choosing music

yes, I know that I've written on this before, but this is with a slightly different twist.

So if you read my blog regularly, you know how frustrated I am with the idea of "choosing music" for Mass.

Most people just look at the "theme" of the day, or the readings, and try to find hymns that "match" them.
However, we have been given texts, called the "propers" for the opening, offertory, and communion (and other places,) which most people take no consideration of, and just fill those spaces with whatever they feel like.

If you subscribe to one of the big publishers quarterly magazines, they give a list of song suggestions for all of the places in the Mass, based on the readings or "theme" of the Mass, so that we don't have to look that up ourselves (completely neglecting, however, the role of the Propers...)

For a couple of weird reasons, I've been getting one of these subscriptions for free for the past 3 years (since I've been at St. P,) but I think they've caught me, so they've sent me a bill (which I haven't paid,) so they've stopped sending me the subscription. (fair enough.)

I've reached a point where I'm going to see if I can "survive" without a "Mass-planning guide."

Recently, I have been looking first at the Propers to find hymns that match *them* (very frustrating, since we have very few songs that are, "have mercy on me, Oh God, forgive me, I've sinned..." which seems to be the bulk of the Propers, but, oh well, that is a discussion for another day...) then when I find that I can't really find any of those, I look at my music-planning-guide, and discover that really only a couple of their suggested hymns are appropriate, and of those 3, 2 of them are suggested for 3 consecutive weeks in either direction, so I then do a bit more detective work including looking at the readings myself and trying to think of hymns, looking at the scriptural index's and seeing if they match the propers or the readings, then I might go to a website like canticanova.com to see if they have any suggestions I haven't thought of for a particular Sunday, then if I still have open spaces, I'll pick more of a general hymn like "Praise to the Lord."

So, I think I'm now ready to make the break with my music planning guides.

I have obtained a completely blank notebook, and will now attempt to do most of the grunt work on my own!