far as I know this symbol doesn't have a name, so I told them it was an oligon with a kentema below it.  

After that, the girls really wanted to chant some real music.  I had brought some music from matins with me and decided to show them the Evlogetaria.  Although this isn't the easiest hymn to read, I find that if you go to matins it is one of the easiest hymns to learn by ear.  I chanted it and they joined in with me some.  The eldest, who had gone to matins the last two Sundays, then chanted some on her own.  I'm pretty sure she was mainly attending to the words and not to the notation, but what she remembered was pretty accurate.  Her melodies weren't exact but they had the overall sound of what the Evlogetaria sounds like.  My guess is that during the week she will look at the notation more carefully and might be able to chant some parts of it correctly.  I am interested to find out at our next lesson!

Overall, I thought that the lesson was quite long.  Their enthusiasm never waned though and we covered a lot of material.  At this rate I will be out of Parallage Phrases after two more lessons!  These lessons also make me curious as to how quickly an adult would progress through through the material.
  

*Snake and Fat Snake are both games from Music Mind Games.