Society of Saint Gregory

We could write books about the comic element due to these accidents! For another topic, maybe. Ours is a good mix of contemporary and traditional at the 11.00am Sunday mass. This thankfully results in a good mix of ages and tastes within the choir and congregation. The later mass is labelled as a ...

A great setting of this psalm is by Rory Cooney. The clip on the OCP website - http://www.ocp.org/compositions/16340 - is a bit folky, if that's your preference, but we've done this psalm with full organ, choir, and solo in a more "classical" style and it has a suitable regal feel.

Thanks very much, both of you. It's refreshing to work with kids who are so receptive. Like the storekeeper in the Gospel, we as church musicians must draw from the new and the old...

A few years ago we set up a schola programme in the school where I work. Both the bishop and parish priest were keen to support it and have been a great source encouragement. It started small, but we now have eighteen girls (it's a single-sex urban, Catholic school) who all study organ or voice, are ...

On page 1, should the B flat on [Mother] Church be an A? Seems likely.

Well spotted. For consistency, an A is probably better here, although the B flat works ok too, as there is a tonic-dominant fall which should be fine for the singer.

Here's one that has been used a lot in our own diocese:
http://cherrybrookmusic.weebly.com/uplo ... mation.pdf

Maybe I've posted this story somewhere else already: I used to play organ in Dublin Airport Church, a very nice digital (Viscount Toccata II to be exact) with great sound sampling and a host of interesting functions. However, for its first year, it seemed to be affected by the radio signals in the ...

I'm amazed at the above comments about rehearsing at least ten minutes before mass begins. My experience in working as a music minister in Ireland is that there are only a handful of people in church at this stage. The church starts to fill up around three minutes beforehand. There is a noticeable ...

Once, when we were playing at a retreat for priests, one of the participants came up to us to object to Chris Walker's use of the word "sign" in the refrain of One in Body, Heart and Mind : "Christ be love within this sign, shared for all as bread and wine." Many composers refer to the Eucharist as ...

You have to wonder what the purpose of the whole exercise is. Non-practising adults dragooning the non-practising offspring of other non-practising adults to a building they do not frequent and to a liturgy that holds no significance to them. Surely this is a tad judgemental? Perhaps at least some ...

Can't imagine why your pastor thinks Joy to the World is too difficult. Is he basing it on a musical judgement? Or does he simply not like it? There are plenty of options, of course: O Come, All Ye Faithful , with a great descant in the "Sing choirs of angels" verse and a mighty organ accompaniment ...

As much as possible, I try to avoid the key change up a semitone/tone for the last verse of a hymn. As previously stated, it gives the suggestion that the piece doesn't have enough musical merit to stand on its own. There are a few exceptions where a key change is written in by the composer with a ...

As a second-level teacher also heavily involved in pastoral music, I think it is great for schools to be involved in the parish's Sunday liturgy, albeit occasionally. Experience in liturgy is vital for young people to learn - worth a thousand taught classes on the subject. Of course, common courtesy ...

Having scoured the Academy's website, the initiative is very much a work in progress. I wish them the very best. Church music throughout the English-speaking world has been in a constant state of flux - some parishes are truly centres of excellence, some are truly centres of liturgical and musical ...

Our parish-produced hymnal had around 220 pieces that required copyright permission. Of these, CALAMUS covered the bulk - really at a very nominal charge. Some of the American publishers and copyright agencies were charging around €25 per piece - making it cost-prohibitive if we had too many. One of ...