The Lamb of God - Twila Paris

A hymn style song from the CCM genre, that I'd like to see us start using.

It's not often that one of these works crosses over and becomes a song for the whole church but this one does it for me.

Some thoughts about a music ministry vision statement

Why do we sing? 

“God has bestowed upon his people the gift of song. God dwells within each human person, in the place where music takes it source. Indeed, God, the giver of song, is present whenever his people sing his praises.”

Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship, November 14, 2007, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

So what is the mission of people who lead music within liturgy?

To enable the full, conscious, and active participation of the assembly, by inspiring those assembled to sing, by performing music that connects with the congregation’s hearts, minds, and spirits thereby fostering and cultivating each member’s relationship with God. This connection is prayer, and it is where true Christianity begins.

An effective music ministry needs to spiritually connect with the people in order for them to fully participate in singing.

Different people connect with different styles of music. So to address the needs of the entire parish, we utilize many different genres of music. Distinguished by song selection and performance style, all the music attempts to draw parishioners into song through its distinctive sound.

A “prayer-first” approach to music ministry is necessary. If we are not able to know our music well enough to pray with it, we will be unable to lead the assembly to do the same. Approach every note and every chord, being disciples of Christ first while striving to give breath to the spiritual life within each song.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to St Catherine of Sienna parish for these statements:  They have put things far more eloquently than I ever could, the above simply edits their text for more universal application.

What can the Christmas and Easter visitors teach the rest of us?

Amen to this!

Some people get very fussed over people who don't go to church often.

I've always thought that it's better to just welcome them when they do come, and trust that God will lead them to be there when they need to be and lead the rest of us to evangelise via our regular relationships.

This article takes it a bit further, and asks what the regular attending holy-joes can learn from the special-event-sallies about what really matters.

Work with what you have, not what you'd like to have.

Food for thought.

Proper texts to Improper tunes are still Improper!

Thanks (or not) to the folks at Chant Café for this great example of how to do things Improperly!

Final Shopping Day for Advent Weekdays in the Hymn Tune Propers Emporium

If you or a Pastor or Music Director you know would like to do something liturgically special for Advent Weekdays here at the last moment, just click here, print out as many copies as you need for your daily Mass crowd, place them on a table where they will be noticed, and sing these versified Entrance Antiphons at the beginning of daily Mass. Any Long Meter tune that is familiar in your parish will work fine.

What you get if you click is a page titled "An Advent Calendar of Hymn Tune Introits - Liturgical Year 2015".

 It has one short scriptural verse in English - which is it the Entrance Antiphon for the day. No copyright acknowledgement to the scriptural translation or versifier. No clarification that it's for the 2014/2015 liturgical year. (Remember the new Mass - introduced in "Advent 2011" - which was December 2010 in New Zealand and December 2011 in lots of other placed. This sheet seems to take the opposite approach to naming liturgical years - highlighting perfectly why the abbreviated approach isn't good enough.)

For weekday masses, I do think that a sung one verse entrance "antiphon" makes sense: it unifies people, introduces elements of rhythm and melody which are spiritually important for some people, and makes the overall tone of the gathering spiritual.  And the Propers make great texts for this - especially because a weekday congregation is usually a lot more familiar with scripture, so will likely make the link between the short snippet and the wider piece which it comes from.

But the same tune, every day, for every single one?  I cannot see how that can work - unless the underlying tune is so blandly lit-muzak that it doesn't highlight any particular phrase at all! Liturgically Proper, yes. But musically not at all the proper thing to be doing.    If you're going to sing propers, then do it properly by puting at least some thought into choosing tunes that support the meaning of the text.

Reading some more:

"The Hymn Tune Propers Project provides an easy first step away from randomly-selected hymnody and towards the use of the proper liturgical texts of the Mass. The proper texts are spiritually beneficial for Catholics ... "

Randomly-selected hymnody? Does anyone really do that any more? Really? All pastoral musicians I know at least choose seasonally appropriate hymns based on the index of their hymnal.  For Sundays, most spend substantial time with the readings and other texts of the day, looking for materials that fit with them and will work with the particular community.

And I wonder if CC would care to explain exactly how the Proper text (remember, snippets of scripture presented out of context) are more spiritually beneficial than a scriptural hymn with several verses to provide "space" for context.   There's a whiff of magic thinking here.

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."