This page was an attempt to provide a resource & teaching aid for music of the Russian Orthodox tradition. The motivation was to document a methodology to help people with limited musical backgrounds & liturgical expertise execute the services.

The underlying motivation of the selection of music on this web site came from three relevant points:

1) We must be faithful to Holy Tradition which includes sacred art which includes sacred music.

2) Where and when we are trying to do this is north Texas at the beginning of the 21st century. Popular musical tastes of this time & place are not especially cultivated. It is perhaps not going too far to say that our service music is the kind of thing convenience store owners use to run off teenagers.

3) On the other hand, the same people are surrounded by recorded music: in their cars, in the market & mall, at every conceivable entertainment, in many cases even at their place of business. All of this music is flawlessly executed. This means that the perfomance standard for our singing is very high.

The concatenation of these facts led to the emphasis on trying to execute simple music well, instead of more elaborate music poorly. basically focusing on the court chant octoechoes, obikhod, & music from the Sputnik & Prostopinije

To view the music you will need to setup Noteworthy

thanks to Fr. Oleg Iessey, Sloan Rolando, Walter Shymansky, Igor Pilsco & Nick Paraskevas for their help in this project.