I was ordering some music and noticed this at the bottom of their copyright page:

"Note: In certain select instances, GIA is honored to extend free reprint permissions for the copyrights owned and administered by GIA Publications, Inc. Those cases include: ordination, religious professions, first Masses, conferences, and conventions. Contact GIA at custserv@giamusic.com or at 1-800-GIA-1358 if you have any questions about this type of permission"

I wonder if they had some type of permission? However, the fact that they did not respond to you did not clear things up at all.

Ouch.

This really does raise an interesting point. Sacred music these days really is in the back of the bus. For "unifying" events such as church dedications, Holy Week liturgy, ordinations, and the like, we are excluded. We are still consider a marginal interest, a peculiar thing that is not with the mainstream of the Catholic experience today.

It would be time-consuming, and I'm sure you've thought of this already, but how about going to the diocesan website and from there visit the websites of the parishes with links. Sometimes e-mail addresses will be published on their websites or in their parish bulletins, which are also typically online (.pdf's). Or, call the main offices of each and ask for the name and e-mail of the DM's.

Personal experience in several dioceses has led me to mistrust the front-line liturgy and music types at the diocesan level, most especially if they're entrenched lay-people. If a music/liturgy office is headed by a newer priest with a solid reputation on the other hand, I trust them. They might "flake out" occasionally, but they're typically as good as their word. In smaller dioceses, especially where the NPM has strong ties, I've found the diocesan-level folk are quite often "party hacks," who will sandbag you if your reputation as a "sacred music" type as opposed to "pastoral music" type is well-known.

Official Notice Just Arrived:


Music information regarding the Ordination of Bishop-Elect________

When: _______________, at 2:30 p.m. (musicians arrive at 11:30 a.m. with
rehearsal beginning promptly at 12 n.)

Where: _________________

Music to be performed: One set of music will be provided by mail to each
parish to copy and distribute to musicians for deanery rehearsals (rehearsals
only). Proper copies and binders will be given out at the Convention Center.

All choirs and cantors are invited to sing in the choir, directed by _____________.

Parish music directors, please send participants’ names and corresponding
voice ranges to your deanery contact. (E-mail would be great.)

Folk instruments are needed for some songs; orchestral instruments will be
needed for some songs. Anyone interested should contact ___________ – leave a message if necessary and your call will be returned;
or
E-Mail: ________________

Depending on the number of people responding, we will decide on instrumentation.
Any string players (violin, viola, cello, or double bass) of high school age
and above, or who play in an orchestra, will be welcomed; also, competent
woodwinds and brasses.

One song will be sung by a Children’s Choir of school-age children up to eighth
grade (elementary school age with treble voices). Any church which has children
who wish to sing must teach the song (not difficult, but has four verses) and
arrange for the children’s transportation. The song,"Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine,"
will be sung during the prelude/processions from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. All
Children’s Choir members should arrive at the Convention Center by 1:00 p.m.
Parish music directors, please send participating names, again, to your
deanery contact.

This is an example of the horizontalist, lowest common denominator attitude toward liturgy. Forget that it is the ordination of a bishop, a rite that not many of us get to see, much less do more than once in our lifetime. Forget that the sign of our apostolic tradition is being made in our very midst. Forget that it is not an easy rite to plan, one made much more difficult by the often large scale rooms that are made to be a church for a day.

I am appalled by the wretched notions of planning for this. The sad thing is, this is more often the rule rather than the exception. Its why I cannot any longer stomach diocesan liturgies. The politically "correct" notions of having "everyone" participate despite their abilities mirrors many parish experiences.

Sorry to be on my soapbox, but 20 years of being in stupidly planned diocesan liturgies comes out occasionally.

Any idea what the new bishop does for music? I looked at his current parish site, but couldn't find much encouraging. The music minister put a notice in the bulletin to recruit teen musicians to play geetars and drums for the youth hootenanny, I mean Mass.

A lot of this is probably just ignorance. The less that clergy and laypeople with church jobs are trained in music at least at some basic level, the less they appreciate the fact that you can't just wait till the last moment to decide on music, make sweeping changes in previously announced music, and rehearse choirs and instrumentalists. There's an unconscious expectation that musicians are like CD players, and that all you have to do is press the on button to hear something beautiful and perfectly made.

A parishioner appeared in the loft last Sunday after a Mass, clutching a volumne of Buxtehude, and asked me to play a prelude and fugue he liked. I observed that I am not a jukebox (a line harpists use when asked for strange requests at receptions). My own interest and expertise lies in early Spanish organ music - and I stay away from the Germans because I don't have the interest to work them up. But he didn't care - and he didn't care if it sounded awful. I played 10 measures and told him to go home and learn it himself.

mj,

Unless I'm mis-reading your entry above, I must say I'm a bit taken aback by your response to that parishioner's request.

If I had been approached by a parishioner after Mass (it never happens, regardless if they have something good, bad or indifferent to say about music), with a Buxtehude score in hand no less (I would guess that of the approx. 3,000 people that attend Mass on any given weekend, perhaps 1/10th of 1 percent of them even know what an organ score looks like, let alone who Buxtehude was . . . nevermind Spanish Baroque, Old French or English Romantic), I would be doing handsprings in the church. If I didn't know it, I'd offer to learn it and play it in the following weeks. Perhaps its because of the seemingly invincible cultural ignorance I confront in my parish on a constant basis.

Nevertheless, I would consider it a great complement if someone approached me and asked me to play a piece of legitimate organ literature, and given that I have my DMA in organ, would be shame-faced if I couldn't take a run at learning it.

As for CharlesW's comment about so much German literature requiring extensive practice and having been written for Protestant worship, I daresay the organists at St. Agnes in St. Paul (nationally recognized for its dedication to orthodox liturgical practice and good music) would be ashamed of themselves if they knew so many of us elitists pour scorn on folks like them who abide the use of that verboten German Protestant Lutheran bilge. Awful. Just Awful. Don't they know any better? (Yes, perhaps I'm not being particularly civil, but I'm really fed to death with this non-stop vilifying of certain types of organ literature on this forum!)

Every musicians has different preferences in what kind of music they want to play. Some are more stonger than others in this. We should respect music even if we don't like, but people also have to respect that musicians cannot just play all the music they request. If you cannot put your heart in certain music, how can you make music? That's one of the reason I quit playing organ in our parish. I just couldn't or didn't want to play all the music that's requested by people or by MD. I admire thsoe who can take that burden and stress. Somebody has to do it.

It's better to be asked for Buxtehude than to be asked for "On Eagle's Wings", at a Tridentine Mass, no less.

Maybe the members of the diocese who favor chant could at least
be represented through chant-based organ literature ...

http://musicasacra.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1422

Frogman noel,and eft, could you recommand some good organ music based on chant? I always look for more. Not too difficult ones please. (I have some Tournemire, J Langlais. I kind of enjoy looking at them now. But someday I'll have time to pratice, if my computer goes off.) I went to the web site above, cannot see the music inside and hard to tell which one to choose.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

And they are well-meaning, within their own frame of reference, as far as I can tell.

This would be a great time to do a premiere of a new work....there are some great composers out there (of which I am not one) that deserve the attention. It is so nice for an experience like this to filter back to local parishes. "You should have heard that piece. Wow. And the celebrant...he FACED THE ALTAR....and there were CANDLES AND A CROSS ON THE ALTAR!!!!!!"

mjballou, I believe you. I try to be kind to others, but I have one person who invariably stops by after mass and wants a copy of something I played - when I have little time to deal with him. He is an adult, but can't drive and is taken from place to place by relatives. There are definitely some emotional issues involved, too. There are times I wish I could be like one of my predecessors, who threw hymnals at choir members who sang wrong notes. But I can't do it. I don't know if this person realizes I am working, nor do I know exactly what he perceives or doesn't. But it seems there is always a similar person in each place I have worked. I suppose we just have to keep them in our prayers.

And that control is all in the wrist.

Oh. Well, this other TN parish where I am sort of at also had an incident of hymnal towards organist chucking by a DM prior to my arrival....and what I find interesting is that 100% of the attacks by hymnal have been precipitated by females [ducking and running]

There is a news release in the local Catholic paper that says (I am not kidding):

"One set of music will be provided by mail to each parish to copy and distribute to musicians for rehearsal only. Legal copies and binders will be provided at the (site of ordination) on the day of the ordination Mass."


So this means we are supposed to use illegal copies to learn from? The whole thing about copyright is that you MAY make a copy of something that you already own to make it larger or to eliminate a page turn...but you may not make a copy to avoid buying another copy of the music. So rather than providing legal copies for rehearsal, they are telling us publicly to violate the restrictions of copyright law.

I know someone is going to pop up and say that they may have sought permission for this rehearsal copying....that's not how it works. They have to say "We have secured permission for X, Y and Z for parishes to copy the music we are sending out that must be destroyed by (name the date). Then it could be legal.

And how far can YOU chuck a hymnal?

Disappearing ink may be involved....

Follow Up to the Ordination

The diocesan music committee chose to have the organist from a small town Methodist church, near where I live, play for the ordination, probably to the disappointment of those organists faithfully serving churches in the diocese (the Cathedral organist is a mild-mannered guy who can REALLY play!) who would be thrilled to be asked and to the relief of some who were dreading the pressure of it all.

When the director fell and broke her elbow last month, there was rampant speculation about who would be picked to take over and conduct the massed diocesan choir and instrumentalists. Would it be the Cathedral choir director, with 18 years experience, she who studied at Westminster Choir College and arguably the best-trained director? Or the former music director at a parish here, she who is also a professional golf pro and was a board member of the American Choral Directors association?

Well, no.

[correction: I've been told that the Cathedral organist [the really capable guy] played the organ, while this guy conducted.]

The above-mentioned organist from the Methodist church (an Episcopalian member of the church where my wife is director of music/organist) was granted the baton.

Interesting choice, no?

It's worth saying that some of the organists here were trying to avoid the whole thing like the plague.

The original hymnal tosser who was once in my church, now lives in Kansas City. So he wasn't involved. This is a different set of folks, some of whom are overdue for retirement. And yes, I was warned the security was bad. I wasn't there but saw the ordination on streaming video. It's a good thing I don't drink!