News from chant intensive
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    I think so, how to start a schola.

    Jeffrey, do you have link to your article "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." I don't know where I got a copy (I think someone handed it to me last year when I started the schola). It says 'cover story' on the top and 'The Catholic answer 'on the bottom. And the inside has a corner " How to start a Chant choir.," and "Gregorian chant resources" This was the first article I got. It was very simple but very helpful.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    oh yes, the magazine commissioned Arlene and me to write that. I don't see that one but here are some others. Neat that this article had that effect.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Jeffrey, You wouldn't know how many people were affected by your writings. Whenever I researched and read on chants your name pop up. I was very curious to know who you were. (of course didn't know that you're bow tie expert either.) Thanks for the link. it's great and has almost all the articles you need to start. I just added the link to my blog.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Well, you will undoubtedly note a certain quality difference in co-authored articles relative to my own scribblings!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    I hope the earthquake at 7:49 pm didn't disturb anyone's dinner!

    It was a 5.0, centered near San Bernardino (100 m N of San Diego):
    http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/shakemap/sc/shake/10370141/
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    Doggoneit - I would've sworn it was Scott Turkington and our Chirobics class that made us feel the earth move under our feet.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    No, Jeffrey. People are affected by your honesty and sincerity toward sacred music in your writings.

    When I re-read the post, I think the pserson who asks info. on chant program is asking how to organize a training program and not how to start a schola. Correct?
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    I heard reports yesterday from the final Mass. It was beautiful in every way. Gorgeous chanting, with all the incense and bells. Talked to several people and everyone reported that all participants were completely thrilled by the final Mass and the entire week: inspiration, education, friendship all around. Sounds like San Diego really made history. And 50 new chant stars were made here. The world is a better place.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    The final Mass was lovely indeed. Fr. Wallace and his team of servers couldn't have had better coordination. Fr.'s golden Roman vestments had him blending in with the Spanish baroque high altar- even the swaying of the thurible and the chanting lined up marvelously. The participants were also treated to a thoughtful sermon which brought together the season of Epiphany, with the readings of the day, and the work involved in restoration of the sacred in the Sacred Liturgy. No one moved while Pedro played a brilliant postlude, that I feel matched the excitement of those in attendance.

    Hearts were lifted together. Everything, EVERYTHING pointed to Christ. This is the gift given to us by the CMAA- ideal worship experience in which the whole of our Christian history (one could add pre-Christian Jewish) is connected and swept up in prayer to the Holy Trinity.

    Yes, this is profuse language. I was deeply moved by the whole experience, especially yesterday's Mass. I am so grateful to God that the CMAA came to San Diego, and you can believe I'll be investigating the fruits of such a blessing.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Kokuanoe,
    Where are you in San Diego? In fact I am hoping to start such free chant lessons, but it might not be possible for a few months. Please come to St. Anne's parish in Barrio Logan, and I find me after Mass. Starting Jan. 25, I'll be the choir director there. Alternatively, there is a Latin OF Mass tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon at 4pm. I'll also be directing the choir for that Mass.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    I'm listening to the recording of the Mass now. It sounds as good as any professional or monastic or religious community I've ever heard. It's really astonishing that this could be achieved in four days of work. You folks make it all seem easy!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    And it is a massive amount. Ordinary, propers propers propers, hymns--amazing
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    Here's hoping for a post of those recordings…!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    this is the entire file.

    If someone wants to break it into parts, great. but for those who want the whole thing, there we go.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    The recording, broken into its respective pieces, is going up now on www.mjballou.com. Go to the Music section (duh) and find the Mass in San Diego. You can then download whatever bits you like. I just snipped away with no editing or enhancing.

    And yes, it actually does sound quite marvelous in places. Of course, you had to be there ....
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    The Mass music from San Diego is now up on my site. So enjoy - and meditate on the incomparable riches the Church gives us. All there for our singing. I cannot say enough good things about Scott's teaching, Arlene's organization, or all the different gifts the participants brought to San Diego.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    Mary Jane, could you do a favor? Having file names that begin with a hyphen causes trouble for some users. If you can change them without too much tsores, it would be a help.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Of course the problem with all recordings is that they exist as if the purpose and end is the recording and nothign more. It can't reveal any of what Mjballou refers to above. what you hear in them is in fact incidental to the entire experience, a mere snapshot in time. It is interesting how the human ear responds to recordings, isn't it? Many times at Mass I've thought something was tremendous: all the people singing Latin or whatever. I'll later listen to the recording and think, wow, in fact, this is very awful and shockingly bad, with everyone signing every which crazy kind of way.

    So which impression is the true and right one?

    I would say that when it comes to liturgy, the recording is the deceptive one and being there at the moment when it takes place is the true one. A recording only yields what is audibly in a dramatically telescoped way. Not only do you not experience the Real Presence, the Holy Spirit, the lived historical reality of physically being there, the sights and smells, and much more; not only that, what you hear is truly artificial simply because in real time music is always forward and never back.

    You don't rewind and play tracks in Mass. You only hear and experience the next thing in light of the last. Every instant that passes creates another piece of historical data never to occur again. Every instant is a stage for the next instant, so we experience the sweep of time, and the sacrament taking place sweeps us up spiritually out of time and toward eternity, while the voice of liturgy and song become that middle voice between the two. The recording is not real at all in this way: it is artificial because it doesn't reflect real time and it is artificial because it is merely a voice and not an authetica bridge to timelessness. It can move us and spark our imaginations but it cannot be what liturgy truly is.

    Still, it's fun to hear them! But let's remember how ultimately phony all recordings are.
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    burned myself a copy to listen to at leisure... sounds great so far...
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    It's true that all recordings of live events are, in effect, phony. Studio recordings, of course, are a different game. (Cf. "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," etc.)

    I rarely let my schola listen to recordings that I make for my own reference. They will get hung up over what doesn't matter in the course of the live performance and fall to squabbling or become discouraged. For my own purposes, I listen once, make a couple of notes to myself, and delete the files. Since I have to sing, stage manage, and direct simultaneously as we work our way through a Vespers, it's hard for me to listen. At the same time, I know just what the rough file is worth. Close to nothing.

    Chonak - I don't know what hyphens you are referring to because I didn't put any in the file names. This may be a function of Hostbaby's sound file management.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I'm in favor of doing away with recording technology altogether. Of course, until someone joins my insane crusade, I'll hold on tight to my Zoom H4...
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    That's an excellent observation, Jeffrey. I've been doing recordings for a couple of years now, and I've also noticed that listening to the tracks makes you focus on all kinds of little technical flaws here and there. It gives me real appreciation for people who are able to create great recordings, by having scores and scores of takes.

    That said, it's also interesting to me how the recordings can transport me back to the time and location of my participation. Even more powerful than photos, because it's alive and moving.

    It helps me to rejoin back to the original experience, to re-member across the span of time. It shouldn't be surprising that a Mass does that!
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    As someone well acquainted with studio and live recording issues, and as a participant in the Mass I feel that it's important to focus upon what is really revealed through the objective "lens" (mixed metaphor, but it's my 35th wedding anniversary, so I'm to be given indulgences) of the factors at play:
    1. Even though the acoustics of Founder's Chapel are deceptive both live and memorex, and the placement of the two (MJB's Zoom being the device at play here) digital recorders was a fairly instantaneous and convenient choice, these do not obscure the fine work accomplished by teacher and students during the curve of the intensive. To whit,
    2. Though, at first blush, it may seem that certain "lead" voices draw the listeners' attention to the fore, and a subsequent conclusion that the recording ambient was "less than...," this is really not the case if one listens very carefully.
    3. All of the attention to nuance, expressiveness, to rhythmic and declamatory precision is present in the whole body of singers if you have ears to hear beyond the "presumed" lead singers. That, in my book, marks amazing success.
    4. The "issue" of the focal chanter was discussed a couple of times; but moreso in the context of how that common factor among recordings at abbeys and monasteries is wonderfully absent with the recent recording from Heilingenkreuz Cistercians. And that is among the many facets of why that recording is mesmerising. However, after only 4.5 days of sometimes relentless but rewarding attention and exercize towards detail, it is still our nature to defer to the "natural" or "higher" authorities as we maneuver through the still fairly new twists and turns of our courses.
    5. And this recording provides us not only with so many positive and factual testimonies to our accomplishments in acquiring the basics of chant as Scott and others there purvey, but it also reminds us that the ultimate goal is the subsumation of our individual voices (and perhaps egos) into that of the One Body, whose Song and Voice is Union.

    I had jokingly told MJB that in the curvature of my documentary life I've gotten back to the aboriginal "Dont' make image of me; you steal my soul; then you die" creed. But if we don't have and use the gifts that technology presents to us, we cannot further the scholarship among those whose lives are dedicated to enjoining us all to singing the music that was the musical mothers' milk to many of the saints on our calendars.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    Thanks for the heads-up, Gretchen. As someone who is carefully self-trained to ignore homilies, I was so pleasantly surprised by Fr. Wallace's. And I wanted to follow up on some of his literary references.
  • a1437053a1437053
    Posts: 198
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  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624














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