I don't know of any etiquette. Some of my people come when they should have stayed home and gotten well. I appreciate their dedication, but...

Well I guess when your conductor doesn't let you take water into the cathedral...
I do agree, and sometimes if you have cough drops in your pocket too (because they are discrete). In the many choirs of which I sing in, I bring water to as many of them as I can.

I had a cold at the time, so I couldn't really control it but I am one of the only first tenors so I couldn't really refuse to attend...

Jack Daniels for the director/organist would be helpful.

I didn’t know there was a restriction on water. I’m a convert: all I worked out was that the one-hour Eucharistic fast didn’t include water and medicines. What did I miss exactly, something I can find in canon law?

It's not just 'housekeeping', it's a serious matter of proper behaviour and decorum during liturgy. The choir should be the exemplars of these, seeing as how they are leaders and good examples, both musically and behaviour-wise, of due and devout worship. It is just plain rude, crude, tacky, mindless, and disgusting to see choir members, of all people, who can't get through mass without the constant cavalier and insouciant guzzling from water bottles. The worst thing about choirs in west galleries and other places is that they have no sense that they are actually a part of the divine proceedings - they are only concerned with singing the right thing at the right time. They should be as involved in the ritual as the most devout person in the front row of the nave. They have no leave or license to behave otherwise.

Some seem to think that because they are way up in a choir gallery, or over to one side out of view, and are entitled choir members, they don't need to act like they are 'in church' and at mass - well, they are in church, sacred rites are in progress, and they do... because they are choir.

With very little license, if you wouldn't do it whilst serving at the altar or sitting behind that front pew screen in the nave, don't do it in the choir, wherever your choir sings from. It is your high duty and calling to 'make his praise to be glorious' in mind, heart, body, soul, and voice, and to be an example of such in every way humanly possible during the sacred rites of the Church.

>> I sing with the choir while playing and directing. Doing that for multiple masses really dries out my throat.
agee; and the one cold air return for our entire chapel is located on the back wall of the choir loft. When that wave of incense hits your throat - yikes.
I don't see it as a matter of casual and insouciant guzzling. I have to see it as a matter of being able to sing at all, sometimes.

That's the point. We are not awash in water guzzlers. We live in a dusty city and it gets into the building. The ancient hvac system seems to remove none of it. Add allergy seasons - spring and fall - to that and water is a necessity. Our city is one of the top 10 cities for allergies, and some years it has been number one.

Thank you; I’m all for decorum, and frequently wish that our choir were more decorous (+1 for custody of the eyes, but we should all try to do our part), but a blanket ban on water seems somewhat excessive. I don’t feel that when I do drink water I do it in such a way that it causes my brother to stumble, and solely with the aim of singing well and keeping my throat in good condition.

But why would a special dispensation be required? I still feel I must be missing something.

I often wonder why the Eucharist fast was reduced to one hour, a period so convenient as to be practically non-existent.

He said "insouciant guzzling," heh heh.
Besides, isn't that a bit redundant?

Not a church thing, but I recall attending a choir concert back in my college days, where they passed out free cough drops to the audience to prevent coughing from ruining the live recording. Unfortunately...the sound of cough drops being unwrapped throughout the concert ruined the recording.

Anyone can just happen to cough once... or once and a half.
Two coughs require a genuflection.
Three coughs?
For these you need to excuse yourself and repair to the wash room, or an empty class room, or anywhere out of ear shot and cough all you want.

(Actually, maybe only half purple?)

To whom are made all genuflections.
Maybe striking the breast would do as well.

No, they should get the stink-eye....

The question was about coughing not water-guzzling. The question ought to be: are there significant points in the liturgy where coughing is a distraction. There are important points of silence in the liturgy where even a light cough would break an important silence, notable are the elevation, after the lesson, after a beautiful piece of music. I instruct my singers that immediately after the conclusion of a piece they remain absolutely silent for a moment, not to break the mood of the piece prematurely; don't cough, don't rustle your music, don't move around.