Competency in choral conducting, evoking sound, vocal technique

What songbird says, plus organ study. Every diocese should really have some sort of (subsidized) study for pianists to learn organ. I wish we'd do it here. I'd love the extra "complication" to my schedule to teach some!

A lively faith. [No, I don't mean a charismatic faith].

I should have prefaced my thoughts with "in no particular order"

Another good question might be, what skills are you willing to pay for?

What is the time frame for those courses? In Germany, we have courses for church musicians, which take two years if taken part-time beside your usual work. Prospective music students sometimes take these courses before going to the university or conservatory while they are at high school. Some dioceses also offer them as a full-time study in one year.

These courses comprise weekly lessons with the deanery's church musician and centralized workshop weeks (in my archdiocese once a year in Easter week). In my diocese the topics examined are: organ, improvising, piano, singing, conducting, ear training, composition, score reading and figured bass, liturgics, hymnology, music history, organology.

I suppose that is about the maximum of what you can expect to teach without sending them to a university or conservatory.

In no particular order, the following comes to mind (for a parish or cathedral of means desiring a full time choirmaster and organist (whether in one person or two) -

1. Skill and experience as a choral director versed in everything from plainchant, organum, polyphony, and more notable modern choral music.

1a. A like knowledge of congregational literature and a skill in teaching it.

2. Skill and experience as an organist versed in everything from the Buxheimer orgelbuch, renaissance and baroque literature, to Tournemire, Messiaen, and beyond.

2a. In addition to command of the literature, and impressive ability to lead choir and congregation in their singing of anthems, ordinaries, and hymnody. Further, a respectable ability to improvise intelligent music both on a cantus firmus and freely.

3. A professor's knowledge of sacred choral literature, historic and modern.

4. A professor's knowledge of sacred organ literature, historic and modern.

5. Skill and professional ease in building choirs, directing them, and nurturing them.

6. Skill, respect, and diplomacy in relations with clergy. (Ditto, with choirs and people.)

7. A passionate love of liturgy as it is understood and taught as normative by the Catholic Church's historic documents, councils, and popes.

8. A love of each of one's choristers and a mature assessment of the unique value of each to the musical ministry.

9. A shuddering repulsion of music that is unworthy of Catholic worship, and an indeflectible and infectious zeal for our musical and liturgical heritage.

10. A very desirous quality would be that of communicating to clergy genuine respect, and of eliciting from clergy the same genuine respect as a professional whose sacred vocation and honourable expertise is church music.

11. A person whose taste in music and its performance is impeccable.

12. A person who loves children and can inspire them to sing and participate as how they may in the parish musical program.

13. A person who can inspire a congregation (and a choir) to the heights of which they are objectively capable, will settle for nothing less - and be respected for it. Conversely, one who won't hear of the 'Catholics can't' mentality, nor have any truck with those who wish to be bound by it.

14. A person who is always growing - spiritually, musically, intellectually, who doesn't get in ruts, and whose love of God and spiritual zeal are apparent in all that he or she does.

Thus, I would assert, is pretty much 'ye complete Church choirmaster-organist'. I may have overlooked something needful, so....

Perhaps I'll add to this later. These are some of the qualities and attributes which a choirmaster-organist should have. Some of them are character traits. Others are strictly professional qualifications. All are essential for worthiness in the worship of the All Holy.

(The question, of course, was 'what qualifications should every sacred musician have; so it is evident that every parish cannot be so idealistically 'choosy'. Yet, taking these precepts as a paradigm, any parish can be guided by how well they can afford to and wish to meet such earnest and serious notions of the Church's music. If a paradigm cannot always and everywhere be realised, it can and should serve as an inspiration to do one's best in light of it.

@tsoapm I would say that singers are included yes, as they are musicians in the fullest sense, but would obviously have a slightly different skill set. What are your thoughts?

My experience of musician/singer suggests a briefer knowledge of applied music theory is often manifest post-grad. That is not a blanket indictment. Just make sure the singer/director knows that "stuff" as well as who Richard Miller and James McKinney are and the "schools" of choral/vocal pedagogy, ie. Christiansens, Noble, Shaw etc.

Well said, Matthew -
I especially like your third category.

Christiansens, Noble, Shaw etc.

You must add Salamunovich to the list if you intend to sing Chant. Remember that Shaw was a great, but he tended to diminish 'text' in favor of 'rhythm-discipline'. That's why his interpretation of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is just a tad odd.

This list is depressing me. I feel like I should be fired.

I am firing myself.

Canadash inspires me to offer a secondary slate of qualifications for village churches or those whose means and resources really are limited - meaning those which aren't cathedrals or parishes of means. So here, in no particular order, the following 'off the top of my head' - And, each may feel free to 'cherry pick' what may be useful to him or her.

1. Take your work seriously, and!, expect it to be taken seriously - it is important.
2. Be as familiar as you can about basic historical and modern 'classical' choral literature.
3. Balance your choral efforts between easy and somewhat challenging pieces. There must always be at least one or two challenges in your choristers' folders - lest they sit on unearned laurels and don't take their work seriously - always be growing. Failure in this regard is fatal to choir morale, motivation, and performance. A dead choir sings dead music. And also! A dead choir doesn't attract new members!
4. Respect profoundly your pastor, your choristers, and your congregation. Always speak in a positive and constructive manner, even when correcting errors and bad habits.

5. Be able to play four part hymns with relative confidence.
6. Choose ordinaries that you can accompany well and which your people can sing well (this doesn't mean insulting drivel and secular sounding rubish).
7. Be (or get) familiar with the better composers of history and today, and let their music be your benchmark.

8. Study what is done at your cathedral, or at parishes with commendable music programs in your area and emulate it as how you may.
9. Learn the basics of good organ registration so that you don't have a 4' reed stop in the pedal against an 8' principal or flute on the great for hymns or ordinaries. (I've actually heard such - it is amazing the things untrained people do without even noticing that they are wrong amusing.)
10. Hone your singing skills. These are very important in communicating how you want choral music to sound - and absolutely essential in teaching chant. Never, ever, teach chant by plunking out the melody on the piano or organ! - unless, that is, you really do want your chant to sound like the musical version of a Dick and Jane primer. You must be able to sing it.

11. Choose tasteful organ literature. Even if you are not advanced, there is no end to very easy pieces for voluntaries or for to grace some part of the liturgy with.
12. Be a patient tutor to your volunteer choir. Some inept musicians will attempt to mask their deficiencies with a scolding and harsh temperament intended to inspire awe and respect. Don't be one of those fakes. Always be honest about your ability, practice it to its fullest, and expect the very most from your choir of which they are capable - no more - and! no less.

13. Don't allow your choir to be in charge. Not ever. Always assert your primacy - but do it with unfailing equanimity.
14. Always have a vision of that to which you wish to progress. Ditto the choir and your parish liturgy.
15. Don't ever settle into a rut. Always sprout new foliage.

16. Keep your choir's liturgical space (be it somewhere up front or to the side, or in a west gallery) clean and neat. There is nothing worse than a junky choir space that doesn't say 'sacred space', 'worship', 'prayer', 'song', but is cluttered with books, stacked chairs, miles of electronic cords, electronic gadgets, and other paraphernalia. It should look like immaculate sacred worship space because that is what it is.
17. To the limits of your knowledge and talents be a sacred musical sage to your choir, your pastor, and your congregation. Always teach the background and the spiritual purpose of any music that you are doing. This inspires respect towards you as a Church Musician, and is aedifying to your choir, pastor, and people.
18. Attend as much as possible (your pastor my pay for this, or at least help out) Colloquia, musicians' workshops and conventions. Always take advantage of opportunities to advance your sacred musical knowledge and abilities.

19. Know (or learn!) how to read chant notation and sing from it. This is something that should be second nature to every single Catholic. If at all possible teach and perform chant from the start as an a capella genre - because it is.
20. Go to Fr Columba's chant workshops every summer at St Meinrad's Archabbey in the beautiful hills of southern Indiana. Fr Columba is one of the world's greatest living scholars of chant, from whom you may confidently learn to sing chant according to the most respectable and accurate current scholarship. You will also participate in the monastic liturgy, which is a lesson in itself.
21. Learn at least some basics about confident choral conducting so that you can help your singers with breath control, diction, rhythm, and other aspects of convincing musicianship.
22. Know how to pronounce Latin, and try to become very comfortable with the Latin ordinary - as well as a few other hymns, responsories, antiphons, and such - like the Lenten and Advent proses (which are actually responsories), and some basic chant hymnody.

Last: There is an inexhaustible cornucopia of choral music of all levels on youtube. Listen assiduously to any composer, any piece, any period, any difficulty, Gregorian and Anglican chant, any choir, anything that you could want. This is an education, inspiration, and trove of ideas that is literally endless. You can learn much about your craft just by listening to how the masters and great choirs do it.

Not as academic as the list up above, but friendly useful advice for village and small parish musicians. You may feel free to cherry pick what's meaningful in your situation.

Well, I’m not sure whether I’m a singer who comes from nothing or if I’ve picked up enough odds and ends of the rudiments to qualify as self-taught to a minimal level: I’m perfectly happy for other people to call me a musician, but I prefer to be circumspect with respect to what I call myself. So if I were to draw up a list of skills I should have, I’d have to pretty cautious to avoid firing myself. I mean well though.

I’d second a willingness to serve, first of all: it’s easy to be distracted by the personal pleasure of singing rather than making it an offering to God and to his Church, especially the people present at Mass. There should be an awareness that we’re not there to replace their voices, but foster their active participation in one way or another.

Linked to that would be an openness to Church teaching on sacred music, beyond personal preference. Whining voices always arise in my choir when the subject of chant comes up. That's no good: everyone can think what they like about chant, but discouraging others from enacting the plainly stated preference of the Church just isn't on. Again, a focus on service, not on showy pieces because they seem more fun than what the Church says we should be aiming for. And when it comes to listening, listening to the choir as a whole, how the parts work (or don’t, as it may be) together.

I’d also second a rejection of a 'Catholics can't' mentality, but also a 'choristers can't' one. Our choir can't (at present, not intrinsically!) really read music: I'm okay with note durations more or less; as far as pitch is concerned, I'm really just limited to “up a bit” and “down a bit”. We muddle along. Most of the choir essentially sings from memory (with my memory, I'm incapable of that), but I can't help but feel that, a bit at a time, we could gain some useful competence without necessarily taking a course.

Latin pronunciation is a given at a practical level. I’m not sure what purpose memorisation of the ordinary would serve, unless it was actually linked to understanding of Latin. I’d be all for that, and any other languages that might be needed too. Happily, I do know some Greek at least.

I think two other things should be mentioned:

1 - keep in mind the potential of life-long learning. This is one reason it is so important for church musicians to consider professional development (including personal practice time!!) as an important part of their paid job. No, time spent developing better skills/knowledge to offer at Mass is not "on your own" or "off the clock" - rather, it is an integral part of your job. Generally speaking, even people with masters and doctorates often do not have well-developed skills, especially in the realm of improvisation and service playing (or at least, a degree and impressive teaching pedigree is no guarantee of improv ability). For the simple reason that these things are not intensively taught in our degree programs in America. Even where they are taught, what happens during the degree is often just a starter course. In short, some skills (primarily improv and composition) need to be practiced for many years and continually developed. Since there are so many skills in church music, in real life the best candidate may be the one who is committed to working constantly to improve proficiency (naturally, above a workable baseline), rather than the candidate who thinks they have all proficiencies. And for those of us who see something lacking, rather than depression a better path forward is making study a part of our working day.

I see too many colleagues who simply say "I'm not an improviser" or "I'm not a choir conductor" as if those skills could never be studied and learned.

2 - Division of labor can help with the above. I have numerous colleagues who are fantastic organists, but never took the time to study choral conducting or liturgy, and vice versa. Some of them really don't want to administer or conduct - they just want to play organ at a nice place. For parishes with means, it sometimes works better to have a music director (emphasis on intellectual formation, understanding of history, repertoire, liturgy documents, excellent administrator/organizer and choral conductor, etc.) matched with an organist who brings more impressive technical skills in the areas of improv, choral accompaniment, and repertoire. While the absolute ideal might be one person who can do every single thing excellently, division of labor can take you a long way in practical reality. Also, I don't think the ideal for a music program would ever be just one ubermusician rather than a team of people who could provide more long-term stability and cover sickness, vacation, etc., for each other.

While the absolute ideal might be one person who can do every single thing excellently,

The problem with this approach is what happens when that one person is suddenly unavailable. I've known the church musician whose sister died on Easter Saturday. To say that he was not in the right mindset to play the vigil that evening is an understatement. But what choice did they have ...

Why would improv be a necessary skill for a church musician?

It isn't, from a practical standpoint. I have rarely, rarely had any occasion to use it. I tend to have short interludes and such in my folder anyway, so I play from those when I need filler. If you are in Notre Dame and want to play eight minutes of clashing and dissonant chords, maybe. Not a useful skill in most parishes.

Why would improv be a necessary skill for a church musician?

Is this an actual question or did you forget the purple bold?

Let me clarify, no purple. Our liturgies are so planned and formatted, everything flows from one thing to another. There is no space for improvisation. When filler is needed, it is very short and stops immediately when the priest give a sign he is ready to move on. He does that by posture and placement. I can generally repeat a few bars of what I am playing, when rarely needed, and he is ready to move on.

...if improvisation is inappropriate...

Where did you encounter such misinformation? Improvisation is a very highly valued skill that all organists should be capable of, some in greater degree than others, depending on their circumstances, and the seriousness with which they pursue their art. I don't see the relevance of jazz improvisation to this question. Jazz is not a liturgical genre. Its milieu and associations, like Broadway, etc., are patently secular. Improvisation is not limited to jazz, which is something of a late-comer to the musical scene. Organists have been improvising on sacred melodies and improvising toccatas, canzonas, praeludia, and so forth for at least a thousand years. Whence, suddenly, this amusing notion that it is not a skill which is inherent to a liturgical organists range of talents. If someone is a full time musician, or, I think, even a half-time one, and can't improvise, he or she is being overpaid - and/or, as the saying goes, 'is in over his or her head'.

No, I was not kidding. One of the reasons I've seen that jazz is inappropriate as liturgical music is it's improvisational nature. So, if improvisation is inappropriate for liturgical music, why is it a necessary skill for a church musician?

huh?

The problem with jazz isn't that it's improvised. The problem is that it's not sacred music.

Improvisation has never been looked upon negatively in any official sense. You realize there's a long tradition of organ improvisation throughout our Catholic history, right?

I can improvise if I have to, but as I mentioned, our masses are so structured there is rarely a need for it. One of the issues I have with improvisations is that I have heard them turn into performances. In those cases, they call too much attention to themselves. Kind of like the warbling 300-pound soprano cantor who likes to wave arms and emote during psalms. Fortunately, my cantors are in the loft so I don't have that problem.

And here are Adam's SpaghettiOs, talking about taking the general to nit picky extremes - LOL.

http://i.imgur.com/jpufVxl.jpg