Catholic MUSIC professionals should most certainly have this skill.

Some ways besides full immersion to acquire said skill would be reading the many relevant documents on this site, listening to the vast array of audios available on CC watershed and youtube, and practice. Lots of practice. It may not be as good an option as the full immersion method, but it's much better than nothing.

Kathy, you pose a great question. I think that it is important for a professional musician employed by the Catholic Church to be fluent in chant, but I am not convinced that it is essential in most of the parishes we work in. In my area (NYC) there may be many people making music in the church, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them professionals or liturgical musicians. I would love to see musicians who can read and write music at all, but that isn't necessarily the case here.

donr, I don't disagree that one should have that skill. The question I added was whether or not it is essential to get the job done. I see many folks working every week in parishes in my diocese who do not have a musical or liturgical education and still manage to serve in their parishes quite nicely.

It is an absolute waste of time unless you:

1. Have a TLM Mass to direct.
2. Have a pastor that wants chant.

In fact, it can actually be detrimental. Otherwise you have to be very, very quiet about your interest in it to keep everyone at the parish from even knowing that you like chant - like the African priests who come here for work who will put up with about anything as they are guest workers here, but quietly might mention to you on the sly that he misses the Latin Mass back in Africa.

In today's Sheep Attack Times, anything can be used against you to get you fired. Including referring to the GIRM...and referring to any documents with their Latin names. Of course, even letting on that you know the documents can forever and irrevocably damage your position with the pastor.

I'm with CharlesW.

Yes!!!

I use chant, but I have round note editions of everything we use. I have already been told to never give square notes to the congregation, so I don't.

The ability to sight-read chant is useful if you sight-read chant at Mass.

If you sight-read chant at Mass, PLEASE STOP. The music deserves for you to take the time to learn it and do it well.

There is something very disappointing in the views about this matter that are defined and based on utility. Knowing chant and how to read its notation is one of many aspects of sacred musical knowledge for which anyone who considers himself a church musician would have an unquenchable thirst. We have become like the worst of our detractors, the sacro-pop crowd and others, when we judge value as a thing determined by what is utile. Part and parcel of our calling is to know the gamut of our musical patrimony and to lovingly teach it to our choirs and people. And, if father says 'no', that is a hurdle to be overcome which says nothing about the enriching value of that knowledge to the choirmaster himself and to those who do want to learn.

Heaven forbid that any of us should set as the limits of our musical love and knowledge the appetites and tastes of those who balk at anything that, thanks to fifty years of cultural destruction, they haven't seen before. Most of our grandparents or great-grandparents could read square notes by the time they were in the fifth grade.

We are not merely teachers and practicioners of what everyone will sing or learn, or what is utile! We are the guardians of our musical patrimony.

I think Noel makes a good point, too. If you need your job and you are skilled in the chant, but the powers that be are hostile, it may be best to keep it under the radar. Pray hard, keep singing, ask the Holy Spirit to open doors and be ready.

If folks are slightly phobic but not fully resistant, you are in an ok spot.

I'm going to quote Jeffrey Morse again, and say that "we need to be missionary about spreading the chant". It's our sung prayer as Catholics, and we can all find small ways to help our brothers and sisters recover this treasure.

It's been my experience that some if not many Catholics of every demographic can learn to own the chants proper to them. And that they recognize the timeless treasure of our sung prayers.

THANK YOU MJO. If I only learned what the clerics required of me, I would have lost my Catholic faith decades ago.

Good discussion, thanks everyone.

Gavin seems to be a little hung up on "sight-singing," as if the interview question were meant to demand a performance quality reading. I should clarify. If we asked an organist in an audition to sight read an anthem, we wouldn't expect a performance level result. We would expect fluency, that s/he can read the page, has done this sort of thing before, and after a little humming and doodling round and adjusting registrations, can pull off something reasonably musical.

I can agree with Kathy's clarification above!

Yes. But the question is tendentious. Catholic music professionals should have that ability because chant is the direction we should be moving in. If a particular parish never moves in that direction, a DoM's skills or lack of same are irrelevant. But if the DoM doesn't have those skills, that parish never will move to chant (at least not under his direction.)

Likewise with the exigent definition of sight-reading. I am a pretty good sight reader. I don't think I could sight read either chant or polyphony and guarantee an accurate, let alone musical, performance. (I've done it, because Stuff Happens, but it always merited but never received hazard pay.) But the ability to have 99% of notes in place on the first go is essential for doing any kind of sophisticated music in any reasonable rehearsal time. And one should be able to do that with any notational convention one consistently encounters: square notes, 4/2, mensurstriche, whatever... if there were any reason to have a choir singing white mensural notation, sight-reading it would be a requirement. (Why not? Palestrina did.)

And as we know, 99% accuracy in reading is not a level that's generally commercially available.

I am a pretty good sight reader.

Here are three anecdotes from my personal experience with singing on short notice.

The first time I sang the Durufle Requiem (and the only time that I sang the entire work), I was a "ringer" called in the day before the performance to sub for a singer that had come down ill. I had only the pre-performance warm-up/rehearsal (about 30 minutes) as preparation. Did I sing flawlessly? No. Did I sing well? I think so. The performance was very well received.

The first time I sang, as an alto, "And the glory of the Lord" from "Messiah" was on a Sunday at church, eons ago, when the choir director, Robert Simpson (from the faculty of Westminster Choir College), arrived at church to discover that some virus had virtually wiped out his soprano section and most of his alto section. Two of the three altos sang the soprano part, while I joined the other alto singing the the alto part. Of course, I had heard the alto part often enough, but to jump in and sing it cold was quite an experience, as I was only then just beginning to develop a countertenor ability with my voice. Again, I did not sing flawlessly, but at least Bob was pleased with the result.

I learned the Bass solo part for the Bach Cantata "Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme" and sang a performance in just over a week, with one rehearsal. And in that performance, I managed to sing flawlessly. However, I was somewhat taken aback that the Soprano soloist, who greeted me at the rehearsal with "I hope you aren't one of those helden-baritones who drowns everyone out" (which I am not, although I could) and sang beautifully with appropriate volume at rehearsal, proceeded to sing the performance as though she were singing Brünnhilde, while I maintained appropriate restraint (and didn't elbow her in the side). The director was most appreciative for my composure and sensitivity in not letting the performance get out of hand.

As a (then) professional mathematician but not a professional (although well trained and serious) singer, I generally acquitted myself well in all singing situations when curve-balls such as these came my way. In such situations, it has helped that I have been a good sight singer from an early age. But none of this sight singing ability is an adequate substitute for careful preparation and rehearsal, no matter how professional a musician one is.

Very interesting points of view. While it may be commendable for a liturgical musician to be familiar with neumes and able to render chant melodies on request, I still think that we make a grave error when we enter a parish environment with an agenda. We are not the guardians of the musical patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church. Pastors are called to teach and sanctify congregations. We are working musicians who desire to share what wisdom we have acquired while still managing to eat every day. Part of that wisdom is the fact that not everyone is moved by the same musical experiences. When I work with a choir, my hope is to open their hearts to the wide range in styles of music available to them, and then to guide them slowly towards the long history of plainsong in the church. It is also most important to recognize that the people we serve need not agree with our personal musical tastes in order to be taken seriously. It is also imperative to make music for the people who are actually listening to us, rather than the ones who think as we do.

There may be parishes which have a long tradition of plainsong, but in my experience, these are few and far between. For most of my colleagues and myself, we walk into a new parish and spend a lot of time teaching the forces at our disposal how to make the most of the talent and music available to us. We are also (for the most part) answerable to a pastor who may or may not love the chant. As far as what we teach, it is a mistake IMHO to push any particular style of liturgical music upon a congregation we intend to serve. I try to reach the singers where they are right now.

Isn't it possible to both work with singers where they are and also strive gently toward the Church's ideals?

Yes, yes, and again yes! ... or at least it should be so.

ALL PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS should have a grounding in Gregorian Chant, since it's effectively the basis for Western Music (Sacred and Secular/Serious and Folk)

HOWEVER: from a purely practical standpoint, Catholic musicians should probably have a working knowledge of the Guitar before venturing forth into Chant if they want jobs and to make money. Just sayin'. If you do have training in Chant don't work for the Church; you'll almost never use it.

Catholic musicians should probably have a working knowledge of the Guitar before venturing forth into Chant

And must be able to play it like Joe Satriani who uses all the modes extensively.

MACW, the important part of what you just wrote is that we are responsible for that which is "delegated to us." That means that we are not independent in all of the decisions we make. What I am reading in some of these posts often omits the fact that we don't work in a vacuum. Perhaps in other places, one can impose his/her idea of what is the best kind of liturgical music upon a parish. In my area, things don't work that way.

I don't think that it is fair to conclude that because one does not find the reading and singing of chant to be essential to carrying out this ministry that we are shying away from anything. If we twist the meaning of what people say, fewer people will be willing to listen to what we have to say. It is in just such straw man argument that I see what I call an agenda.

kenstb

An agenda comes with an attitude. If your attitude is to serve the parish, the pastor and all those who Christ puts in front of you, then there is no agenda. I have had great success transforming music programs into truly good programs of sacred music. Be kind, humble, gentle and never insist on your own way, and people will be coming up to you and asking you for direction. A good leader inspires and directs without coercion, force or bullying. A good leader sets the example and then waits for others to follow.

kenstb

Francis, I wonder why you would address your last paragraph to me.

Simply because your last paragraph was an answer to my previous paragraph. (i.e., i mentioned shying away, and you picked up on the subject in your next post)

Well, gosh, if dusting off my guitar and getting new strings for it will make it easier for me to get some extra work, I oughta do that. I still have the Glory & Praise accompaniment books somewhere!

The world is going to end so don't worry about it. ;-)

BTW, I am one of the lucky ones in a good parish.