It's time again to get ready for the Musica Sacra Florida Chant Conference for 2013. This year's conference will be held at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria Florida on Friday and Saturday, February 15th & 16th. More information will be coming here as we prepare for the conference!
April 13, 2012
Getting my things together to head to Ave Maria for the Musica Sacra Florida Chant Conference. I'm hoping to see a greater diversity of attendees this year. In the past (as at all such conferences) it has been primarily Latin Mass advocates and academic students. Not a bad thing all in all, but if there is to eventually be a widening of the appeal and use of sacred music, including chant, in Catholic liturgy, we need to get the music directors and cantors from mainstream parishes there. The inclusion of the chant settings in the new missal was a watershed moment (no pun intended CCW!) and for many was the first use of chant in their parish in more than 40 years, save for the 10 second long "Kyrie" that was sung from time to time, or maybe the "Our Father". It's time to open up that whole new world of music, good music, for those parishes, and the only way that will happen is to widen the exposure it gets to the people in charge.
There has been a marked effort by the CMAA to widen the scope of it's yearly Colloquium, this year in Salt Lake City, to appeal more to the curious and "seeking" musicians from mainstream parishes. The celebration of OF and EF Masses in alternation is a big step forward...that needs to be emphasized more as does the message of how this music can be put to use in OF parishes. Although the EF community is still relatively small, in terms of it's musical direction it would seem that it's doing just fine! The work is in the OF parishes for now, and it would seem to me that is where the effort needs to be concentrated. At least that's the way I see it...
April 12, 2012
We frequently speak about chant as being “sung prayer”, and it is not unusual to hear about conversion experiences and deepening of personal spirituality and faith from those who take part in scholae or attend events such as the CMAA Colloquium or other chant events. Having experienced this myself, I can attest that it is real, that singing chant is more of an experience of prayer than it is an experience of musical or artistic expression. The experience does something to those who take part in it directly, as it does something to those who participate in an indirect way through listening. Perhaps this is also true for other types of music used in worship today for some people. That hasn’t been my experience when singing selections such as “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Here I Am”. For me at least, taking part in those selections is primarily an act of musical performance, and the response from those listening who can recall melody (“you know that song…hmm hmm hmmm hmmm…”) but none of the text would seem to indicate that their experience is also one of the musical elements rather than the underlying words that the composer wished to convey.
That being said, why has the schola, a group of people coming together to pray in the form of chant, been approached in most parishes (if it is approached at all) as a musical ensemble and not as a part of the prayer life of the parish. There are groups that meet to pray the rosary, groups that meet to engage in charismatic prayer, those who meet regularly to pray various chaplets, novenas and all other manner of customs and traditions that have developed as part of the prayer life of Catholics around the world. There are even those who meet to pray using means that are less a part of our traditions, from Yoga to Engrams, and yet one of the most firmly established ways of gathering and praying in the Catholic tradition is seen as some kind of liturgical implement whose sole purpose, if any, is to sing a specific text at a specific time in the liturgy so as to fulfill the requirements of the rubrics.
Rather than getting together to “practice for the liturgy”, why not convene a schola simply to pray together one evening a week? No pressure to sing at Mass or learn this or that specific chant because it’s required. There is a place for that to be sure, but there is a much wider audience out there who love chant, and who would love to chant themselves, but who have no desire to participate in that particular way. Form a Gregorian Prayer Group in your parish and see where it goes!
Rather than getting together to “practice for the liturgy”, why not convene a schola simply to pray together one evening a week? No pressure to sing at Mass or learn this or that specific chant because it’s required. There is a place for that to be sure, but there is a much wider audience out there who love chant, and who would love to chant themselves, but who have no desire to participate in that particular way. Form a Gregorian Prayer Group in your parish and see where it goes!
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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April 9, 2012Our Holy Week/ Easter celebrations are now past, and it's time for a few days of rest. Next Friday and Saturday is the Musica Sacra Florida Conference at Ave Maria University...I will be presenting a three-part series on Vernacular Chant in the Ordinary Form liturgy, so I am occupying some of my time finalizing those materials!
As for our liturgies, there was much that was new for the choir and for the parishioners! We used settings of the Entrance Antiphons for Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday from Adam Bartlett's Simple English Propers - a big hit with the folks in the pews judging from the comments we recieved, and settings of the communion antiphons from the Simple Choral Gradual of Richard Rice - and even bigger hit! For those Music Directors (or Pastors/ Priests) who have resisted introducing such selections into the liturgy on the assumption that parishioners are averse to this kind of liturgical music, please reconsider on the basis that you are simply wrong. These selections are not only beautiful music, but they are beautiful prayer as well, and that is immediately obvious from listening.
My point here, I guess, is that it's long past the time that we need to set aside cliches and stereotypes about liturgical music (of whatever style) and incorrect assumptions about what this or that group does or doesn't like. Such broadly applied and totally wrong assumptions have alienated an entire generation or two of young Catholics with the insistence that they can only be reached by debasing the liturgy to the level of an MTV reality show complete with pop/rock soundtrack. There is truly beautiful music out there that belongs in the liturgy. Not all of it is chant or polyphony by any means, but then again, none of it is inspired by American Idol or the latest Christian Rock hits.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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April 6, 2012
April 6, 2012
One of the objectives of Pope Benedict's 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was to encourage a "mutual enrichment" of liturgical celebrations. Today I am blessed to be able to experience such a mutual enrichment first-hand in the two celebrations of the Good Friday liturgy I will be taking part in. The first, at 3 o'clock, is the Extraordinary Form celebration sung entirely in Latin. As part of this liturgy, we will be chanting the Improperia (Reproaches) and the Crux Fidelis...two chants that are unique to Good Friday. Also at this liturgy, the Priest chants the entire Passion...about 30-40 minutes long!
I'm glad to have seen in the past several years that more Ordinary Form parishes are using these two texts, the Reproaches and Crux Fidelis, in their liturgies for Good Friday. At my parish's Good Friday liturgy, at 7 o'clock this evening, we will be singing these two chants, only the Reproaches will be in English. However, the Priest will not be chanting the Passion at this liturgy! Perhaps the day will come...it is one of the chants given in the new Missal after all! If there is one liturgy throughout the year where unaccompanied chant should be used, Good Friday is it. Whether in Latin or English, any choir can sing these two chants easily.
May the blessings of Christ be with you all on this most solemn of days.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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April 3, 2012On the way back from the Cathedral and the Chrism Mass. One down... 7 more to go! Once again, it is fascinating to observe the changes that are taking place at this time in the Church's liturgy and how they affect the way that we approach the musical settings of liturgical texts. There is still a sense that the new texts are "different" from what we were used to, but the stumbling over them has smoothed out and they roll off of the tongues of most without any hesitation. An interesting moment came at the Gloria, as the Bishop intoned it in Latin (as is suggested in the Missal). This was unexpected, and it was quickly apparent that the setting of the Gloria being used (The NPM Mass setting...Mass of Renewal) was not composed with this most obvious of considerations in mind.
Perhaps in time, these kinds of wrinkles will also be smoothed out as composers adapt to the small but important considerations such as the above. There are changes that will come about as we continue to experience how the new texts and new rubrics in the missal interact with the musical and participatory elements of the liturgy. There are changes that new composers will have to absorb and express in their compositions before they will really become a part of how we sing the liturgy. We have been on "auto-pilot" for so long that it's going to take some time to turn things around, but it seems obvious that they are turning, even if slowly and sometimes awkwardly!
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 30, 2012
Choir rehearsal went well last night as we continued our work on the Reproaches, Entrance and Communion Antiphons for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, as well as the Ubi Caritas chant for Holy Thursday and Crucem Tuam for Good Friday. Tomorrow is another 2-hour rehearsal for the choir and schola, and then another on Tuesday evening! Stations of the Cross this afternoon, and then a Schola rehearsal at Christ The King for the EF Good Friday service tonight at 7pm (our parish celebrates it's Good Friday service at 7pm, allowing me to take part in the EF parish's service at 3:00pm). Our Diocesan Choir sings at the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral on Tuesday morning, and then on Wednesday....
There's nothing on Wednesday!
Looking forward to Wednesday. A Happy and Blessed Holy Week to all who serve our Church's liturgy through music!
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 29, 2012
“Anything that is worth doing is worth doing well”. So the saying goes at least, so it would have to follow that anything worth doing would be worth some degree of hard work. This was going through my head this afternoon as I spent more than 2 ½ hours entering names and e-mail addresses into my contacts list to create a 150 + person distribution list made up of Music Directors and musicians from our Diocese so that I could send out an invitation and registration form for the Musica Sacra Florida Chant Conference which will be taking place on April 13th & 14th. It got me to thinking that when it comes to events like this one, we need to start reaching out to EVERY musicians we can find, not just those who have expressed an interest by subscribing to a Sacred Music newsletter or regularly visiting a blog or website of like-minded opinions. This is evangelization: we have the REAL music that has been sung for more than a thousand years by Catholics and we should be proud of it and not afraid to advocate on its behalf.
I mean really…I get at least a dozen pieces of junk mail and countless e-mails every week from OCP, GIA, NPM and other companies and organizations promoting their wares through my office mail, e-mail and even my phone! I’m not an enthusiastic supporter of any of these entities, and yet they continue to send their ads and notices, hoping that I might see something that catches my interest. How useful would it be to have the ability to send out invitations to sacred music events around the country, news about chant opportunities and links to online resources to large numbers of directors and musicians who are responsible for the music in their parishes? There are amazing things happening in the world of liturgical music right now…but we need to get the word out to those who don’t even know about them yet!
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 26, 2012
In the course of any endeavor involving human beings, it is something of an accepted premise that there will have to be some degree of compromise to build support for the cause. This has become something of a fixture in our politics where quid pro quo is an expected part of moving towards a goal, often the passing of legislation or the donation of money to a campaign. It could be said that the art of politics is to get more back than what you have to give up and still get what you want. Aside from being a near guarantee of corruption, it’s a system that works pretty well if reaching a well-defined goal is the objective.
But when it comes to something as important as our Church’s liturgy, it would seem right, even perhaps necessary…imperative…that there be a limit on what can be “given up” to reach a goal. Let’s say that we start at the idea set forth in the documents of Vatican II that “The full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else” (SC #14). If read in the context of the entirety of the liturgical directives in that and the other relevant documents of the council, it’s fairly clear what was meant by that particular passage. But there is something in that one sentence that has always bothered me. Is it really the aim to be considered above all else? Is the goal of getting people to “participate” so important that all other considerations can be compromised to reach it? The passage that immediately follows is just as perilous:
“for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit.”
What is the “primary and indispensable source”? Active participation? Or is the “it” being referred to the Church’s liturgy? If I were to get everyone in the church to stand up and sing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, have I achieved the goal? How about if what we’re singing is “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on St. Patrick’s Day? Is that achieving the goal of FACP? How much can be given up to achieve a goal that “is to be considered before all else”? Of course, most would agree that singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” is not participating in the Mass, but what about the many other songs that are offered as a compromise for the purpose of getting people to sing? Are they any closer to the actual texts of the Mass than our St. Paddy’s Day favorites? A little closer perhaps, but how much has to be given up for what may be a shaky goal to begin with? Is it better to have more people participate in a achieving a lesser goal, or fewer participate in a more worthy one?
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 25, 2012
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March 25, 2012
I began introducing some of the Propers at Mass several years ago, after attending the Chant Intensive and then the CMAA Colloquium at Loyola. I made a decision at that time to introduce propers in English, first composing some of my own, then later drawing them from the Anglican Gradual. Through the New Liturgical Movement website, I found out about the Simple Choral Gradual (Richard Rice), and was intrigued by their simplicity and accessibility, putting them into the rotation as it were, using them at my choir Masses. As the Simple English Propers (Adam Bartlett) began to come online, I immediately made use of them at Masses where I had to chant the antiphons on my own, and soon found them to be so ingenious in their use of characteristic gestures for each specific mode (this makes them very easy to learn once you have sung through enough of them….and yet they don’t sound like you’re singing the same thing every Sunday) that I was soon using them as my sole resource for English Language propers…at least in that specific style.
My point is that there are now such a variety of resources for vernacular chant that there is no excuse for not picking them up and using them. No matter what the skill level of your Schola or regular parish choir, there are setting that can be done and done well. I have particularly found that the Simple Choral Gradual settings can be learned quickly by a choir, and they sound GREAT! Every time we use them (this past Sunday was a good example, and the reason I am writing this today) I receive at least two or three very enthusiastic responses from parishioners. Those settings in particular, for whatever reason, are attractive sounding to those who are sitting down in the pews, and they elicit more compliments about how good the choir sounded than just about anything else (a close runner-up would be the occasions when we sing either Panis Angelicus or O Sacrum Convivium ). For this reason, they make a great choice for introducing the idea of singing the Propers to a parish.
My point is that there are now such a variety of resources for vernacular chant that there is no excuse for not picking them up and using them. No matter what the skill level of your Schola or regular parish choir, there are setting that can be done and done well. I have particularly found that the Simple Choral Gradual settings can be learned quickly by a choir, and they sound GREAT! Every time we use them (this past Sunday was a good example, and the reason I am writing this today) I receive at least two or three very enthusiastic responses from parishioners. Those settings in particular, for whatever reason, are attractive sounding to those who are sitting down in the pews, and they elicit more compliments about how good the choir sounded than just about anything else (a close runner-up would be the occasions when we sing either Panis Angelicus or O Sacrum Convivium ). For this reason, they make a great choice for introducing the idea of singing the Propers to a parish.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 23, 2012
Putting the finishing touches on a presentation for the Musica Sacra Chant Conference at Ave Maria University on April 13th & 14th, 2012 (Okay...that was a commercial!) on Introducing Vernacular Chant in Your Parish. I've mulled over several different ways to present this, but in the end it all comes down to this: There has to be people who are willing to work, and work hard to bring about change in parish music programs. To quote our President..."There's no silver bullet that's going to fix this problem". (Q: Aren't silver bullets used to KILL something, namely werewolves? Are we really looking for a "silver bullet" to solve these problems? But I digress...). The point that I'm trying to make is this: There's no "trick" to getting chant introduced into your parish liturgies. The answer is a carefully thought out plan and some good old-fashioned hard work. The good news is that it can be done, and it can be done in just about any parish. The bad news is that there are still substantial obstacles in the way. And that's where the work comes in...we have to work to challenge the attitudes and situations that have mitigated against good music and replace them with a new paradigm that seeks to truly enhance and beautify the liturgy in a way that draws on the actual teachings of the Second Vatican Council as opposed to a popular perception of it.
I will be posting all three of the Power-Point and/or PDF presentations that I will be using for these presentations in April, and I hope that others might download and use them in their own presentations in the coming years. Deo Gratias...
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 22, 2012
In just about two weeks, we will be hearing the new translation of the Exsultet chanted in parishes across the country. I was working on it just yesterday (one of the priests is chanting it, however I am the "backup" just in case!) and the language of the new translation is stunning in it's beauty. It is very obviously different than the old translation, and some of the familiar moments have been changed. Perhaps this is the reason for some of the vocal objections, although such opposition will disappear after this year's Triduum as most of the opposition to the translation has evaporated in the past four months. I hope that priests will take up the challenge of learning the new chant for the Exsultet. It's a goal that is well worth the effort and which will go a long way towards making these chants (the Missal chants) the standard for the Ordinary Form Mass throughout the year.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 21, 2012
"Chanting heard across the State of Florida" - that was the promo-line for the news on 970AM Tampa Bay this morning on my way into work! I had to listen of course, and was maybe just a little disappointed to find that the story was about protesters "chanting" slogans calling for justice in the case of a 17 year-old who was shot to death in Sanford this past weekend. What I found interesting though was the continued use of the word "chant" by the announcer, and by others speaking within the broadcast. It got me to thinking...when we really mean something and it is important to us as a community , we chant it, usually unaccompanied. The human voice alone has incredible power. When we (people) gather together with a common cause and need to express things collectively, we chant! Perhaps this could be a place where the sacred and secular cultures could be...hmmm... mutually enriching?
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 19, 2012
For the last few weeks, particularly when working with the Simple English Propers but also to a certain extent with the Simple Choral Graduale, I have been thinking about the issues of diction and pronunciation when chanting texts in English. Although diction and pronunciation are important in Latin chant as well, there they are matters of musical sensibility. By that I mean that no matter how well pronounced, the schola or cantor is not expecting that the listener be able to “understand” what they are chanting without the help of a printed translation. However, when chanting English texts, diction and clarity of pronunciation are directly related to comprehension of meaning. Since the very point of vernacular chant is comprehension, it is necessary to consider how it might affect such elements as tempo, articulation and even musical conventions such as accents, rests and breaks within the melodic line. The fact is that English follows speech patterns which render it in such a way that it is able to be understood through listening alone, and an alteration or serious disruption of those patterns will serve to make the text less understood to the listener.
We don’t encounter this issue when dealing with song “lyrics”, which are written specifically to be heard in a metrical pattern, but this is a major factor when we set prose texts. So far as I have seen, the Simple English Propers do an excellent job of expressing the natural speech pattern, although I found it necessary to modify a break slightly in one instance after listening to a practice recording of our schola singing. If that’s all that needs to be done, and then only to conform to the preferences of this particular director, I think we can agree that we have a pretty good resource there. Without going into details, I have not been as pleased with the ICEL chants.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 14, 2012
This past week a question was posed by Jeffrey Tucker at Chant Café: What should the new Commission on Sacred Music say? The discussion was lively and appropriately centered on the actual issue…liturgical texts. Strangely, the conclusion was that the best first move that such a commission could make would be to focus not on liturgical music per se, but on the texts that are its foundation. In the eyes of many, the problem has been the substitution of “other songs” for the proper chants, but it is becoming clearer to many that the issue that may have more teeth from a liturgical point of view is the substitution of “other texts” for those that are given in the liturgical books. Let’s face it…it’s difficult to make a case for a particular musical style, particularly in an environment where all manner of music has been introduced in the name of inculturation, and arguments along that line eventually devolve into questions of taste and preference.
But there is lesson that can be drawn from a few of our experiences of the past few years, specifically the “YAHWEH” document and the New Translation of the Missal: Words matter, and there is strong precedent in law and liturgical practice to make definitive statements regarding liturgical texts and adherence to them. This is quite unlike the issue of music which elicits statements with endless “should’s”, “can’s” and such loose terms as “pride of place” and “pastoral reason”. While reading Verbum Dei this morning (yes..I know) it was interesting to note that the statements on music, particularly the Responsorial but also the antiphons, were made in the context of their texts. The problem with much of the music of the past 45 years isn’t necessarily the musical content, although that is certainly an issue, but more importantly it is the texts…they aren’t the given texts for the Mass.
So what should such a commission say? A good start would be to insist that ONLY the designated texts be used for the Mass.
Jeffrey A. Herbert
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March 12, 2012
As composers are producing new sets of Mass Propers, which is all for the good, the conflict between the Missal Propers and the Graduale Propers becomes more glaring...and more annoying! For those of us who have a vision of the assembly singing the propers, even if in a simplified form, the disconnect between the texts that have become the standard for vernacular settings (the Graduale texts) and those that are printed in most commercial hymnals (The Missal or "interlectionary" texts) has moved beyond the realm of just being irritating into a place where it is getting in the way of progress. The debate about which texts should be used in sung settingsis over...the Graduale texts are clearly intended for this purpose and the interlectionary texts are clearly not. If OCP, WLP and others are really serious about assembly participation, why not print the Graduale texts in their products? If that were done, then it would open the door to a wider use of the proper antiphons by the assembly without the need for an additional book in the pews or leaflet worship aids. Perhaps even the day might come when the Antiphon from the Simple English Propers is included in Breaking Bread in the same way we now find the Alstott Responsorials. For now though, I'll settle for having the right text there!
Jeffrey A. Herbert
