Friday, June 29, 2007

thoughts

ugh. the decisions!~
where to even begin? yesterday I sat down with my priest and had a big de-briefing session about the Colloquium particularly, and in general what direction we are going to go in. We need to get new hymnals, and we can't wait two or three years for a new translation of the Mass. Guess who that job is going to fall to? St. Michael's is a big possiblity, but kind of expensive. Adoremus is accused of not having much variety. What about a yearly paperback thing for a couple years? anything has to be better than Ritual Song... if you have EVER read this blog before, then you know my rants about the Communion options....
...but then, as my discussion with my boss continued, one thing that I really took away from the conference was an encouragement to begin using the propers. but HOW? I don't even know where to begin! The Communion will be easy to slip in in any form, everyone likes listenign to pretty music, and the Offertory won't be so hard either. Getting rid of the opening hymn will be the work of a couple years at least. and then the difficulty of getting translations into the hands of the people...and that's where a good misallette will come in handy. Doing the actual Gregorian chant (from the Gregorian Missal or wherever that is from originally) is the ideal I'm shooting for. and for something like the Offertory and Communion, I don't htink the people will care much, like I just mentinoed they like to listen to pretty music. Apparently they loved it when I (and the choir at that Mass) sang Vidi Aquam all Easter. But where on earth am I going to get a schola that can do this every week (ok, I have no idea why this is suddenly typing bold, that is not intentional. I'm trying to type really fast.) I have a couple ideas of girls who could sing with me, but I doubt any of them would be willing to learn the propers and sing them with me at just one Mass a weekend-even if I rotated the actual girls! One thing that was discussed at the Colloquium which I thought was quite cool that kind of answered the question of mine, "what about solo singing? I mean, I can learn the propers all by myself pretty easily, and just sing them, and people will like them?" well, it was discussed about how stuff like that is even MORE appreciated by the difficulty of it not just being sung, but being sung in perfect unison, without mistakes. like, any musician can just sing a pretty melody line, but to sing it together with someone else, with all of the same nuances etc, is just heavenly! so there's a bunch of the random big decisions I've got overwhelming and gushing around in my head.,..

oh...where to begin, where to begin...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mara,

Shoot an email to cantatedeoblog@yahoo.com. I have something that might help you.

Stephen M. Collins said...

As far as hymnals go - just give it up! You (the parish) can buy a OneLicense and print everything in a weekly worship aid, from MANY hymnal sources. And, if the hymn tune and text are in PD, you can do anything you want!

One option for getting started with the Propers (which you won't hear from too many people at this time) is to accompany the chant on the organ. It does make singing them somewhat easier for those who have never sung them before, and builds their confidence while singing the. IMO it sounds great too! But it DOES matter where you get the accomaniment from! Gregorian chant is modal, and the organ accomaniment needs to be also - not just whatever major or minor chord "seems" to fit!

Feel free to email me for more help:
smc2003@bellsouth.net

Also, check out my new blog:
http://smcollinsus.blogspot.com/

Mara Joy said...

except...that my priest and I are both very against using and throwing out 300 sheets of paper every weekend! (we are both environmentally conscientious.) so, that's not really an option. When I was at colloquium, I picked up a copy of St. Veronica's in VA worship aid, which is kind of the same idea, but it includes the propers and ordinaries for the whole month. that's a possibility. but that's not something we could fit all the hymns onto (I don't anticipate using the sung propers at all 3 Masses at this time in our history,) so an actual hymanl is still needed.