The Stichiry Samohlasnyja The stichiry samohlasnyja, sung at
Vespers and, on some days, in the last part of Matins, are
hymnic stanzas accompanying psalm verses. The chant for the
psalm verses is similar in style to the prokimen tones,
described in an earlier In the old Greater znamennyj chant, the
stichiry for feast days have melodies that are sometimes long
and rather difficult, but those for weekdays have no melodies at
all. Simpler Melodies Are Developed At some unknown time (the
15th century?), a set of eight melodies, one for each hlas, was
devised for use on weekdays, in a kind of simplified znamennyj
chant. Each tone consisted of a small number (two to five) of
melodic phrases employing recitative to permit lengthening and
shortening to fit any phrase of the text. These phrases are
repeated in a fixed sequence until the singer reaches the last
phrase of the text, which is sung to a special concluding
melodic phrase. Singing From Memory These simple melodies could
be applied to any text; they could be