Stealing other people's music - or pictures - is not cool

One of the (very small number of)  interesting-minded conservative-Catholic bloggers that I sometimes read recently got pinged for image copyright violations.

Not so seemly that she then posted complaining about the complainers, rather than just quietly cleaning up her act.

The post is now gone from the website, so I'm guessing that the commenters gave a fairly sharp reminder about the commandments in general and Thou Shalt Not Steal in particular.   Unfortunately RSS feed-readers mean that many people will see it anyway.    A good reminder to always, always think before you post.

Copyright law is hard.   It's difficult for musicians and liturgists.    Most of us break the law at least sometimes, usually for "good" purposes that don't benefit us personally.   I have a lot of sympathy for the struggle.   I believe in being honest, but even so I take liberties sometimes.

But systematically stealing other people's images to use on your own posts is Just Not On.  The worker is worthy of their wages, and all that.

All musical instruments have a place in church

A fact worth remembering:

Psalm 150 mentions all 4 classes of musical instruments - strings, woodwind, brass & percussion. There is no Biblical justification for banning anything that's used to the glory of God.

Congregations, Choirs and Soloists

Ran across this website while searching - the guy's home page is broken but the sub pages all work.

Some very well put thoughts about the role of musicians and soloists,:

"... the assembly in the pews is the principal choir at Liturgy." 

"The job of all musicians, be they instrumentalists or singers, is to help facilitate the “full, active and conscious participation of the faithful.” 

" Soloists ... have the special ministry of delivering a piece of music ... in such a way that the assembly is inspired, encouraged, indeed, compelled, to participate in the “prayer” of the solo ... The intention of the solo is to use the inherent artistry of the piece and the prayerful talent of the musician to lift the level of engagement of the listeners from that of passive observation, to active participation." 

"The focus for a moment may be on the soloist who is offering the music, but the clear and authentic intent of the offering is to deftly channel the energy directed momentarily at the performer, to the prayerful content of the music, and then, in turn, to galvanize that prayerful, spiritual energy into a communal experience that transcends the personal performance of the soloist."

Why choosing music for church should be a shared responsibility

An interesting post and comments on PrayTell.

From the quotes there, the American bishops anticipate that music selection is done by a committee which has received clear delegation from the pastor.

But most musical directors (at least the ones who post on internet forums) dislike that: they would rather be a committee of one, they would never dream of letting ignoramuses choose music, believe no one else has the knowledge and skills etc.

Thankfully a few of the commentators there are more reflective. The best is this one:

All too often, the question of “Who picks the music?” is answered in terms of power. More properly, it should be answered in terms of gifts. Who knows the repertoire and skills of the musical leaders? Who knows the singing abilities of the community? Who knows the resources at hand? Who knows how to blend worship into a seamless event (rather than a stop-start mishmash)?

It seems to me that

- even if you are a professional musical director, vastly more qualified in both liturgy and music than your pastor, choir, musicians and liturgy committee, and

- even if you have all musical decision making authority delegated to you from the pastor

the best way to use this authority is the same way a wise parish-priest uses his authority. Sparingly and with lots of consultation. Ideally in way that your people don't even know that you're exercising authority.

Why?

On a very personal level, for reasons of self-protection: The best way to encourage a pastor to change his mind about your role and his delegated authority is a stream of people complaining to him about the music. If people cannot give you input, and see that it is taken notice of sometimes, then you can guarantee they will make their feelings known. If that happens, then best case, the pastor will not let you make the choices any more. Worst case, he'll fire you. Meaningfully listening to other people and developing respectful relationships with them is your best protection against this.

On a more theological level wise stewardship of a community's musical resoures requires making the best use of all the gifts available to you. That means need to engaging people and make them enthusiastic about working with you. That won't happen if you're autocratic. What's more you have both human and theologcial weaknesses and blind-spots, no matter how talented and well educated you are. There will be times when you simply run out of inspiration, when you miss the implications of a scripture message - or when a crisis in your life means that you have to step back and focus on your own family priorities for a few days. Biology means you can only see things from the perspective for your own gender and ethnic group. This means that you need a team to ensure that "the show goes on" and that the message fully reflects the Gospel.

Educationally developing the spiritual lives, liturgical knowledge, musical skill and leadership gifts of the people in your choirs, ensembles and music teams may or may not be part of your formal job description. But I've never yet seen a parish where it wasn't expected, at least informally. If you let other people take part in your decision-making processes, then you will be present when teachable moments, times when you can share liturgical-music knowledge and skill will happen naturally, - people won't even realise that they are learning. But if you work alone, they won't happen - and you won't be there when they happen in the liturgy group meeting or school staffroom.

This goes way beyond the musical skill development that you can share in choir practise - it's about sharing liturgical and practical wisdom based on both Church teaching and your own experience.

And your voice will be most effective if you are seen as a warm and friendly as well as wise and liturgio-musical:   A music director's primary role is relational, not melodic.

Let us Go to the Altar of God

I found this while I was searching for examples of possible hymns for Sunday.

Most of the versions that YouTube gave me first were just horrid.   And then this appeared - with only 176 views.

The announcements at the beginning are weird - and must be stranger still if you're sitting in the church being welcomes by a disembodied voice.   But skip to about 1:25, and enjoy the hymn.

Mass "themes" and parish-school relationships

The sheer arrogance of this astounds me.

Readings, Propers and themes.

The church has invested an incredible amount of energy in selecting the combinations of Scripture readings, right down to the individual verses, specified for each liturgy. The first and Gospel readings are always linked to each other, they emphasise the message of the the feast or season - and the Sunday readings include some multi-week messages which build on each other eg the emphasis on light in the early Ordinary Time Sundays of Year A, and the Bread-of-Life series during the mid part of Ordinary Time in Year A

To say that these don't provide the basis for a theme of that day's Mass is just bizarre.

I am totally aware that the church has also chosen some small snippets of scripture, mainly from the Psalms, to use at transition moments in the liturgy.   And that sometimes these snippets can be enlightening - especially for a musician or technician who misses the main message of the longer Gospel reading because they were distracted by how the sound system is working or how to support the soloist who's singing next or whatever.

But they are just snippets. They don't present the full story, except to an incredibly well-educated congregation for whom the smallest mention evokes a memory of the whole psalm and the way it's reflected in Jesus life . They mostly don't quote Jesus words. They're the Old Testament - not the Gospels, ie the Good News of resurrection.

Significantly, when Vatican II required the use of "the vernacular" (ie languanges that people use every day), the Church did not see providing translations of these snippets as an urgent priority. The focus was on translating the ordinary liturgical texts, and on exposing people to a wider range of content from sacred scripture.

Despite this, some people claim that these snippets (technically called "Propers", as opposed to the "Ordinary" ie the pieces that are the same at every Mass) should form the backbone of the music content at Masses in general, and including at school masses - where most of the attendees (where I live anyway) will be parents and children who are rarely at church anyway, not the most faithful and devoted (whose children are generally thoroughly grown and left school).

The action at every single Mass is the prayerful remembering and reliving mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. But that's not the end of the story. It's just the start. And because it's ever present, it doesn't give particular guidance for how to choose materials for any specific liturgy.   That's where the particular message from the readings, AKA the theme kicks in.   Which is handly becuase it's through the scriptural and teaching messages of each day's readings that liturgy informs and inspires the people present, and gives them hope of sharing in the mystery of resurrection. Music needs to re-enforce and support all these messages, not just focus on Body-and-Blood, or resurrections - or other tangential ideas from the psalms.

Parish music directors and school masses

As to parish music directors not having influence at school masses, having read some of their stories of woe on the Catholic blogsphere,  it's pretty clear that this is due to the behaviours of those music directors, and their often-astounding ignorance about education and human relationships.

So - some suggestions for the parish music director who wants to grow some influence in their school masses:

Firstly, learn some humility: the teachers may be liturgically ignorant, but you are pedagocially ignorant, and you aren't responsibly for the academic, social and spiritual development of 20/30 children five days a week. Their job is harder than yours, hands down.

Second, find out about the curriculum and teaching resources which the teachers have to work with. Mostly, they don't get to choose what ideas to present and what songs to use to support those. Probably they're working with their own musical limitations: if they choice is whatever they have a CD for vs no music whatsoever, then be grateful for the CD no matter how tinny it sounds to you.

Third, focus on building loving relationships, not liturgical correctness. If you're asked to help, choose mostly materials that the children do know - not just what you think they should know. Get over your pride and play those pieces which the education professionals know that the children and their marginally-churched parents will relate to, even if you hate them.   Do it with a gracious attitude - make sure that you're modelling Christ's love in every single interaction that you have with the teachers and the kids. Be kind. Praise people for things that went well. Focus on the skills and talents that you have, not the defects.

Fourth, get over the excuses. Yes, the teachers work in the daytime, when most musical directors are at their day jobs - so take a half-days leave when you need to meet them. Yes, the children practise during school time, when you're probably not around - so provide resources that the teachers can use.   Yes, most of them aren't getting the quality of musical education that you would like - get over it, and concentrate on what you can share with them.

If you do these things, chances are you will get to spend more time with teachers, and their pupils. You will be present when a teachable moment for making an liturgical point arises. And your voice will be listened to because you've made helpful suggestions in the past.

The 70's weren't so bad - but they didn't produce much music that we still use.

A fascinating article in Commonweal magazine about the reality of growing up as an American Catholic in the 1970s. The author just said "Catholic" - but I think that the country adds an important dimension: what happens in America is not necessarily the same as what happens everywhere else!

One thing that caught my eye, though, is the quote

"I do not remember much about the confirmation ceremony itself. I am pretty sure we sang “On Eagle’s Wings.” Don’t judge—it was the ’70s!"

Fascinating that she thinks this. Michael Joncas wrote On Eagles Wings in 1975-1976 for a funeral but it wasn't recorded until 1979. So unless the author was in his immediate circle, then I'd be very surprised if it was sung at her confirmation.

This corresponds with something I've noticed: traditionalists like to berate material as coming "from the 70's" - implicity from a hippy era.  But in my observation there's actually very little material from the 1970s that is still in use today.  My current parish has one item from the 1960's (Peter Kearney's "Fill my House"), lots of things that are older still, but little at all from the 70s when the work of transforming liturgy into the vernacular was carried out in earnest.   Without pulling out a spreadsheet, my sense is that most of the material we use was actually written in the 1980s and 90s.

I wonder what's happening in other places.

Congregational singing is always a living proof of the Faith

Recently I recently came upon an article from a Catholic priest and pastoral worker, writing in a magazine with a less liturgical focus.

There's one bit I disagree with:

Make sure you have the best musicians you can find (paid or volunteer) and use them; do the difficult things and ask people who are holding your program down or even making it worse to step aside.

"Best" is a subjective term - and often the best of musicians want to make great music, rather than to model God's love for their colleagues and parishioners.     I'd rather have a teachable musician with a heart to serve God's people, than a virtuoso any day.

But one of their key points is

It’s not exactly clear to us why that is so, but congregational singing seems to be a reliable bellwether for church health.

Like them, I believe this is true, even though I have no evidence, and no real explanation about why it's the case.

Then, today, I was totally stunned to find this gem in a Catholic hymn book published in Australia in 1952 - long before Vatican II was called.   I've included a picture of the key bit here - just because it's so stunningly different from what many traditionalist musicians would have us believe about church music pre VII, and the expectations about who (people vs choir) should be singing.

You can read the whole thing here:    http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-vn2152603-s4

A short history of sacred music

Ref:  http://blog.adw.org/2013/12/what-is-sacred-music-historically-its-a-bit-more-complex-than-you-may-think/

However, it focuses on the style of the music, rather than the content of the words, and I think this is a mistake: There is "gospel" style music today which is not Godly - and plenty of secular tunes which have been well-baptised.

The latter are even more interesting when the people who are using them for liturgy / worship / prayer don't have any idea about their origins:  not many Irish people realize that the tune they sing A Mhuire Mhaithar to started its life as a love song, and has been used for many things including the New Zealand theme tune for the Volvo Ocean race back in the day!

Music is NOT a universal language

In interesting article from a more evangelical perspective.   The key phrase that someone picked up on:

"Music is the universal language." How often have we heard the phrase? It's amazing-the power of an oft-repeated, unexamined aphorism. This one in particular, it sounds so, romantic-convincing."

Anyone who's ever listed to traditional music from Asian cultures will know that the line isn't true: somehow what sounds right to their composers sounds totally wrong to ears formed in Western patterns - even if we don't have the training or vocabulary to recognize and describe what's wrong.

So what does this mean in a liturgical / catholic / Catholic context?   In short, Gregorian chant is no more the universal musical language than any other. Jesus didn't use it the way we know it - any more than he prescribed sing the Psalms the way the Jewish people did as the only way to worship God.


Personally, I found this part interesting too:

"We Went, We Sang, We Conquered…
During the 19th and 20th centuries, as Western and European Christians went out around the world, ... some even tried to “help” the local music-makers by teaching them to sing in unisonand by encouraging the translation of Western Christian songs into local languages. Current
practice [does not] always demonstrate a value for the God-given musical and artistic resources of the host cultures.
... it never occurred to most Christian workers that just as they were learning new, complex, and “strange-sounding” languages in order to communicate with local people, they also needed to learn to understand the local music systems. Instead, they brought their Bible in one hand and a hymnbook in the other. Often the Bible was translated into the vernacular, but when it came to the hymnbooks, only the words changed (in translation), not the basic musical language of the songs."

I think it's even worse than that:

As well as margnalising the indigenous musical expressions, many of the missionaries weren't actually the best of musicians. So I've met people who were taught to sing Latin hymns that many Catholics regard as treasures of the faith to tunes that Western culture considers trite and disrespectful (eg Kumbayah). I've also met people who think that certain hymns are "traditional African hymns" because those (18th century and out of favour) hymns aren't widely used in European countries any more.

Hymns we might like to learn

This post lists hymns which I've come across, which the parish might like to learn "sometime" - if the right time arises:

Center of My Life - Paul Inwood:    http://www.spiritandsong.com/compositions/1493


In Perfect Charity - 
http://www.sixmaddens.org/?p=1577
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOqcyxVFZOU

The Lord is my Life
Michael Joncas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfwPJCvbsGY

We Have been Told
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI-CwQs5dTo

Jesus Christ, You are my Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHkjtm4ImVw
By MARCOS FRISINA

Jesus Christ, you are my life,
alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus Christ, you are my life 
You are my life, alleluia.

He calls us to the waters of life

He pours out his love into our heart

Jesus comes to us in our hearts

Glory to God forever.

1.  Be our Way, our Truth, and our Life 
Form us anew in how you died 
We embrace the cross that you bore
and will arise in glory.

2.  Holy fire, come dwell in each heart
 Grant us the gifts your love imparts 
Free our tongues to boldly proclaim 
"Jesus is Lord forever!"
 
3.  Break the yoke of violence and war 
Open the hearts of rich to poor 
Nations bound by terror and fear 
long to embrace your freedom.

4.  Senseless walls of hatred divide, 
vengeance destroys and fear misguides.
Teach us mercy: hope for new life 
for you alone are holy! 

No sign of peace means the priest is afraid of what we might do?

An interesting read about the recent letter about the Sign of Peace.  In short, a “circular letter” on “the ritual expression of the gift of peace at Mass” - released late July 2014.   Some key quotes:

When it is used, it must be done with dignity and awareness that it is not a liturgical form of “good morning,” but a witness to the Christian belief that true peace is a gift of Christ’s death and resurrection.
“if it is foreseen that it will not take place properly,” it can be omitted.
Bishops should do everything possible to end “abuses” such as:

• “The introduction of a ‘song for peace,’ which is nonexistent in the Roman rite.”
• “The movement of the faithful from their places to exchange the sign of peace amongst themselves.”
• “The departure of the priest from the altar in order to give the sign of peace to some of the faithful.”
• People using the sign of peace at Christmas, Easter, baptisms, weddings, ordinations and funerals to offer holiday greetings, congratulations or condolences. 

“Christ is our peace, the divine peace, announced by the prophets and by the angels, and which he brought to the world by means of his paschal mystery,” the letter said. “This peace of the risen Lord is invoked, preached and spread in the celebration (of Mass), even by means of a human gesture lifted up to the realm of the sacred.”

So basically if a priest isn't including it, then said priest must be scared that something will go wrong.    Pretty sad that any priest would have that little regard for peoples' good sense.

What is the job of a Liturgy Committee?

Part of the deal for me being involved with parish musics being on the liturgy committee.

An interesting quote from this blog:

"The real work of a liturgy committee is to study and reflect upon the Church's liturgical documents in the hope of bringing the Church's wisdom into creative conversations to help shape the liturgical life of the Catholic parish."

On reflection, I think I agree with him: if you're on the liturgy committee, it's actually your job to know what the wider Church does when it prays together. It's not just the priest's job - it's everyone's, because we all bring a different lens into play when we study the church documents.

I might twitch it slightly: leave out the word "creative" (it's laden with other meanings), and put the focus onto this particular parish. Also, people here think that church = Catholic ... so I was going to leave the word out. but on reflection, I think that's an even more important reason to leave it in. And while this study is probably the most important work, the week-by-week and season-by-season co-ordination is pretty necessary too. So I'd end up with

"The first job of our liturgy committee is to study and reflect upon the Church's liturgical documents in the hope of bringing the Church's wisdom into the conversations that shape the liturgical life of our Catholic parish."

All that said - suggesting that we study documents isn't necessarily going to be popular! I've seen glazed looks when I suggested that we could all read a two-page summary of the role of music in liturgy.  Not sure what reaction a whole book would get.

But I know there's been a programme on the catechism which the pastoral council have been doing. Maybe we should start asking for a similar one on the liturgical documents.

Pentecost Sunday, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   City of God - Schutte
• Psalm:       Send Forth your Spirit of Lord - Aniceto Nazareth
• Offertory:  Spirit of God - Miriam Therese Winter (this one)
• Communion:   O Breathe on Me O Breath of God
• Sending:     Freely Freely - Owens

What I'd like to have sung

We did pretty well overall:  the psalm was sung, there were some good links between the hymns and the sermon, and a good focus on the Holy Spirit.

Would have been a good day for Be Still for the Presence of the Lord - not an old favourite, but a growing new one.

5th Sunday of Easter, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   Seek Ye First - Karen Lafferty
• Gloria:  Peruvian
• Psalm:  - spoken
• Gospel acclamation:  Alleluia, alleluia Give thanks ... Fishel
• Offertory: - instrumental
• Communion:   Servant Song - Richard Gillard
• Sending:  Hail Queen of Heaven

What I'd like to have sung:

The Celtic Alleluia, and in particular some of its verses.    People in Ireland do know this, but for some reason it's hardly every sung.    Maybe they just don't like the word "celtic" - people overseas don't realise how much some Irish despise this term, which is a catch-all for a whole collection of sub-national groups today.

And I'm sure there's another hymn I know with "The Way, The Truth and the Life" in it - can't think of it any more though.

HQOH was put on because it's May, so "Mary's month" in the northern hemisphere.

How a non-liturgical church structures their music

I ran into this blog post the other day.   In short it explains the structure which one non-liturgical (non-denom I think) church uses to structure the music in their services.

This isn't an approach that would work for Mass.  But it might be something to think about if we happen to find ourselves planning a "praise and worship" type of session before a liturgy - as a way of transitioning people from "out there" to "source and summit".

So what do they do   (summarised and simplified):

We usually have five songs at the start of our services that are meant for the church to sing together.  

First song:  a “gathering” song, an invocation that focuses attention on God and asks for Gods way to be present with us.    

Second song:  transitional between the “1″ and “3″, usually up-tempo and lyrically strong.  

Third song:  A testimonial telling of God’s work in us.  

Fourth song:  transitional  The verses are testimonial but the chorus speaks only of who God is with no mention of us. 

Fifth song, remove all mention of us and focuson the attributes and character of God. 

The article ends with well-made point, which I think is good to make for any denominiation and applies equally well to parish organists, music directors, choir leaders, band-leaders, et al:

May we, as worship leaders, implement songs and elements that point our people heavenward, laying aside our own agendas and musical preferences. If we want to lead our congregation well, we must choose to love the individuals more than the music, realizing that our role is relational far more than it is melodic.

I'm going to be using that last line "our role is relational far more than it is melodic" in a lot of places"

ANZAC Day 2014, Dublin

The above was officially released in NZ a year or two before I left - lovely to see that it's made its way to ANZAC ceremonies worldwide.

Apart from that, we has the Australian and NZ national anthems, and some works be a choir from Queensland on their way to the Cork Choral Festival:

• Lest we Forget - Ron Dawson and Kevin Morgan
• The Soul of Australia - Words J Abbott and music Tim Sherlock
• Tallis Canon

The Easter Triduum + Easter Sunday 2014

Three days and a Sunday, one post - let's see how much I can remember!

Holy Thursday

What we sang 

• Entrance:   I am the Bread of Life - Toolan
• Psalm: - spoken
• Gloria Peruvia
• Foot washing - I Heard the Voice of Jesus Calling - John Bell - played on CD
• Offertory:   Take our Bread
• Communion: Ubi Caritas
• Sending:  Silence

What I'd like to have sung:

I miss Gregory Norbet's "The  Lord Jesus", because the text is such a great fit.    It was used the first year I was here, but that was more the music co-ordinator and one very talented pianist who was able to play and sing it at sight even though she didn't know it.    Haven't met anyone else since who knows it.

That said, John Bell's "We Walk His Way" was an amazing find while I was travelling, and I knew that "I Heard ... " would work for Thursday as well as the rest of the year as soon as I heard it.   We had a young pianist tonight who's not yet a song-leader, so had to settle for the CD tonight.  It sounded fantastic - really proved just how much the church's sound system is designed for playing CD's and lot for live music.

And I miss a proper Gloria.   Not 'cos I'm a liturgist.   Just 'cos the Peruvian is a great son, but is missing to much of the theology from the full text.   

Good Friday

What we sang 

• Entrance:   silence
• Psalm: - spoken
• Gospel acclamation:  Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ - unknown.
• Response to the intercessions:   O Lord hear us we pray, O Lord give us your Love.
• Veneration of the Cross:   Were you There - Afro-American spiritual
• Communion: violin instrumental first, followed by The Old Rugged Cross
• Sending:  Silence

What I'd like to have sung:

The Reproaches - ideally Frank Andersen's verison, accompanied by a guitar and violin.   But really, any version would do.

Easter Saturday

What we sang 

• Exultet: - was read, not sung   
• Psalm 1 - Send forth Your Spirit O Lord - well known locally, I haven't been able to track down who this arrangement is by
• Psalm 2 - I Will Bless the Lord - Frank Hernandez
• Psalm 3 - You will draw water in Joy - another locally known version
• Gloria - Peruvian - complete with electronic bells (sounded lovely)
• Gospel Acclamation:    Alleluia No 1 - Fishel
• Offertory:   Come to the Water - Andersen
• Communion:   A solo - I didn't catch the name of the song
• Sending:     Sing a New Song

What I'd like to have sung:

Frank Andersen's Exultet.   Or any other Exultet with a refrain part.   (I found a simple one from the UK in 2011, but haven't yet had the right people to introduce it with).

Any or all of Christ be our Light,  Jesus Christ is Risen Today and even some Hallelujah Chorus would have been lovely.   But we did a simple, joyful service well, with plenty of Alleluia in there.

Easter Sunday

What we sang 

• Entrance:   Seek Ye First
• Gloria - The Latin Gloria, Missa de Angelis version
• Psalm: - Alleluia No 1 - Fishel.    Aiming for three verses, but it got cut short.
• Gospel Acclamation:  Pilgrim Alleluia - Lawton - made a welcome return, very well sung by the children present
• Offertory:   instrumental
• During Communion: instrumental "What Wonderous Love" - played 7 times due to the crowd
• After Communion  "You Raise me Up" - Secret Garden
• Sending:  Because he Lives - the Gaithers

What I'd like to have sung:

Jesus Christ is Risen Today, with full pomp and ceremony - this is the only day in the whole year when I like a thundering organ.

The Easter Song - unknown.   Folky but with long memories.

Lord of the Dance.    

Or The Lord is Alive by Jean-Paul Lécot.   This is a new old-favourite, I learned it here in a parish I visited with when still thought I was just her for six months.

The Gloria was an experiment.  Our lead-musician today is a lovely woman who doesn't cope well with minor keys.    She's tried bluffing her was through the Peruvian, but it really doesn't work.   We've tried an arrangement to Ode to Joy,  but doing it with the official text has too many words for comfort, and an unofficial version that we have is even further from the real text than the Peruvian.    But she remembers the old Latin version, and was confident that she pull it off.    The older people joined in - and so did the African community, so that counts as a win and has been added to the "hymns the parish knows" list.

Because He Lives was new to me.   I was sceptical at first - but the lead musician suggested it, and I figured that if she knows it, then lots of other people would too, and I was right.    Big hit among all ages and the Africans.    Probably I was the only one there who thinks it's just a bit too country-and-western.   But I'll get over it, again, it needs to go on the regular list. 

We are the Easter People, year-round

A nice quote from Rory Cooney, good guidance for liturgical planning no matter what the scale of your musical programme:

I try to keep a paschal repertoire active all through the year, so that much of our music can be used on any Sunday and also works well for the Easter season.

So - if someone suggests a new Mass setting or the like, then one of the judgement calls is "could we use this at some time during the Easter Triduum or season(assuming we've learnt it during the year?" If the answer is "no, it's too banal / complicated / dreary / whatever" - then it's probably not fit for a regular Sunday either.

Palm Sunday, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   All ye who Seek a Comfort Sure - African arrangement
• Psalm: - we didn't
• Offertory:   Hosanna - Carl Tuttle
• Communion:  Soul of my Saviour
• Sending:   All ye who Seek a Comfort Sure  -   again!

What I'd like to have sung

No one in Ireland seems to have heard of the W Jabusch "The King of Glory" which is in my mind as the classic for Palm Sunday.   The classic here is "All Glory Laud and Honour" - but I'm not keen on it myself.

Our African community picked music this week, so the choices are from their repertoire combined with what they think of as the core Irish hymns.   The repetition of the opening hymn at the end, instead of the planned African one was a last minute thing - I didn't quite understand the reason, sometimes you just have to go with things!

5th Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   Christ be Beside Me
• Psalm:      We didn't
• Offertory:  Be Still and Know
• Communion:   instrumental only
• Sending:     Here I am Lord

What I'd like to have sung

No real favourites this week.    Our line up wasn't at all challenging:   expected a school choir for three hymns, but they had to cancel at short notice, and our main musician for the day is busy learning material for Holy Week, so we didn't want to push her with anything new.   So old-standbys, which could be sung with minimal instrumental support.

Why our music should (generally) be simple enough for everyone to sing

An issue I have with some of the more traditionally-minded church music bloggers is their underlying assumption that the only music which is "good enough" for church is music which is beautiful, and expertly performed - meaning by a well trained choir, not an untrained assembly.

The great shift in music in the Catholic church after Vatican II was, as much as anything, a rejection of this idea, and a return to more scriptural approaches to the place music in public worship.

But what drives this fundamental sense that singing during liturgy is the right thing for everyone to be doing.   Paul's claimed quote that "when you sing, you pray twice" is hackneyed - and insulting to those who do not sing.    But still, there is a truth there - where does it come from?

My answer is that firstly, we know that Jesus was a Jew:   he sang during temple worship, and he sang at the Last Supper, when Eucharist as we know it was instituted.    ref:   http://www.thesacredpage.com/2009/04/what-did-jesus-sing-at-last-supper.html

Second, there's a lot of scriptural support:  Singing is a fundamental worship behaviour, and is about about heart:  in Ephesians 5, Paul tells the believers to be

"addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,"

Thirdly, tradition.   If you can get past the motherhood-and-apple-pie statements about the glorious days of church music prior to VII, you'll find out that even then, most masses were "low" - ie had no singing, or only a few hymns.   Certainly cathedrals and major churches had programmes that delivered expertly-executed chant - but they were the exception.   Your average parish organist in SmallTownville didn't stand a chance of delivering this sort of programme, then as now.

So that's the first stages of an analysis:  Jesus behaviour, scripture and tradition.

But what about lived experience today?

This is a lot more subjective, of course, but still gives us some clues about the importance of active participation.

Singing helps us to remember.    Very few people can remember the exact words of the gospel reading they heard last Sunday and at least once every three years since they've been going to Mass, or to a church with lectionary based services.   But most have no difficultly remembering at least some words of the hymns they sang.  That's why God, in Deuteronomy, told Moses to

"write this song and teach it to the people of Israel - put it in their mouths" 

not the mouths of the choir or music team!   Most human beings find that what is in their mouth stays in their mind - so what better way to to get Christian teaching in people's mind than by asking them to sing about it.


Music expresses emotion - and reaching people at heart-level is an essential part of public worship.

Singing together unites us




GET MORE FROM    http://www.worshipmatters.com/2014/02/10/i-worship-god-by-singing-you-should-too/

4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   Here I am Lord - Dan Schutte
• Psalm:       The Lord's my Shepherd - CRIMOND
• Offertory:  Open my Eyes Lord - Jesse Manibusan
• Communion:   You are Near - Dan Schutte 
• Sending:          Amazing Grace
• Impromptu afterwards:   A Mother's Love is a Blessing

What I'd like to have sung

Today it looked like we weren't going to have a musician, so the first-cut list was based on what I had backing tracks that I think the congregation would sing to without strong leadership.   (We haven't tried unaccompanied since moving to the new building.)

However it turned out that a strong musician was available after all, so we switched off the CD player, and she had a sense of using "You are Near" instead of the instrumental "God of Mercy and Compassion" that was planned.    Didn't try to change any of the rest at short notice, though.

City of God fitted the readings a little better, but we thought it was a little too cheerful for Lent, and also because the parish mass included a memorial for the brother of one of our leadership team - a lovely man who's done an incredible amount for the parish.

And I wish I'd had a backing track for something appropriate for Mother's Day - must keep an eye out for that.

3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance: How Great Thou Art
• Psalm: we didn't
• Offertory: I Will Give You Living Water - Maddec
• Communion: Only a Shadow
• Sending: Our God Reigns

What I'd like to have sung:

There's a setting of today's psalm "O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts" in my head, and looking at the files on my computer I see that I've never been able to find out where it came from. But there are verses, the first one starts "Let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us hail the God who is our saviour;". Mmm, must search more on this.

Also, I was remembering Frank Andersen's "Come to the Water" - although it's only somewhat related.

And there must be some hymns about of Moses striking the rock at Horeb - it's such a good story that I'm sure some hymn-writers have worked with it.

The overall tone was a little more cheerful and not as Lent-ish as I would have liked, but we're likely to head that way next week.

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   How Great Thou Art - Stuart Hine
• Psalm:       Not sung
• Offertory:  My God Accept my Heart this Day - Bridges
• Communion:   Céad Míle Fáilte Romhat
• Sending:          As I Kneel Before You

On holiday from the regular parish this Sunday - they'll get my company tomorrow for St Patrick's day instead.    So went to an inner city church.   Thoughtful sermon about looking for truth vs looking for love, which was linked back to the day's scripture.    I couldn't see any links in the hymns though.   But people have started singing, which is a big step up since I was last there a couple of years back.

What I'd like to have sung:

Shine Jesus Shine.    Well maybe not exactly liked - it's a bit too charismatic for my tastes.   But this is the one day when it's such a fantastic fit for the readings that it seems almost compulsory.

The psalm:  there's a Frank Andersen (I think) setting of "May your love be upon us O Lord as we place our hope in You" lodged in my mind.    Can't find the music for it, but it's what I wanted to sing this week.

Use of music is the New Testament vs Old Testament

Spotted this interesting sentence in a mailing list that I read:

"Music is mentioned fairly infrequently in the New Testament ... but in both spots that Paul mentions it, he mentions it in the context of the congregation doing things to each other (encourage, admonish). We seem to have flipped this and think one of two things; it's either the congregants doing something to/for God, or it's the stage-peeps doing something to/for the congregants.
This should not be. It should be to glorify God and to encourage each other. No "worship bubbles" where I just praise God in my own way and forget anyone else is around, and no "audience" worship, where I just watch someone else worship..."

This is one of those ideas what I'd love to unpack some more, and dig into questions like:

• What's the difference in use of music in the OT and NT?
• What does this difference tell us about how Christ-focussed liturgy should be?

It's going to have to wait until another day though:  so many interesting topics, so little time!

1st Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:   Christ be Beside Me
• Psalm:  Spoken
• Offertory:   Instrumental
• Communion:  Ubi Caritas
• Sending:  Bind us Together

What I'd like to have sung:

The psalm:  I've known an arrangement of Create in me a New Heart (it feels like) forever.   Never found it published anywhere, it must be one that travelled "through the ether" back in the 1980s.   I did once see a cowboy version of it on YouTube -and tried to put that sound out of my mind ever since!      And though I've sung some fancy Miserere settings in choirs, none of them have the same impact on me as the English words do.

Also, while I was listening to the readings yesterday, John Foley's Turn to Me kept coming to mind, more for the tone of it than any particular words.    It's been a while since I was in a parish with the musical resources to pull it off, so it's definitely one that I miss.

Expressing the mystery of faith, in sound - and evangelising in the concert hall

Came across an interesting quote (reportedly) from JPII today, while researching a hymn:

Today, as yesterday, musicians, composers, liturgical chapel cantors, church organists and instrumentalists .... should be especially conscious of the fact that each of their creations or interpretations cannot escape the requirement of being a work that is inspired, appropriate and attentive to aesthetic dignity, transformed into a prayer of worship when, in the course of the liturgy, it expresses the mystery of faith in sound.

It's attributed to JPII "in one of his letters" in a paper by NAJI HAKIM titled "Music in the Catholic liturgy in France at the end of the 20th century" (ref: http://www.najihakim.com/writings/musiqliturgifr-e.html

The paper itself is quite depressing: yet another "professional" musician who thinks that the pipe organ is the be-all-and-end-all of church music, doesn't think that active participation requires more than just listening, and thinks that musical activity should NOT be the realm of everyone.

But the quote above can be interpreted in a different way: it's saying that in by the nature of liturgy, musical pieces that are

• inspired (ie motivated by Godly thoughts about God or sacred topics)
• appropriate (ie fits the situation it is played in - which includes the age, culture, etc of the people present)
• attentive to aesthetic dignity (ie match the cultural expectations of "beauty" that the listeners have)

are changed so that they express faith in sound.

I'd take that even further:   various musical forms with heavy percussion or a strong emphasis on rhythm (think tribal drumming or Irish music) both require and develop a high level unity.  

And the paper makes one interesting point:

"... today on a large scale within the French Catholic cultural landscape - musical art inspired by Christianity has deserted the liturgy and taken refuge in concerts or in recordings"

That's by no means uniquely French: all over the world, people with "high art" musical tastes and faiths that reject all "liturgical trappings" or no faith at all - see no irony in going to concert performance of Masses, Requiems, Magnificats and the like.

It seems to me that Christian artists have one of the best chances of evangelising a very difficult-to-reach group - maybe just maybe the work that they put into the concert hall actually has as much importance as any church-sanctioned liturgy.

8th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

What we sang 

• Entrance:  Seek Ye First - a last blast of Alleluias before Lent
• Psalm:  John Michael Talbot's Only in God - http://youtu.be/HAiGAyp22JI 
• Offertory:  Isaiah 49 / I will never forget you my people - Landry 
• Communion: Hiding Place - Liam Lawton 
• Sending:   Our God Reigns

What I'd like to have sung:

I really had John Foley's Only in God (http://youtu.be/t4Cw-NH9lYU) in mind for today, but our musician suggested the Talbot one instead.   Musically Foley's work is probably better - but the Talbot one has been in my head all afternoon so practically pretty successful.

And if we hadn't done Isaiah 49, then the Schutte "Though the Mountains may Fall" would have been an obvious choice.

Good advice: Five Ways to Improve Congregational Singing - from Keith Getty

Catholics write books about Why Catholics Can't Sing

It seems that Protestants have a better approach:  they face the same challenges, but they write articles like Five Ways to Improve Congregational Singing - and make some fantastically important points at the same time.

My favourite:

Congregational singing is a holy act,

I couldn't agree more.    Even  this traditionally oriented church-musician says that

"The unity that we experience in singing is a reflection of the reality of the Communion of our souls and those of all the hosts of heaven in One Body - The Mystical Body of Christ."

and has links to various pieces of neuro-science based research which starts to explain the biological ways in which that happens.      (Sadly in the rest of her posts basically say that chant is the only legitimate worship music, that that its best left to the specialists with the great unwashed aiming for the "interior participation".   Bleh!)


Some other great points from the original post:

... in our song worship, we have to be spiritually alive (dead people don’t sing), spiritually assisted (through the enabling of the Holy Spirit), and spiritually active (committed to daily walking with the Lord).

the language being placed in the congregation’s mouth, for that singing ultimately affects how they think, how they feel, how they pray, and how they live.

Reach across the aisle, meeting with leaders from different churches and denominations to learn about their music selections.

That last point might upset a few traditionalists - but I think that makes it even more important.   Who could seriously imagine not having Amazing Grace in the parish's list of hymns-we-know?    Despite a few theological quibbles (and even those aren't universally supported), it cuts across boundaries most effectively, and proves that we have far more in common between denominations that we have keeping us apart.

7th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year c

What we sang 

The African community were leading this week's music, and didn't have their usual resources at the planning meeting.   So we ended up with hymns they know from home, which are more-ore-less in the parish repertoire, too.

• Entrance:  How Great is our God
• Psalm:  We didn't   :-(
• Offertory:  Take our Bread - Joe Wise
• Communion:  Give Thanks - Henry Smith
• Sending:   Give me Joy in my Heart

What I'd like to have sung:

The psalm made me think of "I Will Bless the Lord" by Frank Hermandez. I couldn't work out why 'til I looked up the words of verse 1 again:

 "Our God is gracious and merciful,
Great in kindness and good to all,
Our God is righteous in every way,
We bless you Lord and give you praise. "

(thought I'm pretty sure that the original was a little less inclusive language based!).

And it's totally unsuitable for most Masses, but the "Love the Lord your God" round has a special place in my musical memory, too.

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year c

What we sang 

• Entrance:  Christ be Beside Me
• Psalm:  We didn't   :-(
• Offertory:  we didn't - instrumental
• Communion:  A Mhuire Mhaithar  (last minute subsititution)
• Sending:   Brother Sister Let me Serve You

What I'd like to have sung:

Not a lot of obvious choices in my repertoire this week:   To Do Your Will is one possible oldie.
We were going to teach David Haas' Prayer for Peace using a recording, but technical challenges got in the way (someone has "borrowed" the cable). Tracking it down will be a challenge for this week.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

This is the first in an occasional series of posts "What we sang, vs what I'd like to have sung".

Sometimes it will be based on my own parish, sometimes on other places that I happened to be visiting that day.

What we sang 

• Entrance:  Here I am Lord 
• Psalm:  none 
• Offertory:  Eat this Bread - the Taizé one
• Communion:  A Place at the Table
• Sending:   Go Tell Everyone 

(Yes, we sang Mass parts, aka "ordinays" too.  They're essential, but a lot less interesting, and not worth listing each week.)

What I'd like to have sung: 

• Bring forth the Kingdom 
• A Place at the Table 
• I am the Light of the World
• Christ be our Light
• I Yahweh Have Called You

Hello World!

I've always been fascinated by music in general, and especially music in church and music about God.  

A life-long Catholic, I'm currently "the liturgy-group-member-who-coordiates the music" (how's that for a mouthful!)  for a small parish in Ireland, where I've lived for the last five-or-so years.

I play a wind instrument (not good for accompanying congregational singing, but adds a nice lift sometimes) - mainly in Irish traditional styles, and not very well at that.

And I sing soprano in secular choir: our last work was Mozart's Credo Mass, I love singing this sort of work as music - but spiritually it does nothing for me.

 Maybe I'm just a child of the 60s, but in my book church-music belongs to the whole people of God, not just the choir. Every who has a larynx can sing, and we need 'em all to add their voices to make worship whole.  And the very act of singing together unites us in a way that no other activity can.

Why this blog?

And in the last couple of years, I've learned to use Blogger for a range of things.   So it made sense to combine the two, this time in a more personal way.    I had to think hard about whether to make this blog anonymous or not - in the end I decided not to.   Will be interesting to see if I come to regret that.

Why "Pastoral" - isn't that about sheep?

It really saddens me to see so many professional church musicians and church-music bloggers focus on musical excellence and liturgical norms, at the expense of developing spirituality and serving their congregations as they are today.   Especially when there are so many fine musicians out there who can and do balance complex pastoral, musical and liturgical factors every time they play in a church.

So I'm deliberately focussing on how to provide church music in a compassionate, pastoral way, within the context of a liturgical church.