Are you indispensable?

[Merseysider]

No, the easiest thing is writing for your own community. Yes, most of my stuff is unleashed on local congregations of 200 to 400 but I know what they like: they'll sing along happily with a little-moving tune with the occasional sixth or octave leap (I'm too heavily influenced by "Sweet Sacrament Divine") and don't find I-VI-IV-V7-I progressions corny. They love scrunchy Maj7 chords. And they're quite used to singing short, syrupy communion refrains two or three times before they're binned (the refrains, that is, not the congregation!).

Admittedly it's more than 20 years since I last attende a composers' meeting – and I was a gauche and precocious late-teen who was enthusiastic way past his abilities – but I do remember two particular gentlemen openly sneering at my efforts. For years and years I used various pseudonymns on my compositions and arrangements. I now occasionally use my own name but only when it's for local parishes.

Then there was the head of composition at college who said: "You just write tunes..." and wouldn't have me on the course.

And the formidable alto at one SSG Summer School. A (quite preposterous) piece of mine was being used at the final liturgy: preposterous because it called for cantor, SSA choir, SATB choir and a very intelligent congregation. The alto in question objected to singing it because... "it's trite rubbish. He doesn't write alto parts, he just fills in the harmonies".

It's a question of not being able to take the heat – so I'm staying out of the kitchen.

When, years later, I studied creative writing, I was thrilled to find a teacher who never told us what we'd done wrong – she just stressed what we'd done right – amazing how much more we all learned as a result.

Merseysider

[Dot]

Judging by your last posting, you know more about harmonisation than many contributors to the present Composers' Group. Returning would be a chance to put the bad experiences of the past behind you. I do not wish anyone to be left with the impression that Composers' Group is élitist, because it's not.

Dot

[Merseysider]

Thanks Dot.
It is, of course, lovely to be invited.
However, will wait until there's something I'm confident about presenting – and that's a little way off yet.
I really am an amateur.
Bestest,
Merseysider

[mcb]

Then there was the head of composition at college who said: "You just write tunes..."

That was what my A-level music teacher said to me, and I suppose I took it as a discouragement, whether or not that's how it was meant. Actually what he said was 'you should write songs for the Eurovision Song Contest', which has got to be a blow for any sensitive seventeen-year old. I didn't hear that particular jibe again until, um, a Composers Group meeting in 2001 (i.e. twenty-odd years later). One of the more uninhibited (and infrequent) participants said, of a new piece of mine, 'that's the next entry for the Eurovision Song Contest'. I think it means at least I have a consistent style! On the bright side, the piece in question is coming out with GIA next year (just signed the contract, yippee!). So maybe there's nothing wrong with 'just writing tunes'. After all, Schubert and Mendelssohn more or less did that, and I certainly think of Bernadette Farrell, Christopher Walker, Stephen Dean and a few others as essentially skilled at combining good tunes and good words.

Anyway, my own musical training didn't go beyond A-level (and a long while ago now), so it's good to be able to pick the brains of the more highly (and more recently) educated. The trouble is, I find, today's music graduate tends to be somewhat blasé about musical grammaticality, so I'm never sure how much to trust the advice that's offered. O tempora...

M.

[presbyter]

Gloria settings are what we need

Whatever happened to Alan Rees' "Congress Mass"? - there's a through setting in that which is very singable and much more interesting than Dom AGM's "New People's", in my opinion. (Mind you, do a little analysis of AGM's keyboard accompaniment and you'll see what a good musician he was )
Walker's Celtic Mass has a through setting too. We don't have to sing refrains all the time - and I'm sorry but I shudder every time someone starts up the Lourdes Gloria. If in former days congregations could learn and sing long tunes (Gloria Mass VIII or IX and Credo I and III), why can't they now?

Dot - nobody is going to have a go at the Gloria for a while until we know what the TEXT is going to be

[Merseysider]

I love most of Alan Rees's music.
But the Congress Gloria?
I find very difficult to hum two minutes after hearing it.

[Canonico]

Having heard many of mcb's 'tunes' I say thank God someone can write tunes! They are spiritually expressive and easy enough for a congregation to take part in, yet deep enough for a choir to magnify. If the Eurovision Song Contest had more tunes like his then it might be worth listening to. Anyone remember the old advert, "Tunes make you breathe more easily"!

[mcb]

I blush, I stammer, I fiddle with my tie...

[musicus]

This thread has become SO off-topic so I have split the new Gloria discussion off, and made a new topic for it. Please feel free to start other new topics, or to suggest other 'splits' that I could make.

By all means continue to respond to this 'Indispensable' thread if you are on-topic.

Thank you

Musicus

[Gabriel]

I have always taken the attitude of 'we never close'.

I would have added this thought sooner except I was away last week and, ironically, was, I think, the first time in 10 years when there was no music at Sunday morning Mass.

There is a need to develop a repertoire that works with just a single cantor unaccompanied, if necessary.

It perhaps partly stems from a view that I/we would be going to Mass anyway but I also think we are in danger of giving contradictory messages if we think that music is integral to liturgy (for example, hoping that the assembly, through our good practice, would think it odd, if say, the Alleluia is said at Mass) but some times of the year just stop

Gabriel

[sidvicius]

It helps if you can agree with your priest a few 'default settings' to fall back on. If you've ever worked in areas where instrumentalists and music leaders are thin on the ground you can pretty much guarantee there will be regular occasions where there will be no instrument to provide any form of lead or key. There are several simple Gospel Acclamations and Sanctuses (sancti?) to choose from which can be easily started and led by big Jim sitting in the pews or by the priest from the front. It means that, at the very least, the minimum sung requirements are sung. Anything else is a bonus. It's a good time to call on 'old favourites' if hymns are called for. The mass does feel a little austere but extra poignancy is added to those rare moments of song.

Get this arrangement established, and you can rest reasonably easy in the knowledge that though you or any other music person is not there, the music will be. If you're very lucky you will be missed, and welcomed on your return. It's nice to talk to people then, and hear them say "Well, we did the Celtic Alleluia and the DGM Sanctus - it wasn't great but we managed". Nothing worse than finding that, just because you weren't there, neither was the music. I would hate to feel that people only sang because they felt obliged by the presence of a music person - much rather they sing because they feel it helps them pray.

To add to Gabriel's notes, if you can call on a 'pool' of cantors I think it helps to dispel any notion of a singleton cantor wanting to 'perform' on a regular basis. How about forming a cantor ministry with a rota, like they have for readers and eucharistic ministers?

[Merseysider]

Owing to some mysterious bug (which has mysteriously again this afternoon) I missed Mass last night for the first time since joining my present parish four months ago.

Made a quick apologetic phonecall with a couple of hymn suggestions and fell back into my sickbed really not caring.

A couple of hours later a phonecall from Pauline, around 60, never having sung in any sort of group in her life: "I got them altogether and we sang the alleluias, we didn't manage the verse so we sang them again, we did the Sanctus on the white sheet – Chris started us off and she's got a really strong voice – we messed up the acclamation a bit because we had a visiting priest and he didn't know the introduction – Oo, he was luverly, if I was 20 years younger – and he had a good voice so he sang that bit where we sing Amen at the end. We weren't sure about Communion so we sang that new "Taste and See", just the chorus a few times and they all joined in".

If a group of people who don't read music, have only ever sing a couple of hymns (the same two) for the last 20 years, can achieve so much at short notice then my brief illness was not in vain.

I wept for joy.

Merseysider.

[VML]

Merseysider, you are far too modest if you think you're not up to bringing your music to the composers' group.
And I'm wading in here having been to only one meeting, but it was a large group in Birmingham, and the pieces presented ranged from beautifully arranged SATB hymns to short psalm arrangements.
It was friendly and encouraging, and I hope I'll get to another one soon.
The great thing for someone, (many of us) who has a very tiny group at practices in the parish was to have super singers sight singing what I had written.

[Merseysider]

Believe me, I'm not being modest – I've never seen anyone laugh up their sleeves at my stuff but I've seen them laugh out loud!

[SOP]

You are being modest!