Select a lovely soft, deep pedal stop - perhaps the most powerful bourdon. Press down the low D on the pedal. Start chanting in Mode I. When appropriate move your foot down to low C. When appropriate move your food back to D.

Yes, I have overwhelming problems when I am accompanying myself with a harmonica or a Jaw Harp. Should I try throat singing or overtones?

That was it.

I do it every week. I don't have many problems (missing words/notes) but I can't say that I'd win any singing competitions. Right now I'm on a quest to find enough cantors so that I can retire from being one and just play the organ.

MJO its like playing the organ for Mass and being a cantor for the OF at the same time. There are lots if people who do it, but the advice I'm seeking is how do you do this and still sing in a satisfactory manner, ie with healthy vocalism.

I sing along with the choir while playing. In fact, as director I have to use facial gestures, mouth positions, head bobs, and the occasional free hand for cues and cutoffs. However, my solo singing days are long past. Age can do that to you.

For one, you don't run out of breath when singing mentally (or do you?).

It wouldn't surprise me if some of my singers did run out of breath. LOL.

Oh! Why would anyone play the organ while cantoring? When I play at St Basil's chapel at UST for the summer, there is no cantor unless I arrange for one. So, I go to the ambo and sing the psalm a capella in a chant-like manner, usually using a somewhat ornamented Gregorian psalm tone with a simple improvised chant-like responsory for the people. For the Alleluya and verse, I do the same thing, only standing beside the organ. It seems to me that playing the organ and cantoring at the same time would be uncomfortable and undignified, plus liturgically slap-dash. I can see why anyone would have breathing, tonal, diction, and concentration complications while doing this, plus the fact that it's just..... tacky.... or something. When you must be the cantor and the organist at the same mass, be only one at a time. There is much greater dignity and liturgical sense in this.

Either play or sing. Not possible to do the lounge piano act at liturgy.

What a grievous misfortune it is that one is required to be obedient to such men. Francis put the right tag on this predicament: lounge piano act.

I do this every week and the only time it gives me trouble is during a very involved organ hymn - such as lasst uns erfreuen - which I did on Pentecost. Verse 2 went something like this: "O source of uncreated light, the uhhuhhaatabaaaaa Alleluia! Alleluia!

"We're paying you to play the organ. If you sing a cappella, what are we paying you for?"

You have a lot of self control.

Yes, someones can.
Square notes and chant may change the accidents, but not the substance.

Nice chanting, though (even if rather wooden), but it shouldn't have been done whilst sitting off at an (very cluttered) organ (complete with microphone) and playing the same. There are liturgically (and aesthetically) appropriate places and postures for being a cantor.

'You have a lot of self control.'

Yes, indeed! Quite a whole lot!!!

The Gloria from Mozart's Coronation Mass aka my lounge act, recorded on my HTC One M8 (cell phone), You can assess it from a production standpoint and grouse that the microphone is too close to the organist/chorus tenor/conductor, but then, it's not a performance, is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTtOXR236Y

A point in fact is that multi-taskers lose some empathy when running on multiple cognitive layers like this, and I'll fully admit to losing my bedside manner when in the throws of making music with a skeleton crew. But I'm also amused at how many people caution against doing something that can only expand your musical skills and your parish's access to great music. Keep on spitting and hissing, folks.

The parish was full of people who wanted to be on committees and be EMHC's but didn't like to help anywhere else.

Are you sure this wasn't the church where I am now? Sounds strongly familiar!

Let's be honest: it sounds like most parishes...

I got the brass ring first time around and threw a strike right in the middle of the clown's mouth! Of course I used my famous Piaget Curveball pitch.

Can anyone honestly watch the video I posted and say "oh what a lounge piano act." ?

Not me, Matieux, self-evident lack of the white suit was the dead giveaway.
And thanks, Mark Husey, for reminding us that, like Fr. Hunwicke, we can be orthodox and still have a great sense of humor without all the rancor and indignation.

At the risk of sounding like a pragmatist, we do what we have to do. I am no longer a "competitive" singer, so to speak, but I have Master's degrees in both piano and voice, and I don't regard what I have to do at Mass as a "Lounge Act," pace Francis. A lounge act would require lounge music, which I certainly don't do in church.

Which is worse: a cantor-free Mass, or doing something that some seem to regard as beneath their dignity?

Yes, it's difficult, and I hate microphones, but I sometimes sing and play at the same time when necessary. We do what we have to do -- including put aside pride and ego -- for the sake of the Sacred Liturgy.

I'm having trouble with the notion that a Cantor is required at all.

Please direct major effort to build and keep choirs.

But! When it is 'necessary', it isn't necessary to play and sing at the same time (unless you are like the unfortunate musician above whose liturgically clueless priest made him do it). If you are in a west gallery, step up to the rail and be a real cantor: the psalm, its responsory, and the Alleluya all are very effective sung a capella. There is really no need for them to be accompanied to begin with. If you are somewhere down front, step to the side of the organ or go to the ambo and be a cantor. Attempting these two roles simultaneously is cheap, shabby, tacky, liturgically slap-dash and ugly. If I were to witness this as an attendee at mass I should think it incredibly stupid to be sitting there listening to the invisible disembodied organist's voice crooning over the PA system. Let him materialise and be an actual cantor when he needs to. The liturgy demands it. Decency demands it. GIRM is clear: a cantor at the ambo, or a choir in choir.

(Another thought: if your responsorial psalms and Alleluyas really cannot be performed without accompaniment, you are using the Wrong Stuff! Simple chant-like responsories [you can make them up yourself or use the superb ones in the St Igantius 2015 pew missal - which puts all others to shame] and your own ornamented psalm tones for the verses are The Right Thing.)

I have also seen situations where the congregation sings better with an unaccompanied cantor singing simple chant-like melodies. This is why I prefer to use the ICEL Mass instead of any other vernacular Mass (when I'm required to use a vernacular Mass setting, we all know that many times this isn't up to us): at least where I am, I have the choir sing it unaccompanied and the congregation simply follows them.

For some reason, the musically uninitiated think that nobody will be able to hear the singer without a microphone. For our spring concert, the principal forced me to use a microphone for the students. It didn't do any good at all, except for making announcements, as it didn't really pick up the students. I imagine it's also one of those psychological things: if people see the microphone, they think the sound is louder, or clearer, or that now suddenly they can hear. Kinda like another thread talking about the organ being "too loud:" a forum member mentioned that a lady asked him to play softer, he promised he would but didn't change anything about how he played. The lady thanked him for playing softer the next time she saw him.

Long story short, microphones are unnecessary for singing. From the standpoint of the cantor at Mass, when the congregation joins in, you should back off anyway and let them sing. Also, for some reason, congregations follow unaccompanied singing better than accompanied: just shows they're following the singer anyway and not paying much attention to the organ. Makes perfect sense, since most people focus on words more than textless sounds anyway (and for some reason people appreciate good singing more than good organ playing; I haven't figured this one out yet).

I have found an excellent use for choir microphones -- I use them to stop the choir from chattering before Mass. "Mics are live, you better be quiet!" Works like a charm.