When I visited Saint Herman’s Monastery in Platina, CA in 2025, the monks asked me to set the following hymn for Blessed Seraphim, which they had been singing in Byzantine Tone 8, to Znamenny chant:
O our wise and meek Father Seraphim / righteous monk of the last times / teacher of the Holy Fathers
and the Scriptures, / whose constant council was humility, / intercede before Christ God //
with all the saints, that our souls may be saved!
I did not have sheet music for the proper Znamenny melodies for Troparia [I assume the hymn is either a Troparion or a Kontakion], so I began with setting this hymn to Tone 8 Russo-Greek (I’ve also heard it called Taichkov Tone 8).
After my road trip to the 32nd Annual ROC Music Conference, I contacted the choir conductor at Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, WV, who turned out ot be an immensely helpful fount of knowledge concerning Znamenny chant. It turns out there is no distinction between what Znamenny melody you use for Troparia vs. Stichera, but there is a distinction between the Small and Greater Znamenny melodies. With this information in mind, I chose to set the hymn to Small Znamenny Tone 8.
In order to accomplish this task, I had to read square notation, which is not too dissimilar from reading a viola part (alto clef, or C clef), as well as a little Slavonic. I was linked this PDF for the Octoechos sheet music, which notates the Greater Znamenny melody for all the stichera (followed by the Small Znamenny version at the end) for each tone.
Audio:
Click above for Russo-Greek (Taichkov) Tone 8:
Click here to download the lossless vesion of above (.flac audio)
Click above for Small Znamenny Tone 8
Click here to download the lossless vesion of above (.flac audio)