Easy Metrical Setting with Recording
  • bjerabek
    Posts: 63
    I am currently functioning as a sort of stable supply priest for a Spanish Mass at a neighboring parish; this Spanish Mass has different groups that play each week on a rotation. They are what I call "liturgical boy bands" -- they arrive with all their own equipment: speakers, keyboards, etc. Some of them have uniforms and promote CDs. The style of music is mostly parody, is quite worldly, but it's all that they have really ever known and I know they are sincere and of good will.

    I am fairly convinced that all these groups learn things by ear and don't actually know how to read music. Moreover -- and this is the issue at hand -- none of them play the right Mass parts. Some of them closely approximate the liturgical texts, others are nowhere near. In any case, none of them have exactly the right words. (And none of this is surprising -- it's a huge problem in the Spanish-speaking world.)

    The idea that I have at this point, given the limited authority I have and also their musical limitations, is to find a fairly easy setting that has the right words and is something they could figure out by ear, however they end up working that out (they will surely embellish, etc.). For that reason it would need to have an audio recording so that they could listen to it over and over again, and learn it.

    All of what they do is metrical, the majority in 3/4.

    Does anyone who works in Hispanic ministry know of a setting or two that more or less meets these requirements (and, in order to have an audio recording, probably comes from one of the major publishers)?
  • bjerabek
    Posts: 63
    By the way, you can read "a sort of stable supply priest" however you want. :-P
    That wording was perhaps not the most felicitous.
    Thanked by 1PurpleSquirrel
  • PurpleSquirrelPurpleSquirrel
    Posts: 165
    I'm not sure of actual settings, as I'm in the Great White North (Canada) & the settings here are only in English & French. However, I am curious. Is the parish you speak of strictly Spanish-speaking for all the Masses? What you describe is similar to our Pilipino choir. We try to make sure that we all get together at least 1-2 times/year to go over any applicable changes. If your parish is strictly Spanish, could you pair them up with a neighbouring parish that is a bit more up to date with things?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    One to consider is the "Psallite Mass", which offers settings intended for use with English, Spanish, or Latin:
    http://www.litpress.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=9780814679708
    The site offers a sample PDF, and a few MP3 samples. If you decide to adopt it, you can buy the CD they offer.
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood HeitorCaballero
  • bjerabek
    Posts: 63
    PurpleSquirrel,
    It's a bilingual Spanish with two or three English Masses and then a separate Spanish Mass. As a supply priest, I don't have authority to change music programs very much or share resources. Basically what I can do in this case is hand them a CD and tell them "You really need to work on singing/playing this".

    Thanks, chonak, for pointing out the Psallite setting. It does not appear to be a metrical Gloria, but perhaps there are other elements of it that would be useful.

    If anyone else knows of a good setting, please let me know.
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