plainchant mass, etc.

[Nick Baty]

I generally try and aim for a two-minute maximum (people haven't come to church for a music lesson; they've come to pray) which gives room for "spread".

With you 100 per cent here.

...if you're only going to run through the response to the psalm with them that will only take 30 seconds or so.

And a practised assembly won't even need that. If you choose the right stuff, they should be able to sing the response straight back at the psalmist.

Exceptionally, for a big occasion with several less familiar pieces on the go, you might take five - seven minutes; but ideally you'd have started to prepare the ground a number of weeks beforehand so that on the day you wouldn't actually need that long.

Quite. I often plan backwards from big events, ensuring that, as far as possible, music has been introduced in preceding liturgies. Come the day, add brass or choir to a comfortable Holy and you've raised the event to Festal. I think you'd all be horrified if you saw my fanfare for the Missal tone Great Amen.

[keitha]

keitha wrote

Then we have to find the cantors who can do the job and are willing to put in the time to gain the required skills.

Nick Baty wrote

You sound like a fairly sensible sort of chap – do you not have the required skills?

Thanks for the attribute Nick! To be honest, I have at least some of the skills but am hampered by a poor voice. Nonetheless, I do inflict it on our people from time to time when something new is coming. Turning to plainchant masses, I started with Mass XVI and used the Southern Comfort 2 minute limit, which I think is about right (particularly as I like to give people a minute or so to collect themselves in quiet prayer before mass starts), and then work on the principle of 'bite-sized' chunks. I always start with the Sanctus and introduce them to the 'hosannas' first so that they can join in from week one. I then work on Kyrie, Agnus and Gloria in that order, with the Gloria being sung antiphonally (cantors/choir and congregation). By, say, week four, more ground can be covered because the choir/cantors have been heard a few times in the meantime. I would then go for Mass XVI (Orbis factor), which, again, I find congregations can get the hang of reasonably quickly. De Angelis is off the menu as far as I am concerned, mainly for the reasons already given, but also because I have found that there is quite a lot of 'unlearning' of errors and oddities to be done.

I find giving people the music very useful. If nothing else, congregations realise that they are expected to do something with it, and they soon work out roughly what the notes mean in terms of syllables fitting to notes and pitch and the like. I don't find any significant difference when I provide the chant, as most people cannot read 'modern' music anyway! I do, however, find that there is a huge adverse difference if people are given no music at all.

Southern Comfort is dead right about young children. I am fortunate in having a good relationship with the parish primary school head and her staff and I am usually welcomed into the school to work with the children periodically, and the kids soak music up like sponges. I am sometimes surprised by the quite low expectations that some teachers tend to have of young children, who almost always seem to exceed their teachers' expectations. I have also found that schools now have a habit of producing (only) the words via an overhead projector, which means that the children get no sense of what music 'does' and they are staring fixedly at a spot somewhere well above my head and to my right, which really kills my ability to get their attention. Earlier this year, I even went to the effort of printing melody line booklets for the kids myself, delivered them to the school in advance of my session, only to find that they were ignored 'because we have an overhead that the kids are used to and Lizzie (aged 10) likes operating the laptop'! I have not yet suggested plainchant for the children, but we did introduce them to latin this year, and they took to it superbly. Hopefully this will develop over the next few years.

[mcb]

Finally, I think it's the three minutes before Mass, rather than the five. If you can't do what you need to do in three minutes, then you're trying to do too much at once. I generally try and aim for a two-minute maximum (people haven't come to church for a music lesson; they've come to pray) which gives room for "spread". With an assembly that is used to a warm-up before Mass, if you're only going to run through the response to the psalm with them that will only take 30 seconds or so.

Yes, that all sounds like my experience too. Not the 'three minutes before Mass', though - it should be the three (for me it's rarely more than two) minutes beginning five minutes before Mass, if you see what I mean. The limiting factor is how many people are there early enough, so on a really big occasion I aim to begin fifteen minutes before Mass (and spend five minutes or more). Nothing can be more destructive of an atmosphere of recollection and anticipation than some idiot at the microphone (I mean me) trying to jolly people along at the last minute.

And warm-up has got to be the worst possible title for what we do, hasn't it? The cantor shouldn't be trying to get the assembly into the right frame of mind for participation, just to prepare them to sing some of the songs coming up later. The best warm-up has got to be a moment of silence and stillness.

[Southern Comfort]

I find giving people the music very useful.

Absolutely agree with this. A shame that the Laudate versions are so full of misprints.

I don't find any significant difference when I provide the chant, as most people cannot read 'modern' music anyway!

I find a lot of difference. The principal problem for congregations used to measured music is the irregular rhythm of plainchant.

Not the 'three minutes before Mass', though - it should be the three (for me it's rarely more than two) minutes beginning five minutes before Mass, if you see what I mean.

True for me, too.

And warm-up has got to be the worst possible title for what we do, hasn't it? The cantor shouldn't be trying to get the assembly into the right frame of mind for participation, just to prepare them to sing some of the songs coming up later. The best warm-up has got to be a moment of silence and stillness.

Agree with this, too. "Warm-up" is of course just a shorthand way of describing the process of preparing the assembly to celebrate. Yes, it's a way of getting them into the right "gear" for celebration, but it's also about binding the community more closely together as a worshipping body. I'd rather use "warm-up" than "rehearsal", whose connotations imply that the assembly are there to be performers at the behest of the animator. They're actually there to "perform" for God, of course.

[Angela Barber]

I am most grateful for all the comments and advice following my request for sources of CDs for plainchant masses. I have now placed orders and await results!
In fact, although I do not consider myself much of a musician, I do not find plainchant difficult - perhaps because I was under the care of the Benedictines in my formative years - problem is, as many have said, translating it to the choir and congregation. We've sung the our father in latin and sometimes in english for about a year now and, at long last, the congregation is catching on. The choir master at Douai Abbey gives a splendid talk about plainchant as I'm sure do many monks - if you can get them to talk and sing to your choir! someone said "that day is wasted on which we have not smiled" so I try to keep smiling - difficult I know!!!!!

[Vox Americana]

Not a CD, but here's an Idiot's Guide to Square Notes. Even this makes it more complicated than it really needs to be.

... but if you want a fuller description, complicated as it looks, this would be a place to start

[FrGareth]

Two possibly useful resources:

"The Beginners Book of Chant" (like the "Idiot's Guide to Square Notes" mentioned above but more extensive) - http://www.theabbeyshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=21_29&products_id=649

The Association for Latin Liturgy (http://www.latin-liturgy.org/publications.htm) [not to be confused with the Latin Mass Society who promote the extraordinary form] have various publications including congregation's sheets in bulk for the main Latin Mass settings, using square neumes.

FrG

[NorthernTenor]

Another useful beginner's guide is the late Mary Berry's Plainchant For Everyone.

Her Cantors is also excellent, but alas out of print.

[gwyn]

This looks like it may be worth a look...

http://www.3choirs.org/2009-hereford/programme/saturday-15-august/gregorian-chant-workshop.html

[musicus]

Another useful beginner's guide is the late Mary Berry's Plainchant For Everyone.

Her Cantors is also excellent, but alas out of print.

Cantors is a lovely book, and I treasure my copy. It was part of Cambridge University Press's Resources of Music series, edited by John Paynter and intended for secondary-age schoolchildren (what we now call key stage 3). There was a good cassette with it too, also discontinued.

(BTW, on investigation, I am shocked to see that CUP has discontinued the entire series, including the seminal Sound and Silence - shameful!)

[Nick Baty]

And, IMHO, Bill Tamblyn's 1972 Sing Up is the best guide a cantor can read – now only available in used copies from Amazon – and possibly seconded by his later Cantor's Handbook. Having had the honour and joy of watching Bill at work, I can see that his practical approach has changed over the years but the theory remains the same. Would that there were more Tamblyns around. The Church desperately needs people like him.

[musicus]

The subtitle of Mary Berry's Cantors is a collection of Gregorian chants.

From her introduction (which also includes a clear and concise explanation of reading neumes): A medieval cantor would have known by heart all the music of the services that used to be sung in the parish church, or cathedral, or monastery, or royal chapel in which he served. ... He would have sung the very simple chants he had been taught in the song school, and also the more elaborate ones, taking the solo parts and leading the other members of the choir in singing the psalms and hymns. ... Everyone would have recognized the different chants, which would have reminded them of the occasion being celebrated. ... All this music belongs to the traditional church music of Western Christendom and it is known as Gregorian chant.

What follows is a delightful and wide-ranging anthology of chants, beautifully illustrated and with interesting contextual notes. Many of the chants are provided with English translations designed for singing.

It would be worth seeking out a second-hand copy of the book and of its accompanying cassette recording.

[NorthernTenor]

her introduction (which also includes a clear and concise explanation of reading neumes) ...It would be worth seeking out a second-hand copy of the book and of its accompanying cassette recording.

I cannot agree strongly enough. I learned to read neumes from this little book, with no background in chant whatsoever.

Given the renewed interest in this element of our liturgical tradition, I wonder if CUP could be persuaded to re-issue Cantors, perhaps replacing the cassette with a website?

[NorthernTenor]

And, IMHO, Bill Tamblyn's 1972 Sing Up is the best guide a cantor can read – now only available in used copies from Amazon – and possibly seconded by his later Cantor's Handbook. Having had the honour and joy of watching Bill at work, I can see that his practical approach has changed over the years but the theory remains the same. Would that there were more Tamblyns around. The Church desperately needs people like him.

I stand to be corrected, but I didn't think the estimable Mr. Tamblyn's books were specifically about plainsong.

[musicus]

I stand to be corrected, but I didn't think the estimable Mr. Tamblyn's books were specifically about plainsong.

They are not, which was why I hastened to explain that Mary Berry's Cantors isn't primarily about cantors (unlike these books of Bill's, which are).