Being realistic

MarkB · Screenshot 2023-10-12 074743.png

This is an offshoot of the "Christmas Participation" thread, which asked about choir members' commitment to or participation in singing at more than one Mass on Christmas.

I'd like to ask more generally about your experiences with volunteer choir members' skill levels and weekly attendance.

I had planned to teach my choir "Alma Redemptoris Mater" to be sung at the end of Communion during Advent and Christmas seasons. However, teaching them a new English chant/antiphon to use as a Communion song (Weber's "Whoever Eats My Flesh" -- attached) throughout the year is going so slowly that I have decided to abandon plans to learn "Alma Redemptoris Mater" because it would only be used for six weeks and wouldn't be worth the investment of time it would require to learn.

My choir members by and large do not read music; they learn by rote. Learning new chants such as the one attached is laborious, requiring going phrase by phrase, repeating, reinforcing, plunking on the piano, fixing discrepancies in the choral sound (pitch/rhythm), then advancing until the whole chant has been mostly memorized instead of being read from the score. Chanting in Latin presents additional difficulties in pronunciation and phrasing.

Besides, I can only count on about half of my choir members to attend rehearsal on any given week. It's not the same 50% of people at each rehearsal; it varies from week to week depending on travel plans, things that come up, and so forth. Some members are not able to attend practice at all; those tend to be my better-skilled singers who can catch up during the pre-Mass warmup. It would be nice to have them at practice, but family obligations or participation in other, better community chorales preclude their attendance at my evening rehearsal.

I realized after last night's rehearsal that where I've led my choir and parish to is as good as it's going to get. I've reshaped the repertoire and music at Mass to include some chant every week and more chant during the seasons of Advent and Lent, but there is still quite a bit of reliance on traditional hymns and some of the better contemporary songs from OCP and GIA. Our use of Latin chants is very modest: a handful of the easier, syllabic Eucharistic chants that I frequently rotate, mostly at Communion time, and three Latin Marian hymns/antiphons.

I'd like to make the music more sacred and liturgical and better integrated with the liturgy, but a hybrid of sacred/liturgical music and half of a tasteful four-hymn sandwich is a general description of what music is like at my parish from Sunday to Sunday right now.

I have to be realistic. Given my choir's skill level, given rehearsal and Mass attendance patterns, unless I get an influx of sight-singing ringers in my choir, I have reached the practical limit of what I can do here at my parish. It's both a discouraging and a satisfying realization. I've done what I can and improved over what prevailed here in the past for decades and in comparison with neighboring parishes, which is a satisfying accomplishment, but the inability to do even more is discouraging because I've experienced what Masses filled with beautifully sung chant can be, and I would like to bring that sound to my parish.

I believe I've reached a plateau period in leading the music program at my parish. That's not necessarily bad; it's just being realistic about what can be accomplished in my circumstances. I'd like to do more, but it's simply not feasible right now.

Being realistic isn't inherently bad.

Have any of you experienced the same thing or do you have advice?

TCJ

It took my choir three years before we sang chants like what you posted, and then I'd only have them do them when we had about four weeks to prep them, otherwise we'd use the simpler ones. Because I didn't want to be stuck there, I had them practice the chant of the week every week regardless of whether they could sing it or not. It's now been eight and a half years and they mostly sight-read those things. It's not that they are great at reading chant, but they have become familiar enough with certain patterns that they can follow pretty easily if they hear someone else singing them.

If you have a few singers who are much better at it, have them sing the antiphons without the others, but have the others practice it with them. Sing through with solfege, hum through the tunes, work on becoming good at patterns that repeat in multiple chants, practice modal scales, play a drone underneath them. During the past four summers, I have moved practice into my classroom where I can use a whiteboard to really break down the chants so they can understand them much better. Their singing ability leaped forward after I started doing this. Also, tell them that the better they get, the more you expect of them because we should always be striving to improve. There is no such thing as "good enough" because perfection is the goal (even though we never get there).

Lastly, I think letting the better singers catch up on Sundays may be backfiring on you because it's telling the other singers that they are not capable without having a "ringer." I've found necessity really helps a person learn. My only alto right now is managing to sing her parts alone for the most part, something she was forced into when my other alto had to leave. Note, she didn't want to sing alone and she didn't think she could do it, but I didn't give her the option of not trying.

tomjaw

Yes, running just to stand still... There seem to be two traps one can fall into,
1. Having a choir that does not move forward, and remains in the same place.
2. Having a choir that moves forward and becomes better.
The first trap leads to doing the same things each year, perhaps learning one new piece. This is great for volunteers who may be non-sight reading singers, but may not attract sight reading musicians to the choir. The second trap is the one I am in. We have moved forward, and now sing more complex music that limits the numbers of new inexperienced singers that want to join.

We are fishing in a small shallow pool, and it can be difficult just to keep up a simple set of music.

Carol

Working with an all volunteer choir is certainly a balancing act, but speaking as a choir member and cantor, I was a "by rote & good ear" type of singer when I began about 25 or 30 years ago. I have grown in my ability to read music so that I really prefer having music in front of me now. I think you work with whomever the Lord sends you, if you are in most parishes. It is vitally important to nourish the younger singers, if you are lucky enough to have any. I think the attitude of the choir director is critical to learning more difficult music. Striving for excellence is the goal, but being encouraging and positive is likely to lead to excellence. Don't forget to thank your choir members and encourage the pastor to stop in and thank them for their efforts.

BrianaBerger

I am in a similar position in my parish, although we haven't even quite gotten to plateau yet (I've been music director there for a year and half). I have come to realize that the older (as in, 65+), less skilled, non-sight reading members of my choir hold back the few who would be able to do the fancier stuff. Not to mention the philosophical differences about chant, more traditional music in general, and my dislike of the folksy OCP stuff (which these people LOVE). I can't tech them chant etc if they don't want to learn it. Also the attendance is a challenge. However, what I'm experimenting with now is a small group/schola of more skilled and willing singers who take one Sunday per month and any of the more challenging things we sing regularly, and putting more of my effort into that group. The rest of the folks, who mean well but don't really want to learn anything new, mostly want to show up and feel like they're participating in something. My undisclosed policy is to have them sing anything that the whole congregation is singing anyway, and anything that I want to actually sound good to be sung by my schola.

tomjaw

N.B. I bribe my singers, Choir rehearsal is at my house on Thursday evenings, this is followed by dinner with plenty of wine etc. This encourages those that are single to come straight from work and still get a meal.
At Christmas we will have a least one single choir member stay with us, so we can sing SATB on Christmas eve and Christmas day when there is no public transport.

Diapason84

I accompanied in a parish with a group of 15 singers with variable attendance. They were mostly 50+ in age. Some had fine voices and would have made a good quartet or quintet.

The director, bless her, was a longtime voice teacher who tried to get the entire group to climb out of their comfort zone and sing more complex choral music by Duruflé and some polyphony, among others. They just couldn’t do it competently and she couldn’t admit that to herself. Rehearsals were constant struggles. I wish she’d had the realization you did, Mark B. Better to be at a point where you know what your volunteers can do, than continue forcing them to achieve something they just can’t reach. There is no shame in that and it’s an opportunity for gratitude for what they can do.

ServiamScores

Mark, one thing that has helped my little choir learn rep is practice tracks. I also have a number of people who learn by ear. I started making tracks for them (this is the genesis story for my whole YouTube channel, believe it or not) and we’ve been able to do things that were unthinkable before.

If you’re looking for Fr. Weber stuff, I have about 150 of his chants posted, including the one you mentioned. Perhaps you can share the track with them and make more headway. (I actually hope to re-record all of them so that they all have the same sound and format, but that’s a project for a later date.)

https://youtu.be/P-WH5a-0cys?si=3esnjgkPTGpP6XHQ

People who sing by ear are much more confident when they can reference practice tracks. It also helps if they can hear them and come to rehearsal with an idea of how things go before they arrive. That’s a lofty goal, but sometimes it can be arranged.

Palestrina

MarkB, I’d suggest simplifying things further, using ‘By Flowing Waters’ as the basis for future repertoire - simple plainchant etc and a limited range of settings.

Kathy

You may have hidden talent in your congregation, so I always have found myself planning for the future.

1. Recruit always and often, using an annual pulpit talk if possible.
2. Offer sight-reading classes to anyone in the choir who seems capable of catching on.
3. Start a children's choir.

Liam

Speaking of hidden or not-so-hidden "talent": a parish or oratory music ministry that relies, for lack of a better term, on a "Missalette Beige" repertoire foundation for its music programming may well not attract as many people in the pews who do read music and have experience in choral ensembles. While solid friendships among ensemble musicians may sustain that repertoire, without those friendships, the repertoire may well not attract and inspire as high a level of commitment from people who could anchor something different.

One problem for attracting music readers and experienced choristers is that so many Catholic parishes and communities don't publish their music programs online (the websites of so many places are still stuck in 1999) so that they lack the nectar of information that might otherwise attract them for pollination, as it were.

Carol

Just as a "public service announcement," you may have members of AA among your choir and you do not want to discourage participation or make anyone feel awkward when there is socializing after choir practice.

ServiamScores

Mark, another thought just occurred to me re-browsing this thread and seeing Diapason84's comment: Benedict XVI specifically mentioned in one of his writings or papal audiences (someone here will know the reference) that it was better to do modest music well, than more complicated music poorly. There's no shame in that. To me, this is the authentic "meet the people where they are".

I recently had someone remark that they liked one of my compositions but it was "too short!" (this was a complement, and I took it as such) Well, there's a reason so many of my compositions are so short... it's because that's what my little choir can handle, and I write these things for them, first and foremost, before I publish them.

Mariano Garau has some really nice stuff on CPDL; you might want to look at a bit of his stuff. I also find I get really good results when we work on pieces that are short (short bits of polyphony, even) but that then have chanted psalm verses in between. Liam McDonough on the forum here has shared his "Humbly I Adore Thee" adoro te mini motet. This is a perfect example of what I mean. With pieces like this, you spend time learning one hard bit, but get lots of mileage out of it. The end result is quite lovely (seriously, you all need to put Liam's arrangement in front of your choirs!) but the effort required is manageable to pull it off. Since Advent is right around the corner, I'll just mention my (very) short setting of Rorate Cæli which also embodies this model. https://psallitedomino.com/store-1/p/rorate-caeli-s-a-bar

a_f_hawkins

The original chant Qui manducat was written by and for expert singers. The texts of the translations into English by ICEL were, according to Inwood, rewritten by McManus to make them difficult to sing. Fr Weber has skilfully adapted the tunes but given the obstacles of moving between languages with different stress patterns I think it no surprise that I, an amateur with limited music reading ability, find it much easier to grasp the Latin version than the English.

Kathy

When working with an Ordinariate congregation, I found the Palmer/Burgess to be fluid and easy to read.

Richard Mix

Mark seems to frame his request as one for absolution as opposed to advice, but there's no reason Alma redemptoris can't be sung alternatim or even by a single singer. It's worth keeping in mind that the goal isn't just teaching a new chant: it's just as much teaching them how to learn new material. The single innovation of mine that's paid the biggest dividends was having the Gradual Psalm sung by the choir every week. Communions are sung solo, with choir (and now part of the congregation) joining the Gloria Patri.

Salieri

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I knew the situation my choir would likely have, so when we started learning Fr. Weber's Propers I specifically chose to only learn setting ii, iii, or iv from Fr. Weber (i only if it was actually really easy -- some are), with the hope that eventually we would leave iii & iv behind and only use setting ii. Introits were at first sung by myself before Mass, followed by a processional hymn from the hymnal -- because I knew that some of my stronger singers were/are perpetually late; then we graduated to using Kathy's "Introit Hymns". Three years ago, I decided to make the switch to chanted Introits, but knowing the same limitations, I decided to use the Graduale Simplex Entrance Antiphons from "By Flowing Waters" because they can be used seasonally. Only now, after three years, am I contemplating doing Lumen Christi Introits for some of the "named" Sundays, like Gaudete, Laetare, Quasimodo, and some major solemnities as a supplement to the Simplex chants. It will probably be another three years before we learn a whole year's cycle of Lumen Christi -- the Weber Introits are still years away.

We can only do what we can do.

MarkB

Thank you, all, for chiming in.

I think that Sr. Susanne Toolan's "I Am the Bread of Life" is more difficult to learn/sing than the Fr. Weber chant I am teaching my choir. In the Toolan song, the vocal range is from almost unsingably low to uncomfortably high, the melody has an unintuitive rhythm, and the verses are highly irregular. You have to have internalized the song through repetition to be able to sing it well and correctly. I believe that if it were a newly published song, I would have just as hard a time teaching it to my choir as I am with some chants.

PaxMelodious

Indeed. That's why someone suggested a children's choir. Elastic brains learn so much more easily.

TimTheEnchanter

I started a small-group ensemble, for which only my more advanced singers sing in a rotation. The group sings for holy days and special Masses where it’s impractical to get the whole choir together.

It’s let me do more challenging pieces for those with the time and skill to learn them. It also allows me to scratch that itch to do tougher things while not antagonizing the singers who are less trained. (If you have great singers who can’t contribute on a regular basis, something like this might be for them.)

I don’t know if that will help in your case, but my singers who are involved love it.

Lincoln_Hein

" I decided to use the Graduale Simplex Entrance Antiphons from "By Flowing Waters" because they can be used seasonally"

There is a rubric in the "ordo cantus missae" that allows for pastoral reasons that any Latin chant from a given part of the mass can be exchanged for another chant from the same part that is from the same season. In other words, it is possible to sing, for example, the "rorate caeli" (which is the introit in the Roman gradual on the fourth Sunday of Advent) on every Sunday of Advent. Or, another example, "In voluntate tua" (for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time) on every Sunday in ordinary time. If this is vallid in latin, I think it is vallid in english adaptations of the proper.

JonLaird

A few other discussions might be helpful. They are not necessarily speaking to precisely the same issue, but there are related factors which may lie beneath the one you articulate:

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/234301

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/245017

I often feel myself caught in the middle of three things:
1. The necessity to prepare for the upcoming Mass.
2. The desire to prepare more solemn/sacred/beautiful music than is currently the habit at my church.
3. The inability of the choir to fulfill my desire with the ease and speed that I want.

I pray and work for the right balance. My rehearsals must include aspects that give the choir the tools they need to improve their musicianship. This is true whether they are absolute beginners, professionals, or a combination.

JonLaird

In one of those discussions I linked, I said that it takes something like 1-2 generations to change the musical/liturgical culture of a parish in a lasting way. It takes 1 if your choir can immediately handle what you consider to be the ideal, if your pastor is committed to a drastic change, and if there are at least a solid handful of long-time active parishioners who are of a mind with you.
It takes 2 otherwise -- the first generation (or portion of it, maybe 10-15 years) to slowly turn the ship in the right direction, and the second to sail that way for a while, until almost everyone can say, "This is the way we've always been going."

That said, I'll add a fourth thing to what I wrote above:
4. My desire/expectation to be simultaneously liked and approved by the pastor, the parishioners, the choir, and my like-minded sacred music peers.

The tendency to make this a top priority is a personal defect of mine I have to work on, and it, more than anything else, is likely to derail whatever good I am able to do.

ServiamScores

Weakness though it may be, there is a practical aspect to it that should not be ignored. If people hate you, it will matter little how beautiful the music is that you're offering. So staying in good graces (within reason) isn't the worst vice there is.

tomjaw

@JonLaird
What is ideal?
We could sing the chants in the Graduale Romanum and that is ideal.
We could sing a Palestrina Ordinary and proper chants and that is ideal.
We could sing the Palestrina Offertory and other polyphonic settings of the propers and that would also be ideal.

My ideals (above) come from the Papal legislation on Sacred Music...

As directors choosing the music we have so much leeway... Although we can be limited by the Parish Priest, the choir members and the congregation.

If people hate me for programming music that the Church asks for, are we not in some way an image of Jesus Christ? 'They' hated him as well.

Striving for the best can lead us to heaven, it is not the easy road it is the difficult road.

MarkB

Yeah, I'm not in this ministry to do liturgical piano bar of the Boomers' favorite hits from the 70s and 80s.

If I'm not advancing the parish music, even if only little by little, towards what the Church has instructed is the preferred music for Mass, there's little point in doing this work.

If a new pastor took over and told me to exclude chant and program Saint Louis Jesuit songs, I'd quit.

francis

MarkB... you have kinda changed your tune about church music gigs?

argentarius

.

MarkB

And it's not just music ministry. Catechetical directors and pastors struggle to get sufficient volunteer catechists. They are often so desperate that they will accept any warm body who volunteers to teach the kids (and passes the background check, let's not forget).

It affects Mass attendance, which as we all probably know is very low all over the country. In my diocese, the local pro football team's schedule affects Mass attendance. Not that people shift to attend a different Mass time than usual when game time conflicts with Mass; no, they just skip Mass. I watch a fair number of Mass livestreams after each weekend, and the norm is for there to be lots of empty spaces in the pews.

Young adult groups are notoriously difficult to establish and attract sufficient numbers to provide community and succeed. Not a single parish in my diocese has a flourishing young adult program. The diocesan group only has about 10-15 people who show up to events.

I look, not just at my choir and other choirs, but at whole parishes and the diocese and wonder what the Catholic landscape will look like just five or ten years from now.

L_Crotti

As I often tell to the Priest at the OF where I play the organ at (The parish struggles with Mass attendance) Music will not bring people back if they don't find a serious love for God and a serious liturgy, I'm more than ever convinced that Novus Ordo (If we want it to survive) should be celebrated with a renovated interest in the traditional practices and style that we have abandoned after V2.
Priests should work and be interested only in the salvation of souls, since that's why priesthood was created, in a modern parish, the priest has to administer money, organize youth groups, do a bunch of stuff priests never had to do because this was other people's job, if you have all that stuff in your mind how can you, a priest, allow to yourself to pass an entire day hearing confessions, or administering sacraments to the sick?

argentarius

.

jcr

It is a possibility that one can tap out the potential, or at least the will to reach the potential of a choir situation. I have seen, in a good number of years of working with volunteer choirs, that there is a point at which the early enthusiasm of a "new" adventure in terms of quality and quantity of output wanes. I have come to think that one can benefit by asking what needs the choir members are fulfilling by being in the choir. The social part of the choir is very important to many, but there are also needs that seem to be in conflict with too much social interaction. Balancing these things is a delicate thing. Why do they participate? Is there an awareness of how much they have accomplished under your leadership? Are they pleased with their sound and the musical literature they have managed to perform? Often one can build on strength and on the development of an awareness of their growth. Combining the choirs might be a good time to build a program of continued growth that includes an assessment of these things. The building of a choir is more like the work of an athletic coach than anything else I know. I found much that aided me in my work from reading in this area. You may find it helpful as well.

ServiamScores

It is a possibility that one can tap out the potential, or at least the will to reach the potential of a choir situation.

I think I have hit this threshold. People are happy that we do what we do, but precious few are happy to help us do it. There is a curious demographic gap at our parish though; we have a bunch of 70+ who built the church and are dying off, and then a number of young families who have small children. The number of people in their mid forties who are free of the concerns of managing small children and have the ability to donate their time to such an endeavor are almost nil. It will be years before we have a number of people who could comfortably fill this void. It’s a happy thing that we have these young families, but they do me no favors in the interim. (I don’t fault them; I have three of my own, so I know the struggle all too well.)

trentonjconn

The demographic situation in Serviam's post above is my situation as well.

jcr

I should add to my comments above that I have, on a couple of occasions, left positions for what seemed to be the same kind of situation. There may a kind of cyclic thing that happens regarding the ages of singers and their stage of life that works against us. When nearly every singer is a grandparent and the kids and grandkids are in other towns, I don't know what you use to compete with it. I know that it is likely that everyone on this forum has sacrificed time with spouse and family for the cause. (This has resulted in alienation of family members and other negative things in old age for some) The salt in the wounds comes when the situation you worked several seasons to develop returns to its former condition or worse within a few months of your departure. Demographics are beyond our control. Cultural more are also beyond our grasp to change. It boils down to the values of the people involved, or semi-involved. I have tried classes in skill development for choir members with very modest success. Skills can be improved through a program of carefully selected mini lessons woven into rehearsals, but the results there are modest as well. We must be, at least for periods of time, satisfied with small successes among the many attempts we make. There are two observation I can make regarding this. 1. I have been pleased with and have admired the ability of many among us who do one extraordinary job with anything but extraordinary material. and 2. Nothing we do for the Glory of God is wasted. In the meantime, just remember that corollary to Murphy's law; "No good deed will go unpunished", put your head down and push on! God bless you.

ServiamScores

Indeed… I have family that after years of me, being an active Ministry, still don’t understand that I cannot actually see them on Christmas day. For them, it’s a happy lighthearted day, but for me, it’s grueling and by the time I’m done, I am so exhausted. I need to go home and sleep so I don’t get sick. It’s also very frustrating when family wants to do special things on weekends and you can never join them because they’re two hours away and you have to be back in time for Saturday evening mass… Sadly, it just comes with the territory.

TCJ

It took a bit for some of the family to understand that we would not be there on holidays unless it meant coming late. Once we told everyone we could make Easter, but we would be able to arrive until 4:30 at the earliest, probably five.

We showed up at 5:00 and found out that almost everyone left around 4:30 despite knowing we were coming. Couldn't even hang around for 30 minutes to say "hi".

Of course, that type of behavior is not limited to the church music scene. My wife's friends would invite her to travel to do things with them after we got married and she always declined and they never seemed to understand why she couldn't drop everything (like kids) and drive to see THEM where they live. Funny thing is, hardly anyone volunteered to go visit her instead.

irishtenor

Demographics make things tough sometimes. I am no longer in active sacred music ministry, due to a career change and large number of children to help my wife manage. My wife and I are each very competent musicians who would be strong assets to a parish choir or as cantors, but we can't participate at this point in our lives. Give it 8-10 more years and we should be able to do it again. (Famous last words)

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