Singing High - A Form of Penance?!?
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    In certain ecclesiastical circles I run with, there's a very strong tendency to sing the psalms during the Divine Office (whether using the modes ofrecto tono) at a tessitura which borders on stratospheric. Those in charge of leading the chant claim that this is a form of penance which makes us understand how much of a struggle it is to please God with our human efforts.

    Is this really a thing? I know communities that follow this practice without exception and I know others that think it's a load of bunk. Your thoughts as musicians?
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,325
    I think it's a load of bunk.
    Thanked by 7Casavant Organist CCooze Andrew_Malton ClergetKubisz igneus CHGiffen PaxMelodious
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Bunk!

    Rubish!

    Balderdash, too!
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Is one of your legs longer now?
  • music123
    Posts: 100
    Yeah, I'm going with "load of bunk." Also possibly damaging to the vocal cords. Just not good all around.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    I think that there's more pride than penance involved.
    A or Bb is fine for a reciting tone, for average voices.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,981
    Bunk, although I did threaten to firmly squeeze a certain tenor's privates if it would get him up on pitch. He laughed, got the note, and I didn't have to follow through with it.
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    Or also: Ab, G, or F# are fine for a reciting tone, for average voices.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,315
    In the ICRSS, Bb is now the seminary reciting tone. A is often the house reciting tone, but at Lauds, we sang it even down to F# depending on how bad our morning voices were, since the rector had perfect pitch. Otherwise, he would have given A again. The only problem is that Tenebrae and the Officium Defunctorum are then the same as Lauds is normally, but Sext, Vespers, and Compline were lower, because A was never a problem later in the day.

    I now tend to prefer a higher pitch, because if it’s lower, it is just that much harder for everyone. At Mass, A is a nice pitch to sing the dialogues; that way people in the pews can sing under, and those who match pitch more easily can do so neatly.
  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 390
    The monastery I didn't enter also sings very high (at least seen from my very-small-range-point-of-view), but I believe it has nothing to do with the penance "load of bunk".
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    A place I went to for a while early mornings sang recto tono for the Office of Readings, and boy they had to start high or we'd be in our boots by the end. Lose a major third or even more on a longer psalm.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Roth - I've seen the little diagram used by the Institute, notating on what pitch to start each antiphon in order to achieve the reciting tone of Bb.

    What provides an exercise in charity and patience is when there is an arbitrary changing of pitch during recto tono recitation of the Office. When someone thinks the whole group is going flat. These are the times when it's good to have an objective measure of this sort of thing, i.e., pitch pipe.

    I'd be interested to know whether certain order which tend to pitch high in their recitation of the Office/Mass tend more towards the "high" or "low" aspect of liturgy. Roth's community is known to be the former, and they pitch high. But I know other communities that also pitch high where the opposite is the case. A friend in a community of Augustinian Canons claimed his superior visited one of these seminaries - and his comment was that Vespers was 'too high and too slow'.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,315
    Yep. It’s also annoying when one person is much better at matching pitch than the others, or when the tone of a singer’s voice is misleading in regards to pitch.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,100
    singers forced to sing too high for their range 'as a penance' ?

    it's a penance for those who have to listen to them!
    Thanked by 5CharlesW a_f_hawkins CHGiffen StimsonInRehab igneus
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