I use 3 ring binders, and just put up with the waste of paper. I also waste CDs, because I make practice recordings for every Mass we do.

All of this is on our website, but you can't sing from a website during Mass. You can't make little notes on your page without putting it on paper first. And you can't listen to the website on your car stereo.

I saw a show on TV (the Grammies from last year?) where Wynton Marsalis's group (IIRC) was using electronic screens for all their music. All I wondered about was how they got the licensing rights to do that.

Someday....

Wait, I forgot how every year OCP and WLP change the numbers in the music issues and how there are different numbers in the choral editions and in the pew editions, ensuring that half the choir is looking at the wrong number, especially the basses.

I gave up on the paper some years ago. It was driving me nuts. Even though I am not always fond of it, I use RitualSong. Other than an anthem, if it's not in RS, I don't use it. However, I am looking forward to the day when the new translations are published so I can get a new hymnal.

Gregp - How did you ensure that the singers were looking in the right column? (Just kidding, of course.)

Well, churches in my diocese are going to the big PPT screens. That certainly saves paper, but it destroys something else.

Oh no, not the "big screen sing-along"! This is the bane of evangelical worship, especially because the slides are always fouled up somehow. Not to mention the sports-bar effect that a giant screen gives. You need to form tactical squads for stealth wire-pulling prior to Masses. The next thing we'll have is super-titles for Father in case he mumbles.

Well, MS or no, our cathedral uses them as do some of the better funded churches in town. Guess they didn't bother to check the documents. One music director is convinced that more people are singing now that they don't have to fumble through hymnals (and posits that looking up helps the sound). It's not for me though...

Never the projector! Ultimate in tacky! (posted with my new iPod Touch on my new wireless network - this ain't easy!)

This is sad. Their minds and eyes are focused on what? How far is this explicity going to rob our minds from our liturgy ?
Why are catholics so obsessed with their horrible singing, without knowing how, what and why they are singing for?

"very faithful Catholics are simply doing what they have learned to do and quite obediently."

That's the sad part. it's not their fault that they are misinformed. It's not their fault someone comes saying we are singing strange language when they hear latin. It's not their fault you have all kinds of stuff, including the clown mass and hollwoeen mass, they think they are praying, even those who do liturgical dance, they claim they pray when they dance with their body. maybe they do. It's not their fault at all. I never blame them. But I do feel sorry.
In this forum we are here to promote sacred music, both vernacular and latin. When we point out negative things, it 's not to blame people, (some people here seem to mistakenly take that way.) but oftentimes it is a necessary step to improve practices of the liturgy and help the church. I believe that's why we are here. To gether ideas to help each other and help our church with sacred music as best as we can. What I said in the above post I don't see anything wrong. I see a deep connection between the negative consequences and promoting congrregational singing as an end in itself, disregarding 'internal active participation' and MDs being judged by the number of the people and volume of the singing. We've already opened to pop-sacro music and non -catholic texts to our litrugy for that reason, what next? (singing in vernacular or latin is not a issue here. Of course there are lots of beautiful sacred music in vernacular, which are overshadowed by 'other kinds of music'.)
We need to stop and think why? We are in a position where we can be misleading others in the church very seriously more than others in the pew.

That Vatican document wouldn't have forbidden projectors in church unless someone had tried using them already in the '50s.

So people who don't want to pick up their hymnals, wouldn't 'mind' singing, because of the projectors?
There is a line between 'encouraging' and 'imposing' singing on congregation. I'm sure there are some exceptional cases, you have nothing but using something projectors and screens. And you ask for a permission from the church or bishops to do so. But let's not take that kind of exceptional cases as a norm.

Singing is for lovers, who are in love with God, not with gagdets and projectors.
In order for people to experience the love of God, they need to experience the beauty of the liturgy, starting from listening to the truths and receiving the truths as the truths.
I really don't believe forcing people who don't want to sing will help them at all, just mislead them that singing is the end in itself. Isn't that what happened last 40 years, using pop style music and pretty, poetic, but ambiguous texts to promote the idea of congregational singing? Ok, I think the catholics got the idea about singing, I think it's time to provide real liturgical music, from which people can experience the beauty and grace from God.

There is a line between 'encouraging' and 'imposing' singing on congregation.

Agreed, and when we can return in our parishes to a body of music that is uniform and not constantly changing, singing will improve. How frustrating it is now when we cannot memorize the words to a hymn because there are multiple versions of it extant, some claiming to be "up-to-date" based on the "latest findings in hymn scholarship" or whatever!? Put the same hymn as found in Adoremus next to two different disposable missallettes and you might end up with three slightly different versions of the same hymn!

But we need to get away from hymns at Mass anyhow.

I am not convinced congregational singing is as critically important as most make it out to be.

mjb - I'm with you on the sheet protectors if for no other reason than it's easier to turn pages!

francis - agreed marking the music can be a problem, but I try to get everything marked up in advance and use the protectors when we're ready to go. I have some nice chorus folders that have elastic bands to hold octavos and a hand strap to hang on to the whole thing.

Congregational singing will happen when the congregation wants to sing.

If you don't like E-books in the church use, provided you can afford it, just for practice use, maybe. I use a big easel to practice in the choir room for the children, but I wouldn't use it in the mass.

That's the beauty of e-ink: it's readable just like ink on paper. Incredible technology, if a bit slow in refresh time right now. Definitely the wave of the future.

I am convinced that congregational singing is critically important no matter what most people believe. Can one not suppose that before breaking the bread and blessing the wine at His last sup, that all present, perhaps even the conflicted betrayer who did so (if for nothing else fear of the Lord) obligingly, took up the singing of the Psalms before the One they professed as Messiah, Son of God, instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice? I speak and sing for myself only. I likewise do not invoke the presumptive beliefs of others, nor inflict mine upon the needs or wants of others. Whether they sing is up to them. God sent us His very best. If others wish to join me in singing my praise and gratitude in returning the blessing in song, I believe they'll be the better for it. That seems exemplative of a covenent relationship, one based upon the touch of senses, not by mailing it in by proxy exclusively.

So as not to have ignored the thread, MusicPad is, IMO, a grossly, extravagantly priced laptop with a dedicated foot pedal. God bless whichever software genius patents and enables regular laptops to function as they do with USB ported pedals.

I don't care about 1958 bans, jumbotrons in any RC Church for any reason, particularly for eliminating books, is an abomination. And they don't necessarily work even in Prot/EV megachurches; I've seen plenty of those congregations with half their mouths pursed while the praise team works the crowd with the latest "Shine, Jesus, Shine."

As far as paper management goes; ask some of your choristers to help out with regular and mundane library tasks. Many will come forward. It's not like wearing a hairshirt or anything.

Lastly, a pox on OCP and any other house that shifts its whole hymnal program every four years while declaring it's in our best interest to update said resources to include new, worthy product. I don't mind the marketing, I mind the hypocracy.

"Congregational singing will happen when the congregation wants to sing." No truer words have been said. Thomas Day tried to pinpoint the reason that Catholics don't sing (I think his title is off, but catchy) but ascribed a bit too much to a cultural tradition that most younger Catholics don't even know. I'm pretty sure that most people don't sing the stuff that's on the hymn board because they are embarrassed to do so. We all know that congregational singing improves with traditional hymns and the chants that people know (important caveat). There seems to be a disconnect though. My observation has been that people will "fight to the death to preserve music that they won't sing." We are a strange bunch.

CCA - 100% agreement about the jumbotrons. I've visited a mongo-sized protestant church equipped with them and I feel like I'm right back in the office. Nothing has ever hit me as being so secular in my life, including the Budweiser t-shirts some people wear to Mass. At the same time, it is tough to figure how to encourage the folks to provide the singing you (and I) would like to hear. I wonder if anybody has ever equipped a Catholic church with an audio measuring system to really categorize when and what they're singing.

MO - Very valid point. My grandparents were Irish, but imbued in their eldest son a love of and ability with song which he subsequently passed along as well. So much for the "Irish are quiet" theory. I think you're right that embarrassment stops folks in their tracks. Our "teen Mass" isn't much for participation. People are given a sheet with the words but no clue as to the music. So it's no more vocal than any other.

Mike, seriously, it wasn't about my joint...
I guess it must be Florida-Is-Off-the-Charts Day in CatholicLand, and that held sway over your assessments, just as does a decent Meritage over mine. (Speaking of which, Spain, along with Argentina, is rolling in Wine Spectator kudos.)
I'm so.....conflicted.....Spain/Chicago.....libraries/singing polyphony with m'wife 'n' CMAA friends.....going to the market daily for vegetables/strolling the Miracle Mile.....I dunno.
The checking of the watches thing I ascribe, with the righteous voice of James Earl Jones or inheritor Laurence Fishburne, to the tyranny of either A. the Sunday Obligation; B. the Sunday Obligation; C. the Sunday Obligation; D. wet grits warm homiletics; E. All of the above.
Think about it, you, MJB, and that chubby Keith Emerson guy that used to be in a Naples' parish with the Korg Armada, all in the same state? It does take the mind away from Mahoneyville somewhat, eh?

Well, folks, I may be putting together my own hymnal. (Have I gone mad??!!)

Thinking of something like this:

1. Ordinary
2. Chant
3. Psalms & Canticles
4. Hymns & Songs
5. Simple Motets & Polyphony

These sections would each have their own index. This would allow me to update the hymnal if I really wanted to, section by section. Also, it shows the order of importance for music in the liturgy. For section four, I would put traditional hymns first and then contemporary music at the very back. I might even make a separate contemporary hymnal since we have a yearly license for P&W and then it would not infect the integrity of the main hymnal.

Initially, I am thinking plastic spiral bound.

Thoughts? Warnings? Encouragement?

Adam, what is that?

I just wrote a little blog on the kindle2... could be a great application for it... http://voxfeminaesacra.blogspot.com/2009/02/cool-new-gadget.html