"You would need a director to coordinate the phrasing and entrances.

If the choir thinks and sings in accord with the rhythm of 2s and 3s, it is clear to everyone when it's time to cut off and enter."


IF anyone really thinks that a chant group can sing without a director, as I read more and more frequently here, any group that attempts this is singing at the level of its weakest singer. Chanting is not a game of tug of war where every one's efforts have a cumulative effect, but rather a group effort in which one person's failure to sing with precision holds back the entire group. The goal is to get many voices singing as one. While there are professional groups such as Chanticleer that appear to sing without a director, they have been thoroughly trained (professional means great ability and payment to permit time to learn and perfect) and follow the directions of a member of the group when on the road - so they are totally under the control of one person but to the audience invisibly so.

What about monks and nuns that chant the hours?

Imagine a thought balloon here, floating above sister's head:

"Sr. Madeline, when she intones the key is always so low, and her tempo! The younger sisters will never keep up. What was she thinking? She keeps the chant going, all the sisters watch her carefully, which is good. Still, I need to sit down with her and discuss this, but I must pray first so that I can treat her with charity."



Every chant that is sung, even those sung by those that sing them every day, is the product of teaching and preparation by directors. The chant may go on its own but it initially has to come from somewhere and the way that it is sung by the group is still controlled by someone within the group. This person may not be using their hands, there is more to directing than waving hands, but waving hands are the most effective way to direct in almost all cases. Try to accept that directors are necessary, trying to sing without a director can create lots of unrest and dissatisfaction within a group.

There are very, very few groups with the ability to follow the 2's and 3's without direction and the strict application of the 2's and 3's may often be challenged, as we have seen here. I was surprised to open a copy of a Leduc Gigout edition of the Bach works and finding that it was the edition that was the parent of the Dupre edition, which has almost every note fingered. People love and hate (currently, most seem to hate) the fingerings of Dupre. And the same thing is seen here with the Solesmes edition.

Please, all that think that a successful chant group is one where everyone slavishly studies the chant, deciphers the Ictus, and all come to a united decision to sing it, think through this. It is not going to happen. And the suggestion that this is the ideal can depress and discourage a lot of people who read this forum and make them think that their group is less capable than others.

At the Colloquium, which brings together some of the finest schola directors and singers from the US and foreign countries, in which Mass was sung each day of the week as well as morning and evening prayer and more, how many of the groups - better yet, how many of the chants were sung without direction.

None. And there was no discussion of this, either.