I can prove that Latin Plainchant is the preferred music of

[musicus]

Any further OT posts will be removed.

[Nick Baty]

Even those about the loveliness of bears?

[musicus]

Especially those!

[Nick Baty]

Grrrrrrrr!

[Hare]

Couldn't think in which topic to put this.

If it is to do with pastoral music and/or liturgy - i.e. what this forum is about - please start a new topic. If it is not, then don't post it here at all.
Either way, please DO NOT hijack an existing topic.

Back to Oops's original topic now please...

Ouch!

Humble apologies. I had never looked at this topic; he reference to a football team made me think it was not a serious one, hence posing the question here.

To explain the background, we once used a Christopher Walker Gospel Acclamation from "Music For Children's Liturgy Of The Word, at a Lenten "Family Mass". When my wife heard me practicing it on the pianp at home, she came into the room dancing like a teddy bear, and singing a spontaneous parody, which ran "I am a big pink teddy! Come out and play with me!" She basically hates "dumbing down" the mass, and yet years ago she was all for trendy, modern stuff. When I mentioned this to her the other day, she said "I've grown up now - I've discovered Latin" Hence my request - a Latin translation of the ditty in question, as a joke.

Apologies again. I shall refrain from posting anything in the future lest I cause more problems.

[gwyn]

Apologies again. I shall refrain from posting anything in the future lest I cause more problems.

Noooooooo! Don't do that. I'd miss you.

[musicus]

There is absolutely no need for that, Hare; your story is charming, and, whatever the original topic might have been, subsequent posts have had little bearing on it, so yours was probably on topic anyway.

[Gabriel]

I always get the choir to run through the psalm antiphon with the congregation before mass in the hope that someone will open their mouths but, inspite of the words being printed in the newsletter they sit there like a lot of dummies so I wonder why I bother. One advantage of doing this is that it enables our pp to get the gist of the music - he has a lovely tenor voice but can't read music so often goes off on his own track!
Incidentally, can someone with a better knowledge recommend a unison Tallis piece apart from those in the hymnals?

This has bearing on the discussion on plainchant Mass thread as well.

My experience is that, when I do go through something new for for the congregation, the response is mostly silence and that polite-dumb look reserved otherwise for homilies but somehow when it is sung in the liturgy something has sunk in.

[gwyn]

Gabriel said

My experience is that, when I do go through something new for for the congregation, the response is mostly silence and that polite-dumb look reserved otherwise for homilies but somehow when it is sung in the liturgy something has sunk in.

That's often my experience too. It's often the way.

[Nick Baty]

A few questions:
1) Do you smile when you say "Good Morning"?
2) Do they smile when they say "Good Morning" back?
3) Is your body language open and welcoming?
3) Are you within the assembly or at the front looking towards them? (I'm usually around a third of the way down the central aisle.)
4) Are you dressed the same as them (neither more nor less formal)?
5) Have you bumped into any of them in the porch or outside the church before Mass and said "Hello" and asked how they are? (Church porches are a great place to find out about swollen ankles, hernias and prolapses of various kinds.)
6) Do you have coffee or a pint with them after Mass, giving them an opportunity to comment on the music or get to know you?

I could go on but I find that this sort of approach usually works – except at one famous Liverpool church where they all stared at me in horror! But unless you can answer "yes" to a few of the above then something's not working.

Gwyn says it's "often" his experience. Often within one parish or often as he's moved around? Some assemblies who haven't sung much in the past can be resistant for the first two to three weeks but once you've been with them a while and they get to know you the barriers usually go.

Also, do they like what you're giving them and is it at the right level? As the parish repertoire grows they'll accept more and more demanding items. You can't start with Huijbers's How far is the night? in week one.

What do they sing well? Perhaps this could inform your initial choice of style and genre.

How much are you asking them to digest in how long a period? Psalm responses aside, I never ask our lot to learn more than two new items a month so the repertoire doesn't grow quickly but it does grow.

And do you praise them when they sing well? Our singing group is away on a girls' weekend in Blackpool – several large heads this morning, I suspect – so I could hear the assembly more than usual today and they were superb. And I told them so before leading the final item – result was even more volume.

Just a few thoughts.