Author: Arlene Oost-Zinner

What’s great about online seminars? One on one with the students. You can’t get this in a large lecture or workshop. It’s been such a success so far, that I’ve added new courses to my lineup at Gregorian Chant Online. Check the schedule and join me in September!

First Look at Expressive Neumes In this course we’ll discuss approaches to the salicus, the quilisma, and the episema, and test our knowledge on a few chanted propers from the Graduale Romanum. Prerequisites: Gregorian Notation I and II or the equivalent.

That Controversial Ictus If it’s not an accent mark, what is it? Learn where it came from, when to ignore it, or how you can put it to use to help your schola sing together! Prerequisites: Gregorian Notation I and II or the equivalent.

The complete audio library for Words With Wings is now available for free here. All 94 tracks are beautifully sung by choristers of the Madeleine Choir School in Salt Lake City, under the guidance of the School’s music director Melanie Malinka. The CD version is also available at Amazon.com

Gregorian chant belongs at Mass…precisely because it sounds other-worldly! It’s a far cry from Mozart or Brahms, Bob Dylan, or even the Rolling Stones. Why is that?

Join me tomorrow night and begin to discover the simple theory behind its mysterious sound. Learn to identify the hallmarks of the major and minor modes in these online classes.   Each class begins with a short review on reading basic Gregorian notation and is followed up by hands on experience with simple chants. A very small investment of time will open up a new world to you!

 There are several different things that can be wrong with the eyes which means there are varying degrees of vision.  One person might have central vision but no peripheral and can read with magnification, while another has no central vision so is unable to read or recognize people.  Normal vision is 20/20 while legally blind” is 20/200 and someone with very low vision might have 20/500 or less.  Then there is total blindness which means a person may be able to see light or may not.  When I was a very small child I had 20/200, could read large print  and could walk unguided but sometimes didn’t see an object in front of me.  By the time I went to college I had 20/400, could read some with strong magnification, recognized faces closer up, used  braille for most things, and used a seeing Eye dog or long white cane to travel.  When my children were small I could see objects in contrast to their background but no detail.  Now I have only light perception on a good day.

I  have a software program on my computer, a screen reader, which reads everything on the screen .  I use a regular keyboard and control it with keystrokes.  The screen reader gives me access  to all my software

There is a total lack of braille sacred music available.  Individuals have to either braille the music and/or words themselves as someone dictates it or try to get it all by ear, which isn’t a good thing.  I have had to resort to that on occasion and it makes it bad when the person next to you keeps singing a wrong note and you have no way of knowing for sure what the right note is.  I much prefer having the music in hand so I can read all the details for myself; dynamics, rests, etc.

I learned to read braille  music when I  started piano lessons in 2nd grade.  That was the only “special” training I had.  I then learned the saxophone and played in the band; later adding flute, marimba, multiple percussion and organ.  In 4th grade one of the teachers stayed after school to teach me the folk guitar.

Not really, but now I have the capability of teaching braille music classes via the internet.   

Print music is written vertically on a staff.  In braille, there is no staff and it is written horizontally.  For instance, in keyboard music the octave sign is given, followed by the note, followed by the interval(s) for the right hand with the left hand written on the line below it and the pedal below that.  All other information is included, like accents, accidentals, dynamics, etc.  For voice the words are on one line with the notes on the line below, though not lined up with the words as in print.

A  braille embosser embosses the music from a file in much the same way a printer would print the file.

 Each part is generally on it’s own page for polyphonic music.  For simple 4-part harmony as in hymns, it works well to write the words on one line with the 4 SATB lines beneath them.  When I direct something polyphonic I have a system that works for me so that I can quickly find a voice if I hear a wrong note or weak spot.  Of course, I have to memorize all parts since I can’t read and direct with my hands at the same time.

 Rehearsal markers, measure numbers and print pages are included in the braille score. 

 By directing them to our Catholic Braille Music email list.  We are there to share music files and to assist each other in obtaining music.  My dream is to make braille sacred music available to all who need it.  I have struggled for years to get my music in braille and I want to make it possible for blind singers, directors and organists to serve the Mass without the struggle.  We have the ICEL Chant Mass in braille, Richard Rice’s Simple Choral Gradual and a few other pieces available so far.  We are starting a project to put together a braille hymnal which includes all the voice parts and accompaniments.  The only braille hymnal which includes everything that I have ever been able to find is the St. Gregory Hymnal, copyright 1922.  There is a partial hymnal with words and melody line and two that only have words, and that’s all.  

Because of its inherent worth in the liturgy.  Because we seek solemnity and genuine worship.  Because it is robust and fragile, difficult and effortless at the same time.  Because it consumes us.  Because it is the right thing to do.

Waiting on my flight out of Dallas after a two-day workshop at Mater Dei Catholic Church, one of the first, if not the first, FSSP Communities in the US, and now a parish in its own right in Irving, TX.  The crowd was eager and wonderful.  Everyone sang and learned, and sang more.  The crowd included curious beginners, members of the parish choir and schola, more children than you can imagine, and people who drove hours across the Lone Star State to be there. It was tiring, but glorious. I’d love to be present in the morning to hear the first evidence of the fruits of the workshop.   And I’m wishing this wonderful parish all the musical best for the future.

I’ll be back home by midnight if all goes well.  And back at my own parish in Auburn, AL before 7:00am for the first Mass of the day.  Here’s the front and back of the program from which we’ll be singing tomorrow…ordinary form; only myself and another singer.  But it will be wonderful to be home.  The beat goes on.

Though we put together a Mass program every week, I’ve often wondered about its value.  The Gregorian notation is beautiful to look at, and it gives Mass goers the information (including translations) that our pastor feels the congregations needs. Is anyone really looking at it?  Also, when it comes to polyphony, it bothers to me to include the names of composers, their dates, and any other information about the pending “performance.”  I’ve always thought that this distracts from what the Mass is all about.  Seems I’m not alone.

I’ve been going through past issues of Sacred Music, and have come upon this piece from 1992, by Karoly Kope. On the “worship aid” that many Catholic parishes are in the habit of printing:

“Here we go again, aping Protestant ways!” Imitating something good is commendable and should not disturb me. But I felt that what was being imitated here was not a good practice at all. It was a practice adopted by those who have no Mass and who made the most of what was left of their service: a reading of scriptures and a sermon, encased in a musical setting. Remove all music from Protestant services, and there is not enough left for a true religious ceremony. That being the case, it is understandable why Protestants have always taken their church music more seriously than Catholics (the Mass remains intact even without a single note of music), and it explains, at least to me, why the Protestant congregation, rather than following a missal, follows a bulletin “program” with all that information about the music performed and the performers.”

Kope continues…

“To a Catholic like myself this in not only very foreign but also very disturbing. As a churchgoer I want to be absorbed in prayer and lost in the proceedings of the Mass. I don’t care to be told what the next “anthem” will be or who will play what on the organ. In fact, I prefer not to know. When something particularly beautiful strikes me and I want to know what it was, I simply ask and find out—after Mass.”

 Have we reached a point in time where printing a program is necessary, however?  Is the notion of “ritual” so foreign to worship that no one knows what is means any more?