Congregational singing of “proper” music?
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    I’ve had a (rather heated!) debate of late with a few colleagues from “the NPM side” of Catholic liturgical music. The discussion concerned the relationship of the choir to the congregation; you can probably guess how it went.

    A couple members thereof assure me that they have congregations that sing new material, strongly, each week.

    I’m inclined to be skeptical, as my definition of “strongly” includes literally almost every single person present singing—which I’ve only ever seen at “special” Masses like retreats or conventions. I’ve asked for videos to get a sense of what they have in mind. (Again, skeptical that such will be forthcoming.)

    I personally suspect that what’s going on is that about 10% of the people are singing the unfamiliar stuff, and the amplification makes that seem a lot bigger than it really is, but I could be wrong.

    My question to you all is: what is your experience of congregations singing “proper” music to each Sunday—e.g., Psallite, metrical introit hymns, etc.? The only environment in which I’ve tried stuff like this was where the priest was all-but-hostile to the idea and just wanted “normal” hymns. (He’d probably have a heart attack at the idea of choral propers …)
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    I've got a priest like that too.
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    We use "congregational" propers from the Lumen Christi Missal at the Cathedral quite often (either at Masses that don't have Gregorian propers at them, or occasionally in conjunction to Gregorian propers). I would say that more people sing these short chant propers than sing less-familiar hymns (other than the "know by memory" Holy God We Praise Thy Name, Come Holy Ghost, etc).
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Our people sing hymns and the Ordinary and the choir/cantors sing all the Propers. Of course, everyone sings on the hymns.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    I've heard enough Lutheran responsive Psalm singing to find that just credible.
  • lmassery
    Posts: 422
    We use Andrew Motyka's communionantiphons.org on a regular basis - about once or twice a month. Some of them are a bit complex, but most are about the same difficulty level as a responsorial psalm. The assembly sings them fairly well. We also use Teitze or Kathy Pluth's hymn tune introits from time to time. As long as the tune is VERY familiar, they sing it well
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I was at a Catholic church once where the proper texts were sung by the congregation to a very simple (2 note) chant tone. I could probably have counted on one hand the number of people who took part. I quickly ditched the idea.
  • donr
    Posts: 971
    We sing the Antiphons every week then a hymn. Don't really care if the congregation sings the antiphons or not but they are certainly encouraged to do so. They sing the hymns some times with gusto and some times not.
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