If I'm by myself I don't sing usually. If I have to sing the psalm by myself, especially when I know that will be the situation I will normally sing a cappella and chant using a psalm and reciting tone. I can do this from straight out of the Missalette if the melody for the response is provided.

I am talking about compass directions. As an easterner, I don't believe in liturgical east to begin with. That is a Latin custom I never understood. There is only one east where the sun rises, and the people and priest face it during Divine Liturgy. If it was good enough for Constantine and St. Helena...

Because of street placement and building siting, the main altar faces compass west. The choir loft is under the rose window at the eastern end of the building, which fronts on the street.

My cantors are in the loft where they can stay with the instrument, I can hiss at them if they sing part of the wrong verse, and can signal to them if something is not right. I keep them close at hand where I can keep them focused. (I don't quite have Florence Foster Jenkins but some days am not that far removed from her.) LOL.

Fine, you are right, there could be situations like Charles has where it is necessary or situations where it can work. I just think that ideally, the "voice of oz unseen" type thing isn't necessary or ideal.

Maybe the priest and lectors should be in the loft too. Don't want them "performing."

Yeah, some of them should.
But if you have a competent cantor the option of "turning around and yelling" is a strawman.
The question was where to put the cantor, and many people, I think, are saying ambo for psalm, out of sight for everything else. If a church is well constructed the loft may be ideal.
Cantors who need mics when the acoustics of the building don't require it are another matter still. They might have some other calling.
In my experience recruiting volunteer cantors for a situation where they are not very visible brings out a drastically better and more talented corps of singers than for a situation where they are front and center all the time.
YMMV.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Paix, your rationale makes perfect sense.

I should add that I discourage them from singing into the mic on hymns. But verses that are solo, things the congregation doesn't know, etc. Then yes, they are on a mic.

A PIP approaches the MD at the back (West) of the Nave.

Going way off topic (that's a problem of mine lately, sorry...) this incident actually occurred, regarding the numbers on the hymn board.
There were two hymn boards, one on the bottom step leading in to the sanctuary on the south side of the church, the other actually in the now unused pulpit on the north side.
I was standing in the aisle on the south side of the nave when a parishioner approached.

I can't read those hymn numbers!

(Which numbers, m'am?)

(pointing at the board in the pulpit) Those numbers!!

(Perhaps you could sit closer. Where do you usually sit?)

(pointing to a pew on the south side) Right there.

(Pointing to the hymn board on the south side) (Oh. Can you read those?)

Well, of course, but (pointing to the board on the north side) I can't read those!

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Ssh, MJM!

M. Jackson, I agree about the choir up front.

However, I'll go a step further, and say that it is also unseemly for women without headcoverings to sing in choir up front dressed identically to men (unisex - which can also be a problem with those who favour female acolytes). This is something I find some anglican (and also particular personal ordinariate) churches are known to do. It can be an odd mix of innovative liberalism and ancient traditions.

Inconsistency is hard to avoid.

Some would go another step and not want women to sing in choir at all.

And even now, some Oriental Orthodox Churches have women stand on one half of the nave and men stand on the other side. Gender separation is a very important practice to reinstitute today, in this age of gender confusion.

Encyclical Promulgated on December 25, 1955

Schola Cantorum

99. It is highly desirable that a choir or schola cantorum be established in all cathedral churches, in parish churches, and all other churches of importance where the liturgical functions can be carried out as described in paragraph 93a, and c.

100. Wherever such a choir cannot be organized, a choir of the faithful, either mixed or consisting only of women or girls, can be permitted. But such a choir should take its place outside the sanctuary or Communion rail. The men should be separated from the women or girls so that anything unbecoming may be avoided. Local Ordinaries are to issue precise reg ">

an odd mix of innovative liberalism and ancient traditions

You just described my wardrobe, my favorite breakfast cereal, my Pandora playlist, and my preferred approach to liturgical programing.

it's a little hard to take seriously a 1955 document that is so "stale" that it doesn't - and due to date couldn't possibly - take into account the Second Vatican Council, everything that has happened since then, and a host of other more recent documents

While I think the issue is ridiculous, and that issues of choral sexual identity are totally goofy, I also have to point out:

Nothing about The Second Vatican Council (that I'm aware of) addressed the need for men and women to specifically sit together while singing, nor do I think any more recent documents have much to say on the matter one way or the other.

The people who lobby on behalf of imposed and universal acceptance of their own notions of equality and fairness annoy me approximately the same amount as the people who lobby on behalf of imposed and universal acceptance of their own notions of propriety and tradition.

(Thankfully, both types of people seem to be much more prevalent on the internet than in real life. This makes real life much easier to deal with, and also provides fertile ground for my particular style of humor on the internet, where it is much more prevalent as well.)

FWIW, that passage reflected a particular application of canon law (that was most widely observed in its breach) that passed into oblivion in 1983, whereby men and women were generally supposed to be seated apart in the congregation as well.