Kids that age are sponges—they will absorb anything that is enthusiastically presented to them, they memorize things almost instantaneously, and often they come without the cultural baggage of many of their elders. In my experience they love learning languages and they enjoy simple chants; rounds like Dona Nobis are an excellent idea to prepare young singers for eventually singing independent parts. Music with lots of stepwise motion and mostly syllabic text-setting is most successful with this group, but there is a lot of music that fits into that category! Above all, they love to be challenged! The best way to lose them is to have them sing 'kid songs.'

Another idea, depending on your situation, is to occasionally have kids learn the treble part of an anthem that the choir is singing and have them perform it with the choir—this is a way of expanding the kid's experience and repertoire (and is always a crowd-pleaser, if that counts for something!).

One or two things from the Iona community/Wild Goose Publications might work. The Lamb of God (St Bride setting) with the children on the cantor line, if there are enough doting parents to help the congregation get the timing right. Even without that support, my experience is it works as written in a metropolitan cathedral. (No I don't normally want call/response music at Mass in the UK, but this is a bit different, just a two part canon.)

After the simplest Mass Ordinary, I always begin with the seasonal Marian antiphon. These can be used as prayers at rehearsal, which fosters both sound Marian devotion and memorization. They can be sung at the end of Communion, as at St. Peter's.

There are lots of easy chants in Liber Cantualis that children would really enjoy!

Thanks, MJO, for Liber Cantualis suggestion. I've looked through it and the Responsoria Breves are fun. And of course short.
And thanks, Kathy, for your recommendation; plenty there to keep them busy.

I contrast all the really helpful suggestions made on this forum with the (no doubt well-meant) advice to teach them action songs................

Thanks

(why has this come out in italics??

https://www.sjmp.com/viva-voce is a VERY useful book of music and instruction for the child's voice that works to give you repertoire but also trains the voices of the singers.

For those who have never tried or tried and failed to get a children's choir going, this is highly recommended.

Don't let anyone fool you, or rob...

It cannot be said enough that all of those people who go around snortling that children can't learn chant, or this, that, and the other, are musical cretins themselves - and/or have no business in education. As I have said elsewhere recently, they should in every instance be reminded to stop projecting their own ignorance onto others.

Well, Chris -

Sometimes, when winning seems unlikely, one must take satisfaction in being 'right' and not surrender. Always walk off unruffled on well defined high ground.

(About that red hat - hmm... there are times, aren't there?, when such baubles are millstones about the necks of those who all too readily accept the slavery of moral impotence rather than exercise their human dignity and moral rectitude. Or, to put it more briefly, few are made of the stuff of St Thomas More or St John Fisher!)

Oh please no.
That's not me.

Hahahaha.

You're implying that chant and polyphony don't help people love Jesus.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

If it is to teach them quality high-art music,

If it is to use music to form them as followers of Jesus

With respect, I would argue that these are not mutually exclusive, or even in any way incompatible. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'choosing material that they enjoy'—it is not my mission as a musician and music educator to give people more of what they are already comfortable with, but to broaden their knowledge and experience of the greater world of what we may indeed call 'high-art' music. Yes, programming music that is challenging yet achievable and will provide a satisfying experience is an all important skill. But I know from long experience that if, for instance, I prepare a concert program for a younger treble choir with
a) a lighter piece that was certain to be 'popular,'
b) several pieces that fall somewhere in between serious and not, but are musically substantial, and
c) a straight out 'high-art music' piece that, while challenging, might be achievable,
by the time of performance, their favorite piece, and the one they are most proud of, was the 'high-art music' piece. And why would't it be? For this age group, such a piece might be a chant hymn, or a round or 2 or 3 part cannon, or even simple 2-part polyphony.

I guess I'm assuming that the purpose of a church choir is to prepare ultimately for participation in worship, and I believe we do this best by always aiming to sing the very best appropriate music we are capable of (and indeed expanding the bounds of what we are capable of, if we are taking our responsibility seriously). This, I thought, was pretty much what this forum was all about!

And, yes our choir ministry has to do with deepening and 'forming' our choristers faith, at all ages. Our biggest aids in this regards are the 'high-art' pieces that have moved folks through the centuries, and continue to.

(And yes, agree with Kathy.)

I can't believe that someone on this august forum is suggesting that 'high-art music' (whatever is meant by that!) has not the sacramental about it, and doesn't form the minds of youth to Godliness and a love of Jesus. This is preposterous. On the contrary, the music which the writer likely has in mind leads the minds of all ages to Jesus and Godliness more surely than any other - and the gifted people who wrote/write it received their gift from Jesus. Their work, then, is Jesus' gift to us - young and old alike.

In fact, I'm wondering just what our esteemed member means by 'high-art music'. Is he (is he really) suggesting that our patrimony of sacred music is not, simply, music that is sacred, but is 'high-art' and, therefore, spiritually worthless to youth? Perhaps he means that 'low-art' or 'no art at all' is the only thing appropriate for young minds. If so, he has plenty of company - company which shouldn't be teaching youth and projecting their own ignorance onto others, nay, infecting them with it, bacillus-like.

This reminds me of those who, with obvious disdain and ill-camouflaged contempt, refer to our western musical heritage as 'European art music', not as music. If anything can be tagged as 'art' it is worthless in the minds of these babbits.

Pax Melodious doesn't say so in so many words, but it is evident that, since "the text matters", it would need to be in the vernacular. Latin is, evidently, for Sunday-only choristers.

So, let me address myself directly to PAX,

What evidence have you that children can't learn and don't want to learn something beautiful and time-honored to honor God?

(minor comment)

Singing every week at Mass gives a much higher chance of this choir to getting started and growing. Singing the Ordinary of the Mass gives them an importance. Sing special music once a month doesn't, in my poor opinion.

You're implying that chant and polyphony don't help people love Jesus.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha right back. That's not what I said.

What I said is that the objectives of the choir should drive the selection of material.

High-art musical works, which are typically based on liturgical rather than scriptural sources, CAN lead people to a personal relationship with Jesus. My experience is that they have a chance of doing so for about a quarter of the general population. The other three quarters may well be able to parrot the words and tune, but won't be affected by the music, and if they find themselves remembering bits of it later in the week or later in their lives they won't have access to the meaning (as opposed to the syllables) AT THAT TIME because the handy side-by-side translations won't be available then.

This proportion varies widely across culture (eg many Polish immigrants in the UK are delighted to have got away from the classical church at home, and are far more moved by Hillsong and the like).


But all this is moot, because one of the objectives of the choir is to evangelise the families, not just the children. So all the statements about children of that age being willing and able to learn anything and not having baggage, while true, are irrelevant.

I never said anything about the vernacular either. Well chosen materials in various languages, including the first-languages of the families, absolutely should be part of the material of a choir like this. So should "some" Latin. But not all of anything.

The plan is for them to learn the ICEL chant Mass in Greek/Latin for starters and sing that at Mass, along with other things, yet to be decided. I was hoping for some guidance on this. They would sing once a month at the cathedral and on other weeks at other churches in the city, if asked.
I'm encouraged by those who have found that children pick up Latin readily. At the moment we have in the city Polish/Spanish/French/African/Irish etc etc choirs. That's all fine, but we would like to encourage people to come and sing together rather than separately. Hopefully starting with the children might help achieve this.

A lovely carol, a delight for all ages and particularly enjoyed by children, is 'The Snow Lay on the Ground' with its venite adoremus refrain. It, a 'traditional carol' arr. by Leo Sowerby, may be found at no. 41 in The Hymnal 1940.

Also, give consideration to no. 34 in the same hymnal. 'Unto us a Boy is Born', sung to Puer nobis nascitur , with its fun melismatic final cadence is much loved by children.

But all this is moot, because one of the objectives of the choir is to evangelise the families, not just the children. So all the statements about children of that age being willing and able to learn anything and not having baggage, while true, are irrelevant.

So the choir's like doughnuts, after Mass, to evangelize?

That's simply not the role of a Catholic Choir singing at Mass.

Kids love chant.
salve regina,
regina caeli,
dies irae,
panis angelicus
etc.
Teach them the chant hymns. They love them!

For motets I like to do the famous ones like Ave maria, Panis Angelicus, jesu joy of man's desiring.

and then hymns in english are great but I also like to do the rounds that exist out there. They are so much fun!

Enjoy!
Check out my chant tube idea, I'm finding it's working.
I wish I had a choir that was of such a small age range. That sounds like a really nice thing to teach.

We did a rosary procession the other day and sang the pilgrimage version of the Ave Maria and the chant for Gloria Patri, and Pater Noster.
THEY LOVED IT!

Thanks for suggestions.
Yes, this initiative comes from the cathedral but the choir will be drawn from three primary schools one of which is in a 'deprived' area. Another is in a posh part of town. The third is sort of average, though close to the university and, interestingly, has a high proportion of Muslim pupils who attend a Catholic school because their parents value the faith-based ethos. The head teacher gives them a room to pray in. Not sure if any of these children will join the choir.
We do want to evangelise, by drawing in families who are hitherto not involved with the church. This has been proved to work in Leeds.
And we will focus on chant, but other suggestions are interesting too. We'll see how it goes