Undertaking a little research at the moment about the musical links between schools and parishes. In my own immediate area there's been some sowing of seed but it might be a while before the shoots start to appear.
So here's a few questions – feel free to PM:
1. Is there a practical, working, musical link between your church and your schools? 2. Do your schools use any of the same music you sing in the parish? 3. Do you have "school Masses" which import a whole separate musical repertoire or are these integrated into parish music planning? 4. Are you able to plan with the schools for future events? 5. Have you been able to work with the schools in planning music for the new translation? 6. Is there such a thing as "music that young people like"? 7. Is there any music which is unsuitable for young people? 8. If so, is it still suitable for the rest of the assembly? 9. What percentage of your assembly is 18 and under? 10. Can parish music be a tool for youth evangelisation?
Not an exhaustive list. And I'm not expecting answers to all of them. I'm just hoping to hear a little of how others fare.
1.The person who currently runs church choir practices is a volunteer helper with the school choir in school and will lead the singing at school Masses in church when an organist is not available. The school choir is invited to sing at celebration Masses in the parish i.e. inductions, anniversaries etc. 2. Both church and school use the same hymn books i.e. Celebration Hymnal for Everyone 3. School Masses that are held in school often have their own musical repertoire but not always; those that are held in church use the usual Mass settings although they may have hymns that we would not necessarily use on Sundays but always from CHfE. At a recent school Mass in church, when the organist was not available, the final hymn was led by the school's African drumming group. 4. School and pp plan on a Mass by Mass basis 5. Some examples of new translation Mass settings were given to the RE coordinator for approval by the HT. 6. More often that not the children like what they are familiar with but sometimes the adult view of hymns/music the children will like is based on their perception of what they think the children will like. 7. No
The school's RE coordinator is a Catechist and active, enthusiastic member of the parish.
Nick Baty wrote: 3. Do you have "school Masses" which import a whole separate musical repertoire ...
Yes -- The 'youth Mass'. The young are 'seated throughout the performance' and the liturgy is interpolated by soloists singing CCM. The standard of performance is very high, and the texts have some scriptural basis, although are more about 'how I feel'.
The acclamations are not sung, and the psalm is replaced by another text.
When I worked with a Catholic church between 2005-10 connections with the local Catholic school had been severed before my arrival due to some tiff with the school music department. All my efforts to re-establish contacts fell on deaf ears. All they wanted to do was bring along their school choir to give concert performances, whereas what I needed was the ability to recruit promising musicians into the church choir/music group.
Since then I have been working in a rural Anglican parish. I tried to recruit children from the local Anglican Primary School. The staff were quite helpful and cooperative but I got virtually no response whatsoever from the pupils three years running!
The key difficulties here appear to be as follows:
[1] There was no 'culture' of church choir/music singing in the area or school. [2] Parents had little idea of and were not prepared to really commit their children to regular practices or even appear regularly at Sunday services. Going to Dance Classes had a higher priority! [3] The actual level of musical interest was very low. School assemblies invariably had music accompanied by pre-recorded tracks on a CD player. [4] The sort of 'religious music' purveyed in the school was completely different from what the congregation wanted in the church. The school music I saw consisted of pleasant popular style ditties. Children's knowledge of what used to be regarded as 'standard' Anglican hymn repertoire was very limited. Virtually every hymn given to me to play weekly in church had to be taught 'as new' to any children I had. From what I could see the divide between 'adult' and 'children's' church music was vast.
I have every reason to believe that this situation is not untypical where I live (in the North-West). For instance last Thursday lunchtime I went into Blackburn Cathedral to hear a lunchtime carol-concert given by a local primary school. The children were well behaved and, by their standards, had worked very hard; but the standards they were set were abysmally low. All the music (bar one old fashioned hymn) consisted of modern syncopated popular ditties; every item was 'accompanied' on a CD track, and the children did not really sing the tunes but 'spoke' the words - they had not been shown how to reach the higher notes in the melodies (although these were comfortably written for them). Another striking feature concerned the echo in the Cathedral, which is enormous. Fast moving syncopated tunes do not go down well in this acoustic - it was almost impossible to hear the words and the melodies became a 'mush' of sound. You would have thought that any music teacher with the meanest musical intelligence would have grasped this point and selected slow moving music with well spaced-out words!
If this sort of thing really is typical - and I really hope that it is not; then the gap between a musically emasculated population (whether Christian or not) and professionally trained or at least serious minded singers and choirs (yes, there does appear to be some sort of renaissance in choral singing) is going to grow much wider.
Another thing I sense up here is that they training - and therefore the long term supply - of instrumentalists of all sorts is falling off. I play in two amateur concert bands up here. Both began about 15 years ago aiming to recruit from teenagers. Today out a combined total of some 70 players In would say that at the very most there are only 2-3! The rest are all adults - and a majority (like myself) aged over 40!
