Hi everybody,

I'm a French young woman, living in the Paris suburbs. I'm one of the six to eight volunteer cantors here at our parish, and I would like to ask for some advice to have better music.

Here is the state of things :

1. No need to say, no one has ever heard about Propers, or about instructions about music such as De musica sacra or Musicam Sacram. Sacrosanctum Concilium, they know it exists, but we are only two to have set an eye on it.

2. It has been decided that all Masses of a said sunday should have "the same music", which in fact means the same three hymns (Entrance, Communion, Recessional). These hymns is chosen by a meeting of the cantors, sometimes up to two or three months ahead - usually quite cheesy stuff, the more recent ones having at least biblical lyrics, but the music is most often either sugary or bouncy, or both. At the date of the hymn choice, we don't know who will cantor on which day. I think all this is stupid for several reasons : there is organ accompaniment for the saturday evening and the sunday morning masses, but not for the sunday evening masses ; then the cantor does not necessarily know the hymn well. I do learn music quickly enough to be able to discover the music on saturday and sing it unaccompanied on sunday, but some of the others don't, and then they however insist that the chosen hymn must be sung, even if the cantor doesn't know it well. That has already lead to some amazing failures, or, more usually, to the cantor saying in the mike "Well, as a recessional hymn, we will sing XXX on page YY, but I don't know it well so those of you who know it please sing very loud" (yes, it did happen).

(As far as the ordinaries are concerned, at the same meetings, we choose two or three series of ordinaries, in French and in Latin. No gregorian chant in Latin ordinaries, of course - the latin words are set to bouncy musics, usually made by autodidacts from the Communauté de l'Emmanuel, a french recent community - I'm afraid they are not much learned in textes history and structure, because I still have to understand how came this idea the Gloria could get a refrain and verses)

That doesn't let much space to move, I'm afraid. I feel the only free space I can move on is the Responsorial Psalm (I have some free space, too, with the Alleluia, but, well, much less, so I will begin by the Responsorial Psalm). Thus I think I'm going to quit the missalette stuff we usually sing as Responsorial Psalm and go to more chant-like stuff. My problem is I don't feel able to compose anything chant-like - I'm a historial/art historian, not a professional musician, and definitely not a composer. Then I thought I could adapt from the collections of Responsorial Psalms composed in English. Truth is I feel the most easy to adapt are those of Ms. Arlene Oost-Zinner, but then, I don't think it is correct to do it without asking her first, since, hey, it is her work. And I don't know how to get in touch with her... If anyone could help me here ??

At any rate, if anyone has any suggestion or advice for this situation, and especially for the lock over the "same hymns at all masses of a said sunday" principle, I would be quite grateful.

Thanks by advance. I apologise if my English is too ugly, but then, I'm French, so please be merciful on that regard.