Tales from the Choir Loft

[Canonico]

Musicus, as you may recall from another strand, we have a relatively new super-dooper electronic organ. One night recently following an SVP Diocesan Mass a couple of 'people of the road' secreted themselves in the unused choir loft. It was almost a week later, following complaints from our excellent organist, when I discovered that they had disconnected a number of 'speakers' so that they could have some comfortable (?) seats to sit on during the night. Perhaps the most expensive 'seats' in the house!

[Tsume Tsuyu]

I feel deprived. I've worshipped at the same church all my life. It was built in the early 1960s and so, no choir loft. A nearby Catholic church does boast a choir loft, however, and I remember, as a child, being very curious about what went on up there whenever I went to Mass in that church. It seems I was better off not knowing! All that *beeping* and *beeping*!!! I could have been scarred for life!

TT

[SOP]

Oh the old choir loft - it was a different world up there! I started going up there as a young child with my mother who, obviously, was in the choir. The big threat was if I made any noise or distracted anyone in the choir then I would never be allowed up there again. The benches for sitting during the sermon were either side of the 'singing area' and the choir moved into the centre behind their music stands when required. Eventually I was allowed to stand next to my mother but not to sing until I knew, really knew, the piece. I wasn't to try and join in hoping to pick it up as I went along, I had to learn it and know it - otherwise to keep quiet. There were very few sight readers in that choir, they learned everything. Indeed some of the music had separate sheets for each of the parts with only, say, the alto line on. Other times they just had the words, they knew what they were singing.

But back to the choirloft and life up there! Things became 'different' after VII or perhaps new people joined but the choir loft became quite noisy between the sung parts of the Mass. So much so that one Sunday the presiding priest announced he was not going to continue until the choir stopped talking. He had to say it a couple of times because the choir were too busy talking to each other and did not hear him!

Then there was the clatter down the stairs and the run up the side aisle to get Communion. Every now and then, somehow the latch on the Yale lock would drop and we would have to wait until someone who had not gone to Communion realised the rest of the choir was not back and so go down to open the door again!

I liked the old choirloft but do recognise we were getting away with murder up there!

[Benevenio]

This tale is not quite from the choir loft... more around the font...

On a Saturday morning before the Easter Vigil, having been to the church to take down the purples and get the place ready for the celebration in the evening, the lady who arranges the flowers was putting together a particularly wonderful array of pollen carriers, guaranteed to set-off the hayfever of even the least sensitive of noses. In congratulating her, I said that I would not bring the two large sprays of artificial flowers from their banished place in the parish hall, as they paled by comparison (I know, born creep!).

She replied "Oh do, please. They're really rather good - very expensive you know, and quite realistic." And so they were duly brought through and placed either side of the font. I then asked where they had come from. She leaned across with a twinkle in her eye and conspiritorially said "My daughter got them from the set The Full Monty which she was working on. They're too good simply to throw away." It was very hard to keep a straight face whilst singing the Exsultet that evening, as the mental images were particularly vivid.

I'm sure you can fit the words of the Holy, holy to the tune I believe in miracles... but that's another thread!

[manniemain]

Once again the message board has censored the slang word for cigarette. Does it think I'm using "*beep*" in a perjorative sense towards gay men? Because I don't know of anyone who'd pop out for one of those during the sermon!

The News of the World would have it that the entire Catholic Church does precisely that! Maybe they have software for removing the BEEPS and reached the wrong conclusion.

[organist]

One priest I know played a great trick on the cathedral choir who used to disappear from the sanctuary for the homily. He cut his homily short and then intoned the Credo causing mild panic! A parish priest who liked to direct the choir used to say "I know what goes on up there - I am watching from the altar"! I well remember that loft - the distinct smell of polish which hit you as you arrived and the dear bass who timed his arrival as the bell rang - how did he do it?