Georgian Chanting

I was walking out the door to church on Saturday having practiced my words all morning when I received a phone call and was made to understand that our men’s trio wouldn’t be singing today because the girls would be singing... or something like that. I was bummed.

I considered catching a marshutka minibus straight out to Sighnaghi to visit Shergil my brother, but then I realized I was free to go and sing with any of my friends in Tbilisi, what choices!

I decided to go visit my friend Giorgi Gvimradze, who is a super talented young guy from western Georgia, who sang at my baptism, and who directs the choir at Saint George’s church in Old Tbilisi. This church is made of brick and sits perched among ramshackle rooftops far up the hillside just underneath the cliffs leading up to Narikala Fortress. I love this area of the city, it has such an ancient feel because it was not destroyed or disturbed by the communist era except for the hideous silver statue that sits on the cliff above (I wrote about it in the story about my friend Til). The church is small, feeling packed when fifty people stand inside, and has an uncharacteristically small bell tower rising above (pictures in March photo album).

I arrived just in time for the service which was the preparation service for the first Sunday of Great Lent, which is a really big deal over here. By the way, I’m to be vegan until Easter, exciting. No meat, fish, dairy, or oil.

This is how we sang: only one voice on each of the upper two parts for any single chant, with three basses. I sing the middle voice part, but since there were two other middle voice parts, and two first voices, Giorgi would quickly point out who he wanted to sing the next chant, hum three notes and if selected we would begin singing. When one of the other guys was singing middle voice, I sang along with the basses.

I think this is the traditional way to sing Georgian songs, folk or sacred. Having just a single voice on the upper two parts allows those soloists to sing freely, and to tune exactly with each other. In the old American sacred harp singing style, there are also supposed to be many more basses than upper voices, I think there is some old folk taste to this concept.

In the Church of Saint Giorgi there is also a women’s trio. They were standing just across the church from us, and we would alternate singing chants with them, sometimes back and forth, other times they would sing for ten or fifteen minutes and then the men would take over for a few minutes.

People often ask me if women also sing in church in Georgia. Sure, in fact, I would say that more than half of the churches have female choirs. To be honest though, I have yet to hear a good women’s choir. I don’t think women are trained to sing, actually no one is trained to sing, but men naturally learn to sing at the supra table. The best women chanters I’ve heard have probably been out in Sighnaghi, Joni’s wife and her choir with Shergil and my other friends from last year, but I might be biased because I know all of them!

The chants we sang were of good difficulty, and I particularly liked one of the young basses, Guga, who is an accountant, but seems to share as much enthusiasm for chanting as I do. Our friend and director Giorgi was on top of the service, gave us clear notes in advance, and as we clustered around a single podium, he always had the chant book open to the next chant.

This organization saved my butt, because I could quickly read through the words one time in advance before Giorgi would ask me if I knew the chant. I always nodded yes, but actually I had never seen half of the chants we sang that day. No matter, that’s what I’m here to do. This was the most professional, organized, and as a result the most enjoyable chanting I’ve done yet in Georgia. What beautiful music this is!

All it needs is the correct organization and practice to sing it halfway as decently as it deserves. The chant itself, the words, the message, the music, is far beyond our mortal ability, but in rare moments, one tastes the beginning of how beautiful it can be. Meanwhile, as singers, we are never fully satiated, only temporarily gratified by a rare chord of true tuning, a brief phrase of pure unity. For listeners, I don't quite know anymore the experience, I have been a singer so long. But I imagine that if God is more fully in heart, more fully understood, through the chanted words and melody, then this must be an amazing experience that only asks Gods inspiration, and not the thanks of human chanters.