AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

Week Four Introduction: Good Morning Class! I hope you all had a great week and had a chance to practice our song “Krisdos Ee Mech” from last week. Today, we’re going to be continuing our lessons and learn more about several different arrangements of our song of the day, “Der Voghormia”. Phonetic Lesson: Today, we’re going to learn about phonetics in the Armenian language. We have special letters that don’t exist in the English language and we want to make sure we can pronounce each letter correctly and with the right sound. Let’s focus on some of our singing vowels: A-E-I-O-U When pronouncing these in English, we say: A-E-I-O-U However, when singing, we must sing them like this: AH-EH-EE-OH-UO Now, let’s look at the word “DER”. We don’t want it to sound like “T” but more of a hard palate, “THE” sound. So, we’d sing and say, “DER”. Let’s look at the word “Voghormia”, we’d like to lessen the emphasis on the “GH” noise and make it more of a soft palate pronunciation so it sounds better to the human ear. When putting it together, it will sound like “DER VOGHORMIA”.

AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

Song of the day: Der Voghormia Today’s song that we’re going to learn together is Der Voghormia, which directly translates to “Lord Have Mercy”. This hymn is song prior to communion as the congregation kneels and pray to the Almighty for propitiation and remission of their sins as the altar curtain is drawn. The Armenian lyrics for this piece are as follows: Verse 1: Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia Verse 2: Amenasoorp Yerortootyun. Door ashkharhis khaghaghootyun. Verse 3: Der voghormia, Der voghormia Hisoos purgich, mez voghormia. Verse 4: Ungal Der, yev voghormia. The English translation is: Verse 1: Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy Verse 2: Help, we beseech, unto ourselves. Unto this world, O grant thou peace. Verse 3: Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Jesus, our Savior, Lord, have mercy. Verse 4: Receive, Lord, and have mercy. The Armenian Apostolic Church is home to several arrangements of this hymn. Today we’re going to be learning two arrangements. The first by Komitas Vardapet, and second, an adapted version from Handel’s composition Here Come the Conquering Heroes from Judas Maccabaeus. Let’s first start with Komitas’s arrangement. I’ll sing one verse at a time so you may listen and learn, and then we’ll sing together!

AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

Sing: Alternate leader and group singing per verse. Verse 1: Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia Verse 2: Amenasoorp Yerortootyun. Door ashkharhis khaghaghootyun. Verse 3: Der voghormia, Der voghormia Hisoos purgich, mez voghormia. Verse 4: Ungal Der, yev voghormia.

AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

Now, let’s learn the arrangement by George Frederic Handel. Sing: Alternate leader and group singing per verse. Verse 1: Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia Verse 2: Amenasoorp Yerortootyun. Door ashkharhis khaghaghootyun. Verse 3: Der voghormia, Der voghormia Hisoos purgich, mez voghormia. Verse 4: Ungal Der, yev voghormia.

AACCWD Music Education – CEC Curriculum

Conclusion: Great job everyone! That’s all the time we have for today but I’d like to leave you with some homework for this week. With your parents or guardians, go online to www.aaccwd.com and visit WEEK 4 under our Sunday School page. There you view the sheet music and audio playback for “Der Voghormia”. Next week, we’ll learn two more arrangements of Der Voghormia! Until then, God Bless you and your families. See you next week!