How many planners?

[FrGareth]

As PP, I choose the Mass setting for the season.

The Saturday night Mass has a planning group of 3 people who choose the hymns.

The Sunday morning choir has two members who take turns preparing their choice of hymn.

As PP, I can't keep track of which congregation knows which songs, so it's best for that knowledge to come from within!

FrGareth

[Nick Baty]

Must admit that I find this sort of approach can give a fractured effect. Surely an overview is needed – what service music are we using over the next 12-18 months? Is it shifting with the changes in the Liturgy of the Word which is itself dictating a shift in the choice of hymns, songs, chants etc?

My planning isn't overly detailed but I do know what we're asking of the assembly and the parish musicians – and when. There's a detailed list of service music for the next two to three years – particularly important right now as we try to develop a new repertoire. This is integrated with a more fluid lists of hymns, songs, chants, psalms which we hope to introduce over the same period of time.

I fear that if the PP started requesting specific settings at a specific time it could unravel the whole sweater! For example, if he asked for a new Mass setting at the beginning of Lent, how could I introduce it alongside the new gathering song (An Attende Domine) we're using in weeks 1,3 and 5?

Luckily my PP doesn't interfere too much but he did thank me publicly after his silver jubilee for allowing him a couple of his own choices. That was a one off, you understand and it did cost him a rather pleasant evening in a tapas restaurant!

I really do think that, while taking into consideration the views of others, you really need one person with an overview of the whole lot. But I am planning anorak and have bored people about this before.

This is probably a tad off-topic but related to Father Gareth's comment about choosing a Mass Setting. I don't think we've used a complete Mass setting in the seven years I've been in the parish because, to be honest, I don't know a single complete setting which fits the bill. I know some wonderful sets of acclamations and some great Glorias and Agnuses (should that be Agni?). But you rarely find the whole thing in one place. Admittedly, while we currently have eight sets of acclamations in the repertoire, we only have five Glorias – we tend to rotate these but always use Peter Jones's Coventry Gloria for the bigger feasts. (Sadly, these must soon be jettisoned and we'll have to start again but that's another thread!)

[mcb]

I don't think we've used a complete Mass setting in the seven years I've been in the parish because, to be honest, I don't know a single complete setting which fits the bill.

Same for us - we've virtually never used an entire Mass setting in my years in charge. The honourable exception is Bob Hurd's Missa Ubi Caritas, but even that we mostly mix up with elements from other settings. Vernacular/congregational Mass settings just aren't the kind of artistic creation that need to be performed in their entirety, and, to my mind, music that properly serves ritual needs will be very diverse in character.

[FrGareth]

I don't think we've used a complete Mass setting in the seven years I've been in the parish because, to be honest, I don't know a single complete setting which fits the bill.

Same for us - we've virtually never used an entire Mass setting in my years in charge.

Ah, I may have misled you... in the context of St Dyfrig's a 'Mass Setting' is a folded A4 card which contains all the Mass parts for the season, but may well be a 'mix and match' - e.g. for Christmastide, mostly the Gathering Mass but with the Glastonbury Gloria.

I would love to be able* to plan as strategically as Nick, but, while my choir do a little of that for Sunday morning, there is no-one with the vision for that on Saturday night. If I want the Sat evening congregation to learn something new, I will probably have to teach them myself, and we only have an organist on alternate week!

Meanwhile our Choir is reeling from the departure of the organist, who publicly announced doubts about the existence of God, and are going to find it much harder to learn new music and teach the congregation from now on.

FrGareth

* Yes I could prioritise that and do it myself - and would then drop another of the many balls I am juggling with!

[Nick Baty]

I would love to be able to plan as strategically as Nick

I have given a false impression: The planning is theoretical and rarely adhered to.
Yesterday I made some last minute changes to two of the Sundays of Easter because I know we won't be able to manage what I had hoped to do.
Many a slip twixt cup and lip!

[Southern Comfort]

Meanwhile our Choir is reeling from the departure of the organist, who publicly announced doubts about the existence of God, and are going to find it much harder to learn new music and teach the congregation from now on.

Sorry to hear that. Did the organist depart of his/her own free will, or was the public statement the catalyst for being "let go" ? I'm sure many of us have doubts, probably on a daily basis, but somehow God keeps calling us back to where we ought to be. Perhaps a drink or two and a good chat with the organist in a local hostelry might help the situation.

[FrGareth]

Did the organist depart of his/her own free will, or was the public statement the catalyst for being "let go" ?

Very much the former - his own words were that having come to such serious doubts he would resent giving the time commitment every weekend to church. He graciously worked a 6-month notice period before withdrawing. By the time he spoke with me, he was well beyond the "drink in the pub" stage.

- and at that point I will stop commenting on this case out of respect for the person concerned, having covered everything that he said publicly.

FrGareth

[Southern Comfort]

Thank you, Gareth. Prayers for him/her and for you and choir and congregation.

[VML]

Just to update what has happened here regards planning etc. When it was decided that planning would happen on the second Wednesday of each month, over coffee, no playing allowed, I decided to step back for a couple of months.
It was intended as a leader's decision, to let them get on with it. It is their decision to work in months, not seasons, and I told them at the beginning of the March meeting, which was, of course, Ash Wednesday, that I would simply turn up at practices, and play what is required, and would plan May. No planning for Lent before that. I was asked if I was simply resistant to change, and told, not for the first time, but this time with PP there, that 'it's not about you!'
I made no mention of HW&E, nor did they, and I wondered when the penny was going to drop. They had intended to plan HW&E last Wednesday!
Now I discover PP called some of them in to plan a couple of weeks earlier, which makes a nonsense of opening the planning to everyone, because not one of us who have sung every part of the Triduum for at least 10 out of the last 15 years was invited or involved. He is, to be fair, only trying to get things done, and bending over backwards to keep it running smoothly.
Our only practice will be this Wednesday....I had an email on Friday from one of the group asking if I thought this was enough practice time or should they try to fit some extra practice time in...We only have a Penitential Service Tuesday plus the Triduum, loads of time to fit soemething in isn't there?
The congregation won't notice a thing, except the guitars on Good Friday for the first time. I'm losing heart.

[musicus]

VML, could it be time for a serious conversation with your PP?

[alan29]

I am not the leader, so I am not involved with planning.
However I do write the Sunday Responsorial Psalms and arrange cantors.
Imagine my pleasure when I was given the Holy Week music list this Sunday to discover that I was expected to provide and organise 4 psalms for this Saturdays Vigil. This despite the planning meeting being held at least two weeks ago.
I am so very tempted just to take myself off to another place.
Good manners need to be added to the Music Ministers job spec.

[VML]

Believe me, musicus, PP knows exactly what is happening. He told me he had called them in 'early' to plan. He knows there will be a serious de-brief after Easter. He has been very supportive of me while not wanting totally to alienate willing newcomers, who have been embarrassed by the tension. An American newcomer came and asked for music copies of what we would be singing for the Triduum. When I told her it was not yet planned, she gave me a little chat about how in the States they get things organised early...
There are two of us who alternate singing the Exsultet, and it was not my turn this year anyway. The other cantor has been asked, but only after an old choir member casually asked 'new' leader who would be singing it this year. It will be an interesting week.

May all of you who give such support on this forum have a blessed and inspiring Holy Week, and a very happy Easter.

[nazard]

When I was a child chorister at a school and church in Birmingham which took music very seriously, the fathers and the music master always had the Easter music agreed by Septuagesima. The music master always insisted that this was traditional, and always suggested after Septuagesima was abolished that the clergy got rid of it because they could not cope with planning ahead. Our current parish priest too always seems to be surprised by Easter. I have only had an agreed music list since the sixth Sunday of Lent. The best way to get a music list out of a priest is to call on him just when he wants to go and vest for Sunday mass and stand in the presbytery doorway so that he can't get out until you go. It helps to be 6' 3" and 15 stone.

[Nick Baty]

I find the easiest way is to take the PP out for dinner, a couple of months ahead, and present him with the music list. After the third or fourth bottle of wine he won't remember what he does and doesn't like.

[VML]

The PP is not the problem. We may have a glimmer of hope. I have just opened an email calling the planning meeting for June on 11th May. And I am making a real effort to be charitable.