Don't know about staffing, Paul, but will help sponsor.
Charles

I have NO idea. To what are you referring?

I don't have any money, but I could help staff it!

I would be glad to help with money and labor.

To be clear, same as Earl_Grey, not matthewj on money. Way to time your post perfectly to make mine look bad. :P

Besides, I just spent a week in St. Louis and can help everyone find some really good restaurants---much,MUCH cheaper than Woodley Park, DC, which is only a mile or so from my house but well out of my price range. S. Louis,greatBBQ.

Or PayPal account.

Assuming I can get the time from work, I'd help with time and/or money, too.

This will be a glorious endeavor!

I doubt we can stop you from just going to St. Louis... our powers aren't that strong.

Any cmaa members in St Louis this week?

Of course there are CMAA folks in STL. Horst is there, and if I remember right, one of the NPM chapter folks participated in the Musica Sacra St. Louis event he put on some time back.

The reality is that NPM still has the overwhelming majority of Church musicians in the US. If you want to affect any kind of meaningful change, we're going to have to work within that organization to some degree. The selection of the new president seems like good news to me, and there are people gradually working in the leadership to try to improve things.

Obviously, it has a way to go, but abandoning the NPM wholesale in order to bring about change is like trying to make the Ordinary Form more reverent by exclusively celebrating the EF.

Dangit Andy. There you go ruining my pontifications with common sense.

Not to say I completely agree, but I see what you're saying, and it definitely makes sense.

Apparently I'm in St. Louis this week, in hymn form.

NPM is about 12,000 members, at least on subscription magazine lists. About 3000 are at the convention. That is a serious drop from when I went in the early 1990's, when there were as many as 6000 present.

NPM still represents a strong voice and does have the ear of the American episcopate. I wholeheartedly agree with Andrew's assessment posted earlier.

So far - some highlights:

During the opening remarks, Dr. Truitt, who has been the interim leader of NPM, said "There are still some who view us as a guitar organization. Then there are others who say that we stand for retrenchment. The fact is, we are being heavily criticised from both sides - and that tells me that we are probably right where we need to be."

During a breakout that I attended with Fr. John Foley, SJ: Father Foley's breakout was all about the mass as the SACRIFICE of the mass. We talked about what sacrifice means. A woman piped up, saying that she thought we'd moved beyond all that, and that for years we've said "celebrate Eucharist," since all of that "sacrifice" stuff is pre-Vatican II. Fr. Foley softly replied, "No, I'm sorry. The Church has never changed its teaching. The mass is the unbloody sacrifice of calvary." Then he talked about why Christ's resurrection is necessary for salvation, in order to put him outside the realms of time, so that the sacrifice is "once and for all," yet happens each time we have mass. The same woman spoke up again: "What do you think about these new Eucharistic communities? They might or might not have a priest, but they just gather and HAVE Eucharist." Fr. Foley replied "Well, they certainly aren't licit, and without a priest, all you have there is a host, not the body of Jesus." She said "Well, it is becoming a big movement!" To which Fr. Foley replied "So is protestantism."

All in all - it's shaping up to be an interesting week. And we're only one day down.

PGA, that sounds like good things are happening!

To which Fr. Foley replied "So is Protestantism."

Good response!!

As far as such being heaped upon SLJ's, Bruce, I don't think Foley has had as much ire directed his way as Schutte, YMMV.
To be fair, not biased, Foley and company's choices may prove with enough hindsight to have produced fairer fruits of the emerging genres in the late 70's, much moreso than the Dameans, Weston Priory, Deiss and their predecessors Miffleton, Wise, Repp et al.
Foley was the keynote, titular "leader" of the SLJ's, and IIRC he was the prime mover to insist that musical notation for even their first collection borrowed a sort of Jazz nomenclature for chordal assignments for the guitarists. Each subsequent collection's foreword INSISTED that guitarists learn bass note movement as assigned, and observed some disciplines regarding thumb picking, flat picking or strumming (Sorry, no nose picking.) This, of course, was of benefit to keyboardists as well, as it really isn't all that different than figured bass accompaniment. If Foley hadn't stuck to his guns on this, we might still be playing root based triads on all six strings all the doo dah day.

By the way--the opening plenum today by Paul Westermeyer was wonderful and I think many on this board would enjoy it. PrayTell has it on YouTube if you'd like to see it.

Westermeyer is definitely worth watching.

Join the Church... we are going underground. Contact me if interested.

Don't be too harsh, PGA. I watched some pre-clips of arriving attendees. They seemed, IMHO, to have reserves of whatever Kool Aid well on board that doesn't contain Cabernet, Pinot Anything, or any varietal of Muscat that could suffice as an element.
These people, all in my generation sad to say, are True Believers.
Very sad, very sad.

And the people of God at NPM sang:

We are old, we are senile
We can't stand one another....

I expect a fair number of parish musicians are not members of either group, especially among more experienced musicians who might not be interested in their programs or publications.

I suspected that. I belonged to NPM for several years when the parish paid the membership dues. A few years ago, the pastor said he thought we had grown past what they had to offer so the parish stopped paying dues. I didn't think I would get enough from the organization to pay those dues myself.