I like that method Charles, however long it takes. What do you do if Fr. doesnt want post communion music unless it is the choir? Actually, Fr. doesn't want post communion music even with the choir, but the tradition outdated him by about a decade so he didn't get rid of it. He prefers silence after communion.

Week 0-n to Week 0: Prelude, Postlude and/or interlude
Week 1 through x-1: Choir sings it.
Week X: Congregation sings it.

If X is greater than 3, I should not program it for congregational singing.

Some priests think that the congregation should sing everything, and that only music at the skill level of the congregation is permissible.

Happily, one can point them to "Sing to the Lord", which did acknowledge the distinct role of the choir in presenting music that is beyond the average skill level of congregations (unrehearsed unison singing).

Sing to the Lord also mentions that the musical formation of the musical assembly should be a continuing concern towards fostering FCAP, but that doesn't happen in my parish either. I'd love to teach music to our faithful.

Attitude is everything! Yours, the clergy's, the people's, everone's. An infectuous and indeflateable attitude will overcome Almost any resistance. In real life, though, it is true that some have this gift to employ in their goals, and some don't. Too, if the clergy refuse publicly to smile on your efforts or are publicly indifferent, your hurdles are compounded.

Congregational rehearsals seem to be a not-uncommon thing in many Catholic churches. They are, to me, foreign, disruptive of prayerful preparation for mass, and distractful of any desired aesthetical and unbroken bridge between organ voluntary and processional hymn or introit.

Not everyone has an organ with the variety that can truly teach and support new music. Not everyone has a choir that really makes a difference. But for those who do, I think that playing a new hymn through on a strong solo stop or cornet is enough to put the tune in people's minds. Using a varied registration while singing the stanzas is also didactic, especially using a variety of solo stops; or, putting it in the service folder that there will be alternation of stanzas between choir and people. In this manner one teaches the people in a way that blends with the ceremony and doesn't call attention to itself. This works very well at St Basil's Chapel at UST, where the people sing old and new hymns (all stanzas!) enthusiastically with or without a choir. A hymn, like a proper or an anthem is appropriate to a given Sunday's lectionary. I would never repeat a new hymn until it was lectionarily appropriate again. We sing new hymns all the time at Walsingham and people just sing them. There is no question about it. It seems to me that unecessary coddling is both disruptive of the liturgical aesthesis, and not complimentary to people. The Attitudes you teach are of Equal importance to What you teach. BYMWD

The choir sings the song or hymn as a prelude. When I think the congregation has heard it enough then I program it into the Mass appropriately and repeat it for a few Sundays until the congregation is comfortable. This has been very successful for us.

We can't teach before Mass...well we could, but the blowback isn't worth it. We tried it, and too many people got loudly upset that we were interfering with their prayerful preparation for Mass.

We have a carillon that plays before Mass, and we have had people complain that the practicing before Mass interrupts their enjoyment of the bells.

I wish I had that problem.

Haha, same problem, but change-ringing bells! :)

We have a carillon that plays before Mass, and we have had people complain that the practicing before Mass interrupts their enjoyment of the bells.

Although in all honesty, I think I'm the one getting tired of teaching the congregation in "repeat after me" sessions every time I use a new song...partly because of over-exposure to it and partly because I absolutely hate talking to the congregation. However, I do believe there is great benefit in leaving the assembly to quiet prayer time before Mass if possible. I'll be interested to see how the parishioners respond in this case.

@irishtenor, thanks for asking! I'll be introducing God of the Hungry by Scott Soper, to be used for Corpus Christi on May 29.

To the tune of NETTLETON:

That song sounds a lot like this one,
It has all the same notes, too.
We have sung this same song before,
It's the words that now have changed.

We do this so that people
Can sing and "participate."

We don't need to write new songs now,
We'll just use the ones we have.

CharlesW does exactly what we do, and it doesn't seem to work in our parish. However, Father made it clear that it is only to be instrumental/choral 5 minutes before mass, and then silence before it starts, thus not allowing us to communicate to the congregation unless something seems really important, like a new hymnal or deciphering the hymn board

I think the bigger issue is the idea that it's necessary for the congregation to sing everything, hence the necessity of teaching them new things or else you can't do them.

BINGO. An all-too-common attitude is that if it's not a sing-a-long, then they're not really participating. "Remember, Mass is not a concert," and all that.

The idea that it is possible for God to be glorified and for the faithful to be edified by a piece of music that is sung solely by the choir--perhaps even in another language!--is foreign to many of the powers that be.

Catholics loved signing hymns for the devotions where they had much greater freedom to do so. It's not a hymns-are-Protestant-sola-scriptura thing.

Charles

European Jews had Yiddish as a lingua franca, and were accustomed to being bilingual because of diaspora - those cultural realities, among others, were an immense help in reviving Hebrew. That dynamic doesn't obtain as widely among Catholics.

It's *much* easier to teach children things than *adults* - children's brains are the human brain at its most plastic and absorptive. Adult brains are not only less plastic, they are already full. What adults have an advantage in over children are cognitive faculties that undergird wisdom and prudence: self-management, erosion of the power of cognitive biases by accumulation of more varied experiences, et cet.

My use of the word "full" stood for a cluster of things, among which is that adults also have more conflicting schedules/demands on their energy - it's not only a matter of active mulishness, as it were. Your desire to have them learn X doesn't automatically means learning X will move higher in their subconscious triage lists.

I've seen this in action. It can be easy to blame on "them". I love to learn new things, but my years have taught me not to assume others share my love.

I don't agree with it, but after years in teaching, I have experienced such. Adults prioritize knowledge for good or ill, as to whether it is worth their time and interest level to acquire it. They will tell you rather quickly that what is important to you is not of any importance to them.

Children spend much of their time in classrooms where learning is the objective. Adults are busy with what they consider of more importance, especially when it comes to things musical in nature. I find music fascinating, as do most musicians. Why else would anyone go into this field? I am afraid the general public, or general congregation, doesn't share our interests. Or worse, they look at music knowledge and determine there is little money to be made there, and move on to something else.

"They will tell you rather quickly that what is important to you is not of any importance to them. "

You will be very lucky if they tell you that directly. More typically, it is communicated passively (because passive communication is the true lingua franca of the Roman church).