Adam's Family chant

I recall this particular point with fondness for the following reason. When I was teaching Byzantine Music 101 at Holy Cross in Brookline MA back in 1990-2 I had devised a kind of Mode Table for use by the beginning students as a help to learning the modes. It had space for the various modes in their respective genera (i.e. iv had three rows: heirmologic, sticheraric and papadic, etc.). One column would show the basis, another the dominant notes, another would recall a well know melos in that particular mode that could be easily recalled by these neophites; an example would be Phos hilaron for mode II or Christos aneste for mode I plagal, and so on. The last column, however, was blank for each student to fill in him or herself; in that last space they would enter any tune or song that helped then 'get into the mode'. The one that I got the biggest kick out of was when one student wrote in 'the Adam's family tune' for mode III: you know, where it goes "da da da dum; da da da dum; da da da dum [snap snap]"! I'll never forget it; it was his na na.

;-)