Avtomela

Idiomelon (Medieval Greek: ἰδιόμελον from idio-, "unique" and -melon, "melody"; Church Slavonic: самогласенъ, samoglasen)—pl. idiomela—is a type of sticheron found in the liturgical books used in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, and many other Orthodox communities like Old Believers. Idiomela are unique compositions, while avtomela or aftomela—sing. automelon, avtomelon or aftomelon (Medieval Greek: αὐτόμελον, Church Slavonic: самоподобенъ, samopodoben) were used to create other hymns by a composition over the avtomelon's melody and following the poetic meter provided by the musical rhythm—this genre was characterised as prosomoion or prosomeion (Medieval Greek: προσόμοιον "similar to", Church Slavonic: подобенъ, podoben).

The hymn category idiomelon can only be understood in comparison with avtomelon and prosomoia. Already in the older book Tropologion each melody of a certain hymn was classified by a modal signature of the Byzantine octoechos—the eight mode system as it had developed in Constantinople, Damascus, Jerusalem, and in many other places.

An idiomelon is a melodic type of sticheron whose music was notated for the first time in the new books of the sticheraria during the Studites reform. The Greek term στιχηρὸν ἰδιόμελον (stichēron idiomelon) derives from ἴδιος ("own, special") and μέλον ("melody"). It was used to classify unique melodies composed exclusively for the text of one particular hymn. These idiomela were created in many different traditions, but one voluminous book called "sticherarion" collected and documented them all by the use of musical notation. Since there were so many traditions whose hymnographers composed within the octoechos, the solution was found by the invention of a new neume notation in order to write down the whole repertory in the sticherarion. Its books were the Menaion (Miney), Triodion (Postnaya Triod), Pentecostarion (Tsvetnaya Triod), and the Parakletike (Osmoglasnik). They documented a large repertoire, but only a small part of it made up a local monastic tradition and the latter also included many hymns which were not written in the books.

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