Name That (Source) Tune! Can you name it in a tetrachord? Actually, this shouldn’t take anyone longer than a phrase.
Okay, okay! Tyler (of course!) and Adam (ditto) nailed it, with the Pres chiming in on their heels. But Ron, the pride of Utah, more or less called into question the point of this exercize by simply declaring it “tedious.”
Coming on the heels of Jeff Ostrowski’s marvelous new Gloria that has already orbited the world in about, say, a nano second, I tried to fathom the depths and distances and variances of understanding among those composing “new” sacred settings to adhere closely to the culture of chant. Many of us have briefly and/or seriously examined both the revised ordinaries available at the Big Three websites. And I was somewhat surprised that the marketing blurbs for a number of them ascribed “chant” or “chant-like” as a selling point.
And, of course, many of the revised and new settings staunchly use the heavily metered, nee syncopated melodies that are S.O.P. for the liturgical ensemble. So coming off of the joyful success of teaching and praying the ICEL (Mass XV) English “Glory to God” with my parochial school classes, I just took literally five minutes to concoct a metrical quote of it. Just as the ICEL setting references the original Latin XV inexactly, I immediately decided that a metrical retrofitting of it in its original mode 4 wouldn’t stand a chance of getting a hearing from the local strummer or piano-bar player. So, using “E” as the tonic/final, I simply decided to set in in E Major, but to try to maintain as much intervallic data authentic within a time signature. I also tried to keep a rhythmic similarity to the values indicated in the ICEL chant, but not slavishly so as to have general chaos in the movement and at cadences.
To what end? Well, for me, a banality and connundrum. Whether it conjures up an “O when the Saints” or Rogers and Hammerstein association or not, I’m pretty convinced that the Church wants new composition to contain honest and real “invention” in relation to chant, rather than concoction and convention. Assigning meter to stressed/unaccented syllables within a chant melody isn’t all that difficult. Changing said melody’s modality to tonality, same. But, using this Edsel-like retrofitting strategy, can it stand up to scrutiny as a melody alone? If not, then why go another step and gussy it up with some nebulous chord assignments such as EMaj9, F#m/E, G#m/E, AMaj7, Bs7/E etc.?
That we will be soon auditioning perhaps hundreds of new settings, I tend to think that congregations ought to be given the opportunity and relief of singing non-metrical ordinaries, propers, hymns and sequences. As we have seen with my mentor, Frank LaRocca, and the prodigious talent of folks like Kevin Allen, the melodic and harmonic vocabulary of chant does not inhibit or constrain true artistic invention. And I have a local, new friend up the freeway in Fresno who has set the new ordinary texts exquisitely, and have encouraged him to network with CMAA/Cafe colleagues.
But whether the forces that resist the inculcation of more traditional and native Roman Catholic musical art forms relent and create space and respect within weekend Mass schedules for both traditional and newer forms of chant-based music to be planted and flourish remains a dubious question.
I can't name it at all. Someone else will have to help me out. (I'm sure once it is revealed it will be so obvious that I'll feel like an idiot.)
It sounds like the Gloria setting that is in the new trans. of the missal. Only this version has rhythm instead of plainsong that is in the missal.
I'm not seeing it either Charles… it looks like the shape of the new English Gloria XV in the Missal–hipified of course–but the mode is different. Hmmm… let me in on the joke!
I believe the source, helped by the tetrachord hint, is "When The Saints Come Marching In."
And because that four note rift is overused, this becomes tedious and boring very quickly.
Oh, this is getting fun. Heart of the matter stuff. Keep at it. Tetrachord, Ron, wasn't a hint, just a play on the old game show riff, but come to think of it, if the shoe fits?
You're all warm. But Ron is warmer.
Anglican Use? Ambrosian rite? Sarum? The saints are, after all, marching in.
Reminds me of Gloria XV
no idea…i heard some Titanic flavour ("My heart will go on"), "oh when the saints" and "once in Royal David's city" but other than that…
I'm not erudite, but if you take the pitches and "rearrange" them a bit, the sound is similar to an Alleluia in VII which is in my choir folder right now. Adam, help me out here…
Rodgers and Hammerstein
I'm at a loss. tell us tell us!
"You're all warm. But Ron is warmer."
Four notes with a saint theme?
"For All The Saints" in a retrograde inversion.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I'm afraid that it truly trashed the beautiful sacred music under the disguise of 'good intention,' (especially when you know Jeff O.'s effort of distinguishing 'sacred vs secular') What's the point of distorting the beautiful music when you cannot even recognize it. If guitarists need heavily syncopated music, why not use some pop tune and change the texts for the Mass?
I hope the article will stay in this site for WHAT NOT TO DO. There will be no 'reform of the reform' if the guitarists insist on playing and being allowed at the Holy Mass. This kind of 'good intention' makes all other efforts go in circle. It's the association as the Church instruct us, no matter how beautiful the music is and the insrtument can play. Things have proper places and God created things in order. Some people are creating chaos with their own knowledge, tastes…. We need to stop mixing what is secular and what is sacred, if you truly care for the congregation so they can be guided to experience what is Holy. Music directors should help them to drop their guitars and just sing. If they come to Mass to play guitar, they have a serious problem. They are worshiping the instrument. Our responsibility is telling the truth, and the salvation and conversion can happen only with God's grace. Our salvation became possible because of the perfect obedience of our Lord to the Father. If musicians don't provide the music that expresses that humility and obedience, but your own taste and superficial feelings, how the congregation supposed to be lifted and truly meet our Lord at the Eucharist?
Anon,
I truly hope that you understand that the whole point of my post was to underscore nearly every point that you eloquently enumerated. There was no other intent, and certainly not one that implied or insisted that there was any nobility in transmuting chant into a popular palette. I would hope that you "got" the fact that an ability to "create" such "trash" only took about five minutes or so was, in fact, a condemnation of such convenience. I say all of this because you seem to ascribe another POV to the intent of the exercize. That was not the case.