Next weekend is Laetare Sunday. The striking difference should be that, for the first time in Lent, we hear instruments play as an application of the entrance text, “Rejoice Jerusalem!”
Sadly, for most parishes, there won’t be any difference in how next Sunday sounds and feels. Yes, instruments will be used but they have been used all the rest of Lent too. This certainly violates the spirit of tradition and legislation, but those who are seeking justification in law, they can find it in the General Instruction. The GIRM permits instruments to be used to “support the singing.”
To be sure, this is an exception, but it is an exception so broad that it nearly negates the rule itself in practice. One can imagine that the exception here came about for the same reason that accompanied singing came about in the first place. Some chant choirs have difficultly singing on pitch without some external assistance that keeps the pitch from falling. I don’t happen to think that this is a very good reason, since using such an outside crutch virtually guarantees that the singers will not improve and overcome the problem.
But because most parishes don’t sing chant and don’t sing propers at all, but rather replace them all with hymns, this rationale has largely lost its basis. The hymns are sung with accompaniment, whether it is Lent or Christmas or anytime. Accompanied hymns constitutes most of all the music we hear in Mass. Further, though there are many notable exceptions, instruments are mostly not used in a solo manner. The result is the banishment of anything striking about the difference between Lent and the rest of the year.
This is a terrible tragedy, but it is one that is more symptomatic of incompetence than disobedience. For years I’ve reflected on what is the key missing competency among Catholic musicians today. There are many: the inability to sing without pop-like inflections, the dependency on strict rhythmic metrics, the alarming loss of music-reading talent, the love of microphones and the concomitant inability to project the voice, but among them all I would list this one as number one: the believe that instruments are making us sing and hence without them, there can be nothing called music.
Lent is the perfect time to force the issue. Pastors should unplug all machines and make no exceptions. The singers need pitchpipes and they need to learn to find the music within themselves. There is no way to learn this except to go “cold turkey.” There is no gradualism here. The instruments must be shut down, period. Musicians will sweat it out with fear for a few weeks, but they will become better by the end.
Unless the singers can do this, they can never really find themselves in a position to do what the Church is asking. Once they can sing without assistance, a new world will open up to them. They will face vast options on singing the propers. They might even be able to sing the words “Laetare” at the entrance. Then when Easter season arrives, they might even find that they will continue the practice, which would be wonderful.
It is a myth that congregations sing better with instrumental backing. My own experience has been the complete opposite. Only once the instruments are unplugged the people and the schola can realize that there is wisdom in the writings of the Popes that the primary liturgical instrument is not man-made but given to us from God: our own voices.
"…the alarming loss of music-reading talent…"
Very, very true. I was chatting with an organist friend of mine who sometimes fills in for the regular at his own parish, and he said that the most bizarre thing about his parish is that out of their whole "choir", only 2 people (kids, at that) can read music. Yes, you read that right. Two people IN A CHOIR can READ MUSIC!!
How can you even have people in a choir who can't read music? It's like giving the lead in a film to somebody who is illiterate and has to be taught his lines by rote. As for instruments, I visited a a Byzantine Catholic church this morning. No instruments. One woman leading the singing. And the congregation sang, a lot.
So there's a big gap between today's musical culture, especially in America, and the Council Father's vision of congregation participation in singing, unless the music in the liturgy become so mundane that many Catholics prefer no music at all. Or parish musicians rather underestimate musical ability of the congregation?
'How can you have people in a choir who can't read music?'
What is better? To have only two people in the choir every week (because they are the only two who can read music) or have fifteen who get a tremendous amount from being in a parish choir but they can't read music and so the quality and standard of music at times is not great.
I run a 'parish' choir in a small inner city church. How can l exclude 'parishioners' from joining? It is very difficult..
Also, we tried accompaniment-less masses during Lent last year and the congregation didn't want to join him. It was hopeless. I know what the ideal is but when you have limited singers and difficult acoustics it becomes an ideal rather than a reality. I really don't think it is appropriate for a soloist to be singing the Introit, Gradual, Tract etc just for the sake of being able to sing the propers which excludes the rest of the choir and the congregation.
The late, great Mary Berry was once asked how long it would take to learn the six-fold Easter Alleluia. "About five minutes" she replied; "three if you can't read music." You have to remember that most people can't read music, nor should they be expected to. Congregations in the 1950s could sing Mass settings and hymns (quite a few of them in Latin) by dint of hearing them. Karaoke singers are given the words and a backing track but are expected to know the melodies. Gregorian Chant was written centuries before it was notated.
There is nothing wrong (faute de mieux) for a solo singer to take on the burden of chanting the propers if the alternative is not singing them at all. The rest of the schola contribute according to their abilities and experience, and the congregation will follow suit if they want to do so. I recently introduced Mass XVII and most of the congregation have picked it up.
At the end of the day, you have to recognize that not everyone who attends Mass wants to sing. Evelyn Waugh, when attending High Mass at Farm Sreet, would decamp to a side altar if a low Mass was available. Hilaire Belloc on his travels observed "the Mass was low and short, for they are a Christian people."
These are all important points about reading music. Non-readers can be great at chant. Sometimes it can even be an advantage to start reading for the first time with chant. Nothing to unlearn. And it is absolutely the case that music can get stuck to the page when it is read and only takes flight when it is known "by heart," as they say.
That said, reading music is a proxy for the ability to contribute to the parish music program. Polyphony is stuck in a rut without readers on every part. As a practical matter, these days, a parish full of non-readers will never develop a serious music program.
In one church where I was director the choir mentioned that they didn't read music. Shocked and horrified (and much younger and naive) I launched a pre-rehearsal program about reading music notation. They would show up and after about six weeks they mentioned again that they didn't read music. In my enthusiasm I replied: "I know. That is why we are doing this." They replied: "We don't want to know how to read music, we just want to sing it."
We did sing some polyphony, however, it was s-l-o-w going.
As an aside, Why should a parish learn to read music when music books only contain the melody line, or only publish the lyrics and Muzilla croons the hymn tune in a way that you can't follow?
Well, I strongly encourage that at whatever moment a DM's ego is subsumed by the greater and nobler desire to serve the demands of Divine Service rather than any paltry criteria laid before him or her by an employer, his coterie or whatever is the status quo, that person rightly pursues the goal of establishing a schola or quire that from the get-go has more than just that one minimal standard, the ability to read music well, among others for acceptance into the enterprise.
I premised my own hiring seventeen years ago upon that one issue, and we're happily continuing to this day. And by this day, I mean we can sing a Rice homophonic proper without accompaniment on sight (no rehearsal of same prior to Sunday AM) and Mass XVII a capella now using square neumes (thanks to the fortitude of my wife, who taught and leads us in same.)
Catholics crave strong shepherds, demanding leadership. Give them it and they'll follow the whole Way.
Musical literacy or competence used to be part of our cultural education (passed on within families and communities, then, with the advent of recorded and broadcast media, more limited to schools until budget cuts slashed programming that does not help students pass tests and get jobs – rich school districts can easily afford that cultural enhancement, but not poorer ones). It is no more. 35 years ago, one used to see many children carrying instruments as they walked to school. Now, far fewer do so. The indicators of future musical literacy are alarmingly bad. Better not predicate a music ministry on that criterion….
In the future (even right now), an important part of a DM's job is going to be teaching musical literacy in a way that is infectious rather than resentful.
>>It is a myth that congregations sing better with instrumental backing.
This is a generalization – how can it be a myth if it actually works in some places? The truth is, in some communities it works, other's it doesn't – there is no one-size-fits-all formula that applies to every community. Anything, within church regulations, that helps the congregation sing (and pray) the Mass has to be championed. I have no great problem with the organ (for example) accompanying the Ordinary in Lent, as its role in such cases is purely liturgical – to encourage people to sing the Mass. This liturgical role is quite different to the splendour and magnificence the organ evokes during solos/incidental music in the Mass – this is what the Church documents are referring to when it forbids the use of the organ in Lent.
more precisely, it is a myth that accomp always helps singing.
Thanks Jeffrey – yes, I agree!
Oh, accompaniment, what is one to do? For the feast of the Annunciation, nothing big was planned–we even had a visiting priest at my parish. The other altar servers and I decided we would sing the Jubilate Deo Ordinary in our hymnals (the gloria of which is sung in our parish about 4 or 5 times a year). I would guess there were about 50 people in the church, but the sound of that gloria filled the church. Moreoever, when it came to the Sanctus and Agnus Dei (yes, yes, not the ideal melody, but we needed something people knew last minute), the sound of the chant seemed to shake the church and the sound lingered in the air several seconds (we have great acoustics), and while people usually drag the chant when there are fewer people, the internal pace of the chant was kept perfectly. Compare this to our 5:30 PM Sunday Mass which uses the same Sanctus and Agnus Dei with organ accompaniment. With twice as many people, perhaps 10 sing, and a whisper at that.
Most times the organ is way too loud, can't hear singing. A fellow organist in the parish insists that the louder the better. He says it encourages people to sing (as if it becomes a competition between the singing and the organ. Who is louder?). I think this concept is influenced by the Protestant hymns singing. (Protest Loudly!) And one of the challenge of the organist is playing hymns with robust and lots of fancy skills. This is not suitable for Catholic Mass, where chants are sung with humility and rather peacefully that inspires meditation.
Sad as it is to not have picked it up in a Catholic Church, I learned about the glories of unaccompanied singing from some very good Church of Christ friends of mine. Relatively liberal, they all had a "the CoC rule of no-instruments-allowed is ridiculous" attitude, but they also felt the tradition itself was good and worthy of keeping. (As in- "Not because it's required, but because it simply better.")
Anyway….
Since I became accustomed to unaccompanied singing (in both the American Protestant and the Roman Catholic traditions) I have not had the opportunity to "try out" a Catholic congregation. However, the Episcopal parish where I work has been an excellent "laboratory" in this regard. Here's a people tied to the organ if there ever was one.
And yet, I've been doing as much unaccompanied singing as I can get away with. Gregorian chants (Latin and English), Hymns (German style and Early American), and even some contemporary P&W stuff (if you HAVE to do it for some reason, this is the way to do it. Trust me.).
Result… whoa.
Unaccompanied singing is, by far, better singing. More people participating, more sincere and heartfelt connection to the music (for those of you who think that's a value), louder singing… Dude, they even improvise stylistically appropriate harmonies. It's crazy cool.
I, a passible music-reader, was given leadership of a choir some years back. I was pretty much the only one who read music at all.
I nearly had a nervous break-down by the time I quit that position.
Fortunately we did have some talented people in there, so we sounded good and could do polyphony (not quickly!). Most members saw the ability to read music as a hindrance to "spirit-filled" music (give me a BREAK!).
Chant, was a four-letter word. I still long to be part of a schola, but I don't think this location will ever fulfill that wish.
Chant developed before musical literacy, and there's something to be said for a big non-reading schola; it's a great place for your non-readers. If that's your situation, it corresponds to that of the Church, most places, most ages. Polyphony was a professional's game (the lack of professionals is another matter!). But notation was originally developed to facilitate the learning of CHANT. Then polyphony developed on that literate base. If you want to do polyphony, or even the more complex chants, you'll have to buy, beg, borrow or birth readers.
This is why the word "pastoral" isn't just a buzzword that should be stolen by progressive liturgists. In any situation you have to discern the charism of your parish, and decide what the best way to work with that is. In some parishes, a capella singing just won't work, as Clare has said above. In many, the congregation will be hesitant at first, so you shouldn't put on too much of a burden – dialogs are the obvious place to start.
I'd go further to say that if it is CAREFULLY discerned (through sound and actually talking to many people) that a congregation isn't edified by congregational singing, one should be open to expanding the role of the choir.
I have many people in my choir who can't read music. But they are excellent singers and they have learned how to learn; that's what we spent the first couple of years doing. When you hear my choir sing, they sound just like a choir that reads music, because they something more important than literacy; they have musical skills. I have great respect for them all, because they can listen, retain, and repeat! Remember, there are planty of people in the world who can speak understandably, although they can't read! Musical skills come first, and reading is a tool that brings us all to the same end, and not necessarily in a better way!
Why those who have musical skills cannot acquire musical literacy also. Wouldn't it be better if they can read their own music without relying on others feed them every time they have a new piece? To me it sounds like questioning why we learn to feed ourselves when the end goal is getting food in our mouth? Shall we rely on others to spoon us all the time?
You have people in a church choir who can't read music when that is all that is available. A good director can overcome this and the results can be remarkable!
I have to agree with Ellen Linn. Often, those who can't read music are the better singers, though it may take a little longer for them to learn a good piece properly.
The ability to read music isn't a talent, by the way. Being able to sing well is. I never learned to read music, but I quickly figured out the basics from singing in a choir.
Some of you may have had negative experiences with non-readers, but the problem generally isn't the ability (or disability) to read music, but the quality of singers you have available.