Colin Mawby' "Vivace," and the Parish Idiot

... or is it Beverley Courtney's "Vivace"?
Anyway, if you are not subscribing to the choirtraining tips newsletter, you should.

The most recent emailed newsletter addressed the subject of your choir's deportment -- their story of a chorister dining during compline is, I think, bested, or at least equaled by mine of the bass who took a phone call during the consecration, "Oh, nothing much.... no, just at Mass.... yeah, maybe later."

Anyway, almost every choir has an idiot, hasn't it?

Disappointing Headline

It's so disappointing to follow a link and discover that the page is not about what the headline encouraged you to believe.
For instance, Worshiping at the ‘Idol’ Church is NOT about the absurdly inappropriate style in which so many young cantors sing, (I am old enough that I used to facetiously blame all that was wrong in putatively "liturgical" cantilation [sp?]on Ed McMahon, and refer to it as "Star Search" Singing"...)
Someone, perhaps at the CMAA boards? mentioned that one difficulty with using the invaluable By Flowing Waters, (or probably most worthy English liturgical music,) is that singers are tempted to bring to it the styles they are used to hearing and producing.

Any voice teacher or choral director or coach knows that it is far easier to acheive results free of unfortuante habits of style, diction or intonation with a piece of music heretofore unknown by your charge than with an old favorite the singer or choir is happily accustomed to singing badly.

Although I had success with other hymns, I was never able to eliminate the hard "r"s from How Great Thou Art with one community chorale.
I could get a lovely, spinning, self-abnegating line fomr my best high school cantor, but not on the Celebration Series "psalms" she already knew, and simply could not sing without the little pop appogiaturas. (Yet another good reason not to use them!)

There's a Blow...

The linchpin of the tenor section approached me after rehearsal tonight and told me, somewhat sheepishly, that he won't be available for any Masses, (or the pre-Mass hour-long "concert" on Christmas Eve, either,) until the 31st, because family is visiting, family who are fallen away but who will go to church if, and only if, he sits downstairs with them.

How could I argue, how object?

The Rutter and the Berlioz will certainly suffer.

As will I...

I love my choir...

Well, they're not mine, I suppose I'm theirs.

Anyway, they were wonderful this morning.

Excellent job on the Sequence, (short version, alternating the chant with verse from an 18th c. four-part motet.
Nice, supported and blended sound on the hymns' harmonies (the Fight Song, Let All Mortal Flesh/PICARDY, O Saving Victim/DUGUET, Alleluia Sing to Jesus/HYFRYDOL,) they kicked on the postlude (Saint-Saens' Tollite Hostias,) and were just fine on everything else, (including my adaptation of a snatch of melody from the Gregorian Ave Verum for the Responsorial Psalm. I had done the same thing 3 years ago, but it was too close to the actual chant and someone had a fit. So this time, I made it more recognizably rhythmic and added harmonies. And that someone wasn't at a single Mass, so I could have gotten away with it. Oh well... I'm trying not to think in terms of "getting away with" things.)

Oh, and the harmonies on the Vermulst People's Mass sounded quite wonderful, (often, they, no, we are too.... insistent? yes, that's the word.)

Liszt's O Salutaris
Webbe's Litany of the Sacred Heart
The Canticle from Daniel (WAYFARING STRANGER)
Mozart's Ave Verum

We don' need no stinkin' sopranos...

Fortunately the church was virtually empty during our pick-up rehearsal this morning before the choir Mass.
Bad turn out, literally no members of one section, but I asked to go over one 4-part piece for the other parts.
A versatile male chorister offered to sing the melody, but I suggested that we would probably gain a warm body or two before Mass actually began, so I'd like to just hear the ATB parts, and I'd fill in the top on organ.
Well, the blend, the sound proved fascinating and quite beautiful -- so in his worst frito-bandito accent, Himself sneered, paraphrasing a line from Treasure of the Sierra Madres, "Soprano? we don' need no stinkin' sopranos!"
Maybe I'm a little punchy from this week's marathon, but I'm surprised we didn't shatter the stained glass saints around the nave with our shrieks and whoops of laughter.

It would have been ironic had anyone heard and objected, because today was one of those days when people chose to, literally, shout so that their conversations weren't interrupted or inconvenienced by the mere fact that sacred music was being prayed in the vicinity.

You know, 'cause it's not like it's a church, or anything...

(The priests contribute to the din, so there's really no hope....)

Oh, I forgot...

Apropos of my part rant/part soul-searching about a certain choir member, perhaps any musicians among my 2.7 regular readers out there would care to answer this:

Is this some eccentricity on my part to request strongly that people not sing until they actually have the correct piece of music in hand and have it opened to the correct page and are facing forward with it?

(I am not referring to actively trying to sing from memory, and watching the conductor; but the habit of doing so accidentally while riffling through octavos looking for the the right one, and either singing each note a split second late following the guidance of your more conscientious section-mates; or perhaps worse, kind of "guessing" what the pitches might be -- or would have been, if only Morton Lauridsen, JS Bach or William Billings possessed the same level of creative genius as the guessing singer.)

Could be one, could be t'other...

I am not sure if I need to go to confession again, or if I have missed a golden opportunity.
The singer who requires a good 33.33333 % of our corrective rehearsal time, (and a proportionate lion's share of our teaching-parts-rehearsal-time,) when I made a request of said singer, towards the beginning of last night's final-before-the-marathon-that-is-the-Triduum rehearsal, announced that said singer does not "appreciate being picked on."

Himself's take, as a back bencher, which he expressed to me after rehearsal, was that my reply was firm but conciliatory. Or conciliatory but firm, can't remember the order.

I don't think I had picked on this singer, although I did single out this singer at our last rehearsal, asking the rest of the section to rest their voices while I tried to hammer a mere four notes into this singer's brain for 15 minutes.
(The anthem containing these 4 notes is diatonic, has rhythms of martial consistency, no part crossing, no section dividing, and is in English. And, beginning with a pick-up they are sol do mi do. I am not making this up.)
After that rehearsal I asked some people whose opinion I value if I had been unkind, and they all assured me I had not, but I must have suspected my own behavior or I wouldn't have wondered, eh?

On the other hand this singer takes more time and energy than the rest of the choir combined, and if last night I had answered with an edge in my voice, perhaps this singer would have walked...

This singer sang in the choir under several previous directors, but I had never met this singer as there had been some sort of falling out betwixt singer and director each time, and the Tenor Who Knows Everything raised an eyebrow and sucked his teeth meaningfully at the return.

I don't know.

Oh, and last night when we got to the anthem that had taken so much effort at the previous rehearsal? and those four notes?

As if this singer were sight-reading, and wrong, wrong, wrong and....wrong.

Does the Church Encouraging Illegal Immigration?

I am proud of the work my Parishfamilyfaithcommunity, (Pffc, for short,) does for the poor, the down-trodden, the disenfranchised, the far-from-home, the alien, the outcast.

This blogger, I don't know that he feels that way about things.

"My wife and I have already been denounced as racists, troublemakers, malcontents, etc— the usual litany of charges—when we speak out about this and other matters concerning our parish's preferential treatment of" the largest recent immigrant group at his parish.

Now, even if all that is true, (the accusations, I'm not questioning the veracity of his claim that the accusations have been made, and judging from the rest of the site, he may very well be,) he does seem to have a point. (Being a racist doesn't preclude your being right, after all.)

I can seeing someones wanting the Church, not to stop helping people who need help, but to acknowledge that in some cases, these people who need our help have done something illegal.
I don't think just demands sweeping that under the rug, in fact, justice demands otherwise.

(And the complaint that one group of people has a 6 week waiting period, and other a 6 month for marriage?.... well that's obviously wrong. Not the complaint, the double-standard. And it is insulting to those who, one might think, "have it easier.")

Am I only inclined to be less charitable right now because I am furious at doing all the heavy lifting for all the "linked parish" activities and liturgies? and having to lower musical and liturgical standards because of it? and being given marching orders by someone who doesn't have to do any of it, and doesn't know what organizing that many singers, on that much music takes? into the mandated musical buffet, something for everyone, (except"me" of course... the quotes because the Propers are not "my" idea, a Gregorian ordinary as a beautiful but ethnically and generationally neutral means of accommodating the diversity isn't something "I" came up with, the last time there was an Instruction or Encyclical issued by "me." But that is the way it is characterized in discussions w/ TPTB.)

Is bridling that excellence cannot even be pursued, and gritting my teeth at, not mediocrity, but Trashtacularity, (albeit "accommodating" Trashtacularity,) just a manifestation of pride, and would the Little Flower smile and advise me to do my very best as I make a musical offering to the Ineffable Almighty of... cheez?

Among other problems, this arrangement threatens to deprive us of the presence of some of the better musicians and singers, who only came back when I arrived on the scene, because the kibosh on some of the worst of the "favorites", the soupiest Baptist ballades, the most overwrought Edwardian anthems, the most dated easy-listening Manilow-Mass repertoire.

Whew.... how'd I get on that?

If someone stumbles across it will I be threatened with termination again?

Silence

I was thinking of writing about the rest, the generalpause, and the railroad tracks and such... and being the laziest creature the Almighty ever conceived of, I figured I could mention a personal experience and someone else would have done the heavy lifting, so I did a bit of surfing.
I came across a NTM blog, by a Catholic liturgical musician named Katie, called "The Beautiful Music Challenge."

It is a challenge, isn't it?
I suspect most people don't understand the balancing act required, particularly by those who make Church music their livelihood.
Even others who share ones sensibilities and spirituality of music and liturgy, if their "principled stands" are not likely, as yours are, to impact adversely on the mortgage of the building that shelters your family, are liable to at times be contemptuous of the compromises you have made -- if not actually of you for making them.

Sometimes you have to bite your tongue.

Boo-hoo, have a little stilton with your whine, Scelata

Anyway, that's another sort of silence, not the one I meant initially.

Musician Katie has written:

I spend a lot of time contemplating the silence. That's a pretty funny thing for a musician to do. After all, my job is to make noise, isn't it?

While helping someone practice recently, I noted that he was not picking his finger up off of one of the keys soon enough when changing chords. When I corrected his mistake, I remarked that, "In music, the absence of sound is every bit as important as the presence of sound. If all notes sounded all the time, it would be cacophonous. Silence is required for the notes to become music."

I am sure I am not the first or most clever person to ever make that statement. I am sure that I heard it somewhere, but it's an interesting thought to ponder. Am I too dependent up on the noise, to rest in the silences? Are my silences long enough to make the music "sing"?

I am reminded of Elijah listening for the voice of God:

Then the LORD said, "Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by." A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD--but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake--but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire--but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. (New American Bible, 1 Kings 19:11-13a)

The Brilliant and Holy Fr Weber's, (I think I'm just going to call him that, kind of a homeric epithet...) insistence that there must be a pause of some length between the members of a verse of chanted psalm, even longer, perhaps, than that between verses themselves, that this being a dialogue with God, (even though we are making all the noise,) we need to stop and listen. We need silence in our sound.

Though that is a silence we are having trouble with, (especially in the funeral choir,) I was very pleased with our work yesterday, and particularly our observance of rests.

The "old favorites" off which I am trying to wean the choir consist almost entirely of pop-inflected ballads, where the composers, to give any interest to their soupy melodies at all, make minor and confusing and NOT TEXT DRIVEN changes from phrase to phrase.

The accompaniments are pianistic, seldom provide any real support to the singers as written, and since I am not playing the "little tinkley bits' even the good readers cannot really on the page to bring them in on, oh, this phrase which, (unlike the melodically identical phrases in the first two iterations of the A section,) starts off the beat, "to jazz it up."

If we're not going to do genuinely polyphonic music, (and we have done more of that, more frequent use of the two Palestrinas already in rep, some Vittoria, Byrd, "new" Palestrina,) I think we produce better results, (and it's a much better use of rehearsal time,) with sturdy homophony.... and let me tell you, we KILL on anything with a Slavic air about it.
The Ippolitoff-Ivanov Bless the Lord? the 4 part harmonization of the Grey setting of The Divine Praises?
Killer.
Anyway, yesterday we sang, (for the pre-Mass concert I do away with at peril of my life,) the Stainer God So Loved the World, (which I taught them the page of which they had inexplicably always left out?), Healy Willan's heart-breaking bit of modern polyphony, Behold the Lamb of God, (which they've sung since before I was born, I think, good for them!) and the Remondi Adoramus Te, Domine, which they had in the files, but which had to be re-written for mixed choir, (and aren't we just? mixed, I mean...)

Anyway, all quite dramatic as suitable "church music" goes, (as opposed to the drama of, say, Holy City, The Palms, which are NOT.... well, as suitable. If at all. But I digress.)

All dependent on really honoring the rests and the expressive silences, and, of course, observing the conductor, (or rather, in our case, the organist's head,) which at long last they are doing on a semi-regular basis.

And for communion, one of the Psalms actually appointed for the day's Liturgy, (though not as the communio, admittedly,) set to a Tchaikovsky piece they have done for years with different words.

That is another stealth project of mine -- taking something they already know and like and either Catholicizing it, (in the case of sturdy protestant faves with inappropritate texts.... shhh! don't tell the CP,) or liturgicizing it, with a text we need, or at least ought to be able to provide, and don't yet have in our stable.

Anyway, with a church building that is God's gift to choir directors, (and the singers-who-don't-know-the-meaning-of-the-word-blend who love them,) the clean cut-offs and almost self-indulgently long silences before resolving the rich harmonies were magnificent.

I think I can say that in all modesty (since it sure wasn't my voice producing that ringing tone...)

As an side, as filler in the time between the ending of the congregational hymn and the choir's finishing up receiving the blessed sacrament so that they can sing, instead of the organ improv cum stealth teaching of new ordinaries I usually do, I have been chanting solo a capella Ubi Caritas... so that with any luck when that is presented to people they will think they already know it?

Maybe?

Let God use you without consulting you....

Some advice I need to heed, from Mother Theresa, via the Archbishop-elect of New York.

“Do I want to go? Do I consider myself qualified? Are there much better candidates for the position?” Archbishop Dolan asked rhetorically.

“All of that is really beside the point. The obedience I freely and enthusiastically promised to Jesus Christ, His Church, and His vicar on earth, our Holy Father, is a very liberating act. So, I place my future in the hands of the Lord, whose grace and mercy endure forever, and I go.”

And really, how could ya not love a guy who values a good paczki? (That's pronounced "poonch-kee," for those of you who have not had the pleasure.)
I expect to enjoy at least one tomorrow night, assuming ANYONE shows up for choir rehearsal...
Even Himself is proving to be... well, let's just say, TPTB are demonstrating yet again in what lowly regard they hold what we do.
Go ahead, schedule something else during choir rehearsal.
Every rehearsal, every week.
Go ahead.
Think the noise will bother us? bother me?

I feel a Saint-Saens moment coming on....

Or is that not how He wants to use me?

Which do I love?

I complain often enough of idiocy coming from the source, so I must credit a lovely and thoughtful article in GIA's latest advertizing-supplement/liturgy-planning-guide.

Gerald Custo, (no mean choral composer, he, I believe I've mentioned works of his on this blog,), is also the author of the current "Choral Master Class." He calls this one, "True Confessions."

Mr. Custo writes of what he has learned from his choristers, and what he owes them, and for what he apologizes to them.

A colleague shamed him, (unintentionally,) with her profession of love for "her people."

He admits that there were times when, no, he loved the music more than the choir he was asking to make that music.
And that is bass ackwards.

And I, ever the pharisee, read it and thought, oh, yes, that must have been something you needed to learn, Mr Custo.
I myself, on the other hand, knew it when I was a mere slip of a 20 year old lying to my choir that I was older to try to assume a little extra authority -- why, they LOVED me, I could see it. So I must have loved them, that's why they loved me.

But the fact is I was acting, and I didn't always. And they were better than I was and loved me despite my lack of charity.
And even now, do I love them? (a new bunch of "them," halfway across a continent, )
Oh, yeah, sure, most of them.... but most of them IS NOT ENOUGH.

Mr. Custo describes one of the fruits of his colleague's charity: her choir trusts her, will do anything for her.
And I must admit, shamefully, I gave up on that a bit recently, I only cared that the ones whose judgement I respected, (who would follow me into the fire.)

And I tried to get by with bribes, to earn the compliance of the rest of them, (yes, payola, consisting of the traditional offerings of Kough drops, Kleenex and Kookies.... oh, and readers, gotta keep a supply of spare readers, ranging from 1.25 to 3.50 for those who forget their glasses -- do ya love Dollar Bills Discount Store, or what??!??@?$??%??!)

THAT IS NOT ENOUGH.

So, I firmly resolve, with the help of God's grace, to amend my ways.

I am going to do my best to love them. Not manipulate them, LOVE them.

All.

ALL.

Good essay, Mr Custo, thanks for the sorely needed kick in the pants.

Yeah? well, then YOU tell them...

This seems to be said to me more frequently than to other people, at least the other people the intimacies of whose social intercourse I am aware in any detail.

(Which includes more people than you might think .... I seem to be at a point and place in my life where most of my acquaintances feel bound to relay the entire content of most of their conversations: So then I says to 'em... and then HE goes... so I up an' asks... you know the drill. I am not kidding. One pal regularly goes into such detail as, and then I said WHAT?!?#$?! and he says yeah, and I just shake my head, and then...)

We've had a rash of funerals. It's that time of year, and the vicious weather probably isn't lifting anyone's spirits or ameliorating his illnesses.
This morning was one of those where someone in the (not immediate) family chose to play liturgist. (This actually makes it a great deal easier, as one needn't put up with as much guff from someone who is not in mourning.)

The kicker this time was that the person in question really was a liturgist, and yet seemed slightly less informed that our average PIP.
He arrived spitting nails, with his karaoke accompaniment tucked under his arm.
What do you mean you don't have a sound system to play this on? (I bit my tongue and didn't add, and even if I had...)
And what's this the funeral director tells me that you won't use [favorite top 40 sacro-sacchro-pop song] as the psalm?
And didn't you get my email about the Mass parts? (You mean the setting of the ordinary?) Well it's the one we always use at my church, and this is the first I've heard that those aren't actually the words of the Mass.
And who says we can't pronounce [the unpronounceable tetragrammaton] where'd ya get that idea?
Well, the CDW-
Nah, I never read that stuff the diocese sends out...
Do YOU want to be the one to tell Cousin Flora's kids?

(Smiling) Sure.

That response always seems to take the wind out of the most belligerent people's sails. (It works at sub-committee meetings, too.)
The impression I get from the success of this technique is that people in these situations are at their most belligerent when they are trying to enforce their own preferences and intentions under the guise of insisting someone else's dearest wish.
(I had one funeral last year where two rival soloists, non-blood relatives showed up in the loft with competing "the Family's wishes", each of which, mirabile dictu, involved a show-piece by the bearer of the message.)
I'm going to play a clarinet solo for communion.
Well, it was a sacred piece, I figured you pick your battles, and a parish "liturgy director" who'd never heard of the General Instruction was going to give me a deer in the headlights look at the mention of the Ceremonial of Bishops.

Should it have been any surprise that this guy had his wife there to video his performance?...er,... his musical prayer?

I am trying, moving at what feels like glacial speed, to change my parish's liturgical practice regarding funerals.
The In Paradisum took a year before they finally gave up fighting me on it, the "only lectionary texts or other approved psalters" for the psalm took another year (and still gets me a lot of flack.)
I got the biggest funeral home on board with not presenting the family with a list of choices that included a lot of inappropriate music, but the others still pull out a list from who knows where, featuring stuff I don't know, never heard of and wouldn't play or sing on a bet, I think from 5 choir directors ago.
I'm working now on convincing TPTB, (of which, how is that?, I am not one...) to go to a "default" program, printed on pew cards so that people know the responses, for the love of pete, and the words to the ordinary, and when to stand and sit and kneel, who cares about the "songs?"
I wish they would stop making families in mourning think that it's their responsibility to play liturgist and "pick the songs."

My next move, I'm not sure.
I'm trying to introduce hymn texts to favorite tunes that are a decent approximation of the funeral propers.
There's a concept.
(Nope, sorry, not a chance of getting away from the Hymn Sandwich yet, not here.)

And I'd love to get rid of the "concert" before Mass.
Ah well, reach and grasp, and what's heaven for and all that....

Weather and Virtue

I remember seeing an animated short many years ago, of an episode from Woolf's Orlando long before I had heard of the actual book from which it was taken, about a wintry winter colder than all other winters, and it feels as if i am living through that now.
(I wondered at the time, and again years later when I read the book, and again when I saw the beyond-marvelous Tilda Swinton in the movie, was that real? was there one year in Bloody Elizabeth's reign that was cold beyond previous imagining? I digress...)

December was heinous and January has been worse.
Quite aside from the fact that I, the-cheapest-person-who-ever-lived have not quite recovered from opening the envelope holding my heating bill, I have been forced to do something I have never done before --
In the entire more than 7 years on this job, I have never canceled a choir rehearsal unless I had to be out of town; never for illness, never for other commitments, (even dress rehearsals, I bumped choir a bit earlier, or arrived late to the theater, or changed, with the choirs permission and vote as to the day, dates,) or weather.
My reasoning was, even in a blizzard or hurricane I could walk there, and if anyone else was willing to make the effort, by God, I would be there to rehearse them.

This is not to say I haven't cut rehearsals short, and hour fifteen instead of 2 hrs, because I just ran out of voice, but I've even rehearsed them with complete laryngitis, Himself proclaiming instructions as I wrote or mimed them.

It was a point of -- sinful -- pride, I never failed to live up to my commitments on this job as saw them, I have never taken a sick day, never missed a Mass, not for surgery, not for shingles, not for a minor broken bone.

But I have just sat here over a bowl of Smoking Bishop... oh, all right, it's really a bowl of cafe au lait, poetic license inspired by Scrooge-apalooza... and called all my choir members, even those who have not made an appearance since Christmass, to tell them there will be no rehearsal tonight.

I just couldn't see letting those few who do feel a real sense of commitment go out in 7 below with a wind chill hovering at about minus 24. (And it would be worse by the time even a sparsely attended rehearsal was over.)

It feels kind of shameful. (And you thought I had no shame!)
I'm not sure why, I am a naturally lazy person.

But extremes of weather often seem to inspire a certain relaxation of virtue, or a virtue.
Sloth seems a greater danger now than Lust, for instance, and sexual promiscuity during the "Long, Hot Summer" is a cliche.
It's as if the weather not just explains transgressions, it excuses them,(see, Wide Sargasso Sea, can't remember if the book had the same feeling.)
I loved "snow days" when I was in school, but did I ever take advantage of them? try to get ahead on some school project? do something useful?
Course not! when I was young and stupid I went out in the snow, when I was teen-age and stupid I slept and avoided my Mother so as not to be assigned something, when I was a young adult and conflicted and waffling about where my life was going I ate and read...

And today? am I working on the score to my pirates project, am I making out my music schedules and programs for the weekend, am I arranging the choir psalm as I would have been, had we rehearsal tonight?

Judging from the fact that I am blogging, it seems not.

"Because I'm the Mommy, that's why..."

In all honesty, this is not pride (and I am a sinful, sinful woman, pride is one of my faults,) or rather, perhaps it is, but it is not because my authority is being question, or even my skill -- it is because my industry is being called into question, (but I am a lazy, lazy, lazy woman, so I shouldn't object to that, I suppose. But I do.)
But when we have been working on the program for months, and you waltz in late for the final rehearsal and we start to sing Adeste Fidelis, and I remind everyone to sing unison on the final verse...?

Okay, that is NOT the time to question my decision..
Do you think I do this crap on WHIM? that I gave no thought to it, that I'm makin' it all up as I go along??!??#?$?%???!?

Anyway, Himself said it was the coldest and angriest he'd ever seen me at choir when I hissed though my teeth, well, we have a trumpeter, you see, and he's very good, and he is going to be playing the Willcocks descant on the final verse, and it clashes horrifically with the harmonies you sing on the other verses so if you don't sing unison on the melody but ignore my direction and sing the alto part it will be beyond wretched.

And smiling my most saccharine smile, Is that all right with you?

It's the implication in her constant questioning, that I have put no thought into anything, that gets to me. Why are we taking the last verse slower, that's not the way we did it with choir director X...
Well, choir director X died before I was born, so that makes him, let's see.... NO LONGER THE CHOIR DIRECTOR.

My bad, my bad, my ginormous bad...

I like to think that I have put enough thought into realistic and unrealistic expectations, into recognizing my own short-comings, and into their quirks of personality or musicianship that the choir doesn't really test my equanimity.

But between my short fuse, which I like to blame on my cold/sore throat/allergies.... oh, all right, nodes; the unavoidable interferences to rehearsal time; the work load (for them,) the fact that there was no heat in the loft and a howling gale was making itself heard and felt through the 90 year old windows; and the fact that I was giving the same note for the umpteenth time, (and was striving for relative diplomacy instead of saying 'everyone's perfect EXCEPT YOU!!!!!'), I lost it in rehearsal.

I have a tenor, (I should have faced the obvious when he "returned" to the choir a few weeks after I began my tenure and everyone told me that all my predecessors had thrown in the towel with him, so the he had resigned/been forced out, and rejoined the choir a half dozen times,) who likes to repeat any direction or correction I make.

He has what I thought at first was an annoying but acceptable mnemonic device: I would say, That consonant needs to come on the third beat, and he would parrot, Right, that consonant needs to come on the third beat.
And sometimes it sounded apologetic, (or was that wishful thinking on my part?) when he repeated some egregious mistake.
But as I got to know him better, my perception of his tone of voice changed, and he sounded not remorseful, and not even as if he were agreeing with me, so much as weighing in on the subject, as if his judgement were the one that mattered, Yes, right, that would be better if we were softer the second time.
But then I began to notice, he would repeat what I had said officiously to other people, as if he had "caught them," or as if it were the other tenors who were screwing up.
And then he began chiming in when I was talking to other people, other sections, Bob, you're a little late on that second entrance, he'd turn around, Right, Bob was a little late; and even laugh, sopranos that phrase was a bit choppy, can you not re-attack on the third and 7th notes? ... right, you sopranos were choppy, he'd chortle.

And so at rehearsal today I lost it.
I'd stopped for the 3rd time for the same fault, in the same phrase, and repeated myself in the same measured tone, and when this tenor, (who was actually the only one singing it wrong,) began "that's right, it should be--- " I'd just had it and crazy-smiled, "I know it's right, I said it because it's right, that's why I said it.... THREE TIMES. And it was RIGHT all three of them."

Well, that's why God invented the sacrament of Confession.
(Or is that why God invented Shiraz?)

We should sing "God Bless America!"

So I'm dragging my exhausted and sick carcass into Mass yesterday afternoon, (after learning that the diocese "officially" discouraged anticipated Masses for today's holy day.... ah well,) and trying to sort through the 2nd Advent choir programs from the morning that somehow missed the recycling bin and are now getting mixed up with the I.C. programs, and wondering where I put the readable accompaniment copy of the Gloria when I took it out of the cantor's book two weeks ago, and looking for a band-aid because my hand was bleeding all over the psalms as I passed them out, (thank you Jeff Ostrowski, nice work!) and trying to explain to a Bass that no, he doesn't need my setting of Psalm 128, and please don't sing it while the rest of us are singing Psalm 98, that there's a reason I ask people to hand in any copy of any psalm they have in their folders after any Mass, and freezing under 1 layer of coat, 2 layers of sweater, one of blouse and 1 layer of long underwear shirt, because besides my being sick, the boiler is out, it's 12 degrees and the loft is draughty... when I hear, hey, we should be singing, "God Bless America," why aren't we singing "God Bless America" and I fix the skunk eye on the speaker and see that she is not joking and foolishly ask why.
Pearl Harbor Day!
Darnit, apparently some dummy messed up the ordo again.

I must decrease...

To subordinate oneself to the ritual, to the office, to the moment... that is the goal.
I feel in the on-going "negotiations" with my choir that we are no closer to their, or at least the movers and shakers amongst them, understanding that what we do is not about even the music, much less their performance of it, than we were when I started.
But how could it be?
So many of their models make every word and gesture about themselves. I read recently that one test of a well executed liturgy is that one has difficulty recalling the identity of the mortal personnel.
I don't think that's fair, as most of us have such a very limited pool from which our memories are populated.... sometimes the best are the most memorable, by virtue of the complete absence of idiosyncrasy. No "creativity", no personal touches.
I am struck, again and again when watching coverage on EWTN, at how different the Holy Father's demeanor during Mass or Vespers is from his demeanor in diplomatic meet-and-greets, or audiences, or jaunts in the pope-mobile. The enormous throne, splendidly lavish vestments, hordes of other MCs and deacons and acolytes, "big hats" -- coupled with his paradoxically fervent diffidence, (or diffident fervour?) they all only serve to aggrandize the moment rather than him. I think he is aware of that. I think those who have helped codify the rubrics and create the customs of what they recognized as a God-given sacred Liturgy, rather than something of their own devising, are aware of that.
Someone who knows more about these things than I told me once that the phrase "noble simplicity" has been much misunderstood, that in the Roman understanding, it refers not to plainness or starkness, (as those who have given us the sterile minimalism of much liturgical art, architecture, vestments, etc, of the past few decades seem to comprehend it,) but to a proportionate aesthetic, (of either complexity or simplicity,) by which attention is not directed where it ought not be.
A man's face hovering over a white, patternless polyester chasuble, over a white, patternless marble table, on a white, patternless floor, in a white, patternless room might as well be hit with a spot; it calls so much more attention to itself than the same face (or the back of a head? ;oP) in a sea of multi-coloured baroque ornamentation.

Complaints Choirs

A tip of the hat, (whoops! there goes my wig....) to Sir Monocle for news of the Complaints Choir movement.
That is an absolute natural for this town.
When I called his attention to the existence of this band of whingers, Himself complained that is I would watch CBS Sunday Mornings with him, I'd have known about it long ago.

But I gotsta find out about those sotlen dwaves....

Can someone with XY chromosomed answer a question?

As a gyno-American I never had to deal with a profound voice change, (though don't tell me women's voices don't encounter difficulties at puberty, particularly in the passaggio; all of a sudden, those runs that little coloraturas used to glide through, especially just above the staff? suddenly someone seems to have left their shoes on the stairs for you to trip over.)
Anyway, I have a boy in choir, he was a fine soprano until last year but often sang alto for me, both to stand near some other boys for butch camaraderie's sake, and because he had a GREAT EAR for harmony. That's an important point.
He could hold an interior part by himself.
If we sang something bluesy (this is not a liturgical choir,) he had no difficulty nailing the lowered third note of the scale and then, tuning it correctly to a major scale in the next measure.
Over the summer his voice changed, somewhat.
No cracking at all, and when we sing in unison he can just sing things in either octave. (He still has a very pretty voice above middle C, no straining, no loss of high notes yet.)
But he seem to have no sense of pitch in his "man's voice." He can no longer match pitches unless he is singing in the same octave as the girls.
Now I know even with adult men, who are not really experienced choristers, sometimes when passages are demonstrated by a woman's voice it is hard to "hear" which octave you are supposed to be singing in.
There are other changed voices in the group, and he can't match them on a harmony.
(I even brought an adult light baritone into rehearsal.)
He's 13 and I'm loathe to say anything even slightly critical, (up till last year, I had no problem correcting his rare mistakes, nor he in accepting criticism,) both because I know it's a sensitive age and I don't want him to become self-conscious, and because I don't want to say something that gives him incorrect notions of how a male voice should be produced.
And frankly, his baritone (I'm guessing that's where he'll end up,) is really nice, quite beautiful.
But he cannot sing a harmony, either on something he already knew, or something new and simple.
So my question is, is this normal?
Can someone with good intonation and a good ear, "lose" it when his voice changes?

Any male singers reading this, any information or advice gratefully accepted.

(I have a problem, my own fault, that rehearsal time is running short, and I excused him from a lot of early rehearsals, as I need to with most of the children because of their insane schedules. So the realization that he wasn't "catching up" instantly, which I expected of him, has put me in a bind...)

Children's Choirs

The redoubtable bow-tied one has this excellent post at NLM on the subject of gettin'em while they're young.
My experience bears out everything he says (sometimes, to my sorrow, or course, I can vouch for the truth of certain of his dire predictions....)
I attended school Mass today, as it happens, Table of Plenty, an Ordinary I did not recognize that had a sing-songy rhythm but seemed to change tonality every measure, and strange descants that I at first thought were either birds or wailing toddlers (I am not kidding. Literally, that's what I thought. I felt bad, because I know these children, and I like their music teacher.)
My "schola," (we're really a concert choir,) which has only a tenuous connection to the parish, has a somewhat different sound (although I have two, so far tone-deaf kinds.... they are legacies.)
They are doing a bang-up job on a "Bell Canon" in a brisk 5/4 (thanks to all who helped with international onomatopoetic words, and every one of them can now conduct in 5 better than a lot of people I went to conservatory with....,) touching my heart with a lovely bluesy Cherry Tree Carol, and they are vying for the solo in their general favorite: In Splendoribus.
Small triumphs....
(I said I only had the time, energy or voice to prepare two things for this concert, so of course, we're already at 7, and since we have 9 more rehearsals, I woudln't be surprised if we had eight in good enough shape to sing in public.)
Anyway, JT's piece:
If your parish has a children's choir, thank both the director and the pastor, both of whom are crucially important to maintaining such a program in time when such choirs are ever more rare in Catholic Churches. If they are singing serious music, such as chant, receiving real training in music theory using the voice, that is all the more spectacular.
When you read the personal biographies of great singers, in our times or the past, it comes up again and again that their first training occurred in church. Would that the schools were a substitute but even in the best of times, it was the liturgy of the Church that provided the most intense singing experience.
What happens when children's choirs are gone for more than one or two generations? We see the results all around us. Scholas have a hard time forming in parishes where very few people can read music or feel confident that they are singing notes at all. You might be able to get past the failure to read, but they don't understand how their voices work and they don't have the confidence to sing publicly (as versus in the shower).
There is also the problem of proper artistic formation. People cannot reliably distinguish what Pius X called "true art" from music that has long been said to be inappropriate for Mass. The capacity to know the difference cannot be spelled out in some rule book or scientific measure of beats and intervals. It comes from familiarity with music generally and the sacred music tradition in particular.
In a parish where there is a huge dearth of talent and a lack of common commitment to true art, starting fresh with a sacred music program can be a serious challenge. The ground can best be prepared by an active children's choir program that extends over a long period of time.
Starting is itself a challenge. In observing this in a number of parishes, it seems clear that it is not enough for there to be one music director with the goal in mind. That music director can carve out a place in the schedule, post signs, talk to many parents privately, and still find himself or herself standing in front of an empty classroom. It's not the case that parents don't want their children to learn to sing.
The problem is that there too many other priorities that come first, such a sports or studying or playing with friends or whatever. There are a thousand reasons not to show up.
Another problem is that parents expect fast results that cannot be obtained in a high-quality program. They want the kids to learn songs to sing to family and friends, in the hope that the child will become some kind of singing phenom like you see on television. When this hope doesn't materialize, they take to kid out so that he or she can discover his or her true brilliance in another setting.
Careful music training takes place over a series of years in which the student discovers how to distinguish between high and low notes, whole steps and half steps, and learns how to sing on pitch and sight sing. Ideally, the child learns the do-re-mi system of singing as the first music instrument and finds out how to navigate up and down this scale, starting from any note and moving to any note. This is critically important for learning to sing and learning about music, but it is not the kind of talent that is going to impress extended relations at family reunions. This is source of frustration for parents who are themselves illiterate in this area.
Technology has helped pedagogy in most every area of life, but the field of music is highly specialized in that it requires an unusual interaction and coordination between abstract thinking and real-world doing. It takes time and relentless effort. Whatever tools we might have at our disposal today, music comes down to the relentless practice and the striving for improvement over a long period of time. In this sense, music pedagogy today and music training takes no less time right now than they did in the ancient world. It can't be rushed. And as time becomes ever more valuable, the willingness to make the sacrifices diminish ever more.
The music teacher himself or herself also needs a supportive pastor. Nor is it enough for the pastor generally to nod agreement with the idea of a children's choir program. He must also encourage parents relentlessly both publicly and also privately. He probably needs to personally call parents with young children and make sure that the parents know that it is a parish priority, that it matters, and why it matters.
Many pastors figure that they have enough on their plates without intervening in what is widely considered to be a matter of private family business. But without this support, it is too easy for parents to just figure that music education is not for their kid.
Even with a good teacher and an activist and supportive pastor, parish involvement might be low for a few years. The parents most likely to put their kids in a choir program are those who plan years in advance. The program has to first exist, probably at a small level, and then young couples need to see the kids sing and dream that their own children will someday join. Children of 4 and 5 need to see older children singing and want to join them when they are old enough to.
I hate to say it but it is often the case that children who are already 10 and older when the choir forms are already interested in too many other things to change direction. So the plan for the choir must be a 10-year or 20-year plan, and the short tenure of pastors tends to shorten the time horizons.
Boys in particular are a challenge, given the public-school culture that regards singing as something that is not masculine in the same way that hunting or football is. Boys in general eschew the arts, and are more likely to require pressure to pursue them. In other words, it has to be seen as something crucial to education – a required course.
Pastors must also learn to deal with interruptions in the schedule, as kids go off to college and move out of town or possibly come back later in life. The full benefit might no accrue to the parish in particular but to the Church overall, and many years down the road.
It is possible to cite studies show a link between music education and other for coursework. It is possible to cite the historical precedence that regarded music education as part of a foundation for all education. We might cite its therapeutic achievements and its source as an outlet for creativity.
But for Catholicism, the benefits come down to the concern for beauty in the worship of God. If this doesn't matter, children's choirs in parishes don't matter. But if it does matter, we desperately need them, for music proves to be a difficult task to undertake for adults. The time to learn is when you are young. This is an investment that pays high returns only many years from now.
There are a million reasons not to have children's choirs but one good one to undertake the effort: the liturgy desires our voices. At every stage in salvation history, music has been present. It must always be so.