psalm tone accompaniment
  • Does anyone have a simple but good organ accompaniment for Tone VII (all of them)
    with the incipit starting at and F. I had one that I had been using but it was a minor tonality since the B in this scale is a flat. Im looking for something that avoids Gm and Bb etc....
  • By incipit starting at F, do you mean mode VII scale from F to F with two flats? Or from C to C with one flat (so that a simple verse incipit is FEFG followed by recitation on G)?

    Seems like Bb is hard to avoid in either case, though.
  • with 2 flats f to f Im trying to avoid those chords because I was told it shouldn't be minor sounding... but at this point my hands have memorized playing it that way. If i have to learn it in a different key then I guess thats that, but Im wondering if theres another way to accompany it so it doesnt sound too minor.
  • Sister,

    Good King Wenceslaus is often set in B-flat. That's hardly a minor sounding piece. I encourage you not to require cheerful smiles to be pasted all around you.
    Thanked by 1WGS
  • @Chris Garton-Zavesky

    The reason is that we recently had a course by a professor from Rome (the official organist at St Pauls outside the Walls) and he told us that tone VII should not sound minor if you are going to transpose it.

  • Sister,

    Fair enough: Mode VII is used in a great many proclamations.
    Nevertheless, the existence of a minor chord can serve as necessary palate cleanser.

    Thanked by 1monasteryliturgist