English chant
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    My three teenagers came back from choir camp last week (all Latin) and are talking about how better to sing chant. We sing English chant (SEP) at our parish and I am thinking (wondering) if there isn't quite a difference between the way English and Latin chant are sung. I would like to improve our singing at Mass but would like to know if there are any particular guidelines to singing English. At present, my family sings the offertory and communion antiphons so I believe it's important the words are made clear to the congregation--is that right?

    Kathy
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Kathy, when singing at Mass you are praying but not to the people. There should be a 50/50 mix between the need for clarity of words and the roundness of musical tone when singing. Emphasizing the words so the people can understand them can reduce the musical effect and can lean towards "broadway" tone production.

    Trying to sing beautifully to edify God was squelched when microphones were placed in the hands of cantors.

    My answer to your very good question is definitely no.

    Let the arguing begin...
    Thanked by 1teachermom24
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    The nice thing about chant is that it can easily be transposed to fit your voice(s). I remember Dame Emma Kirkby once said that when choosing repertoire (she was talking here about lute songs by Dowland) that one thing she looked for was if it was in a comfortable speaking range, and if it was not could be possibly be transposed, as she felt that if a song fit into that range it would be easier to get the words across - perhaps that might be a good start, find a pitch that allows you to comfortably get the consonants out and good vowel production without too much effort.

    On the other hand, English can be a difficult language to sing in - the vowels can be kinda flat, too many hard consonants, and in American English there are often diphthongs the crop up in colloquial speech that we need to learn to suppress when singing - I have choristers who will sing words like 'life' as 'liiiieeeeeeff' - not good.
    Thanked by 1teachermom24
  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    Having been thinking and writing about this lately, I've come to a few realizations that are probably obvious to most people, but I seem to have just figured out.

    1) It's a more difficult to get by on poor singing technique (in terms of vowels, consonants, etc.) with chant vs. other music. Therefore, from a musical skills point of view, it's probably best to learn how to sing English hymns, choral music first - and quite well. It's not a matter that these compositions were designed for singing in English all that much more than choral music in any given language, just that it's more obvious. It's easier to see a tree in a field of wild flowers than in a forest. That doesn't mean the field or the forest is a better place for trees.

    2) While a congregation may not be ready for Latin chant, beginning to work with English chant with no sense of what it feels like to sing Latin chant is perhaps a (the?) problem. At least the leader of a group should have some decent experience listening to and singing Latin chant before starting English chant.

    3) Both of these are inconvenient, however, across most of our current typical landscape, but indeed are facts we should consider more than we currently do.
    Thanked by 3noel jones, aago teachermom24 hilluminar
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