Yeow, JT.

This is a very dif subject. If I was independently wealthy, I would require little just to be able to offer my services and play the part, so to speak. However, I have five kids. Catholic music positions don't cut it for supporting a family at this point in time, at least not here in Baltimore. I think you have to scale the pay depending on locale.

The AGO tries to give some guidelines to this area, but I find very few Catholic positions on their boards. I am sure money is one of the reasons. There are very few positions that I would even consider in my own city because I refuse to play the piano for Mass or use Gather. If we all went on strike, maybe they would burn the hymnals? (not likely).

I had a wonderful position as DOM in a Benedictine church. But they were dirt poor. I was hoping to establish an authentic music program, but they couldn't even think of affording one. I regretted resigning, and I imagine they regretted loosing my services.

We recently had a position open at the Cathedral here which was an assistant to the DOM. I think it was offering 30 or 40k and was more than full time, you can be sure. In general, the church doesn't take it's music programs seriously. If it did, it would back them up with money.

I remember applying for a DOM at the Seminary in the 80's. They were offering 12k for a full time music position. I recall that I wrote them a letter gently scolding them.

I had another position that paid close to what a professional should command, but they insisted on the usual banal music. I was hoping to wean them over to 'real' church music. It was hopeless.

In the end, I think I would accept less for a parish that wants authentic music, but I can't find one.

Anyway, here's my answer.

organist - 40-60k (depending on age/experience)
choir director - 50 - 80k (depending on age/experience)
singer - $75 per hour (liturgy), $50 per hour (rehearsal) (singers and instrumentalists are paid way too little)
paid singers - section leaders are plenty - but they should be able to hold section rehearsals
annual budget - 150-200k or more!
music librarian can be rotated by volunteers in the choir

I think as a start, a full time music director should receive compensation equal to the income of the average working member of the community.

So, it could fairly be quite grand or quite meager.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

I say all should be consolidated as possible to provide for consistency. I've read too much complaining about organists who can't play chant or having to work with unskilled directors to think it's a good idea to have split positions. As for pay, the AGO scale is a must. I abide by it (or have an adequate understanding that the parish absolutely CANNOT pay me the required salary) or I don't take the job. I disagree with Michael on availability. Playing for weddings and funerals is part of the job. If you don't like it, get another profession. We, like doctors (apt, eh?) are paid to be "on call". I've had to cancel many a fun weekend due to a saturday funeral, but it's business as usual. I should add that at my job I'm guaranteed a certain amount per year in weddings and funerals. If I do not make this amount, the parish makes up the difference. I think this is a great idea that more parishes should adopt, since this can be a substantial amount of our salaries.

By the way, thank you Francis for providing numbers. They strike me as more or less right. Of course, wages are not really a matter of justice unless coercion is involved; this really is a matter of supply and demand. And here, the circumstances of time and place vary enormously. The directors of our schola at my parish are completely unpaid. I'm not complaining but I also recognize that this is not a viable model in a regular parish. The problem is getting pastors to understand that free music forever is not going to sustain a high quality sacred music program over the long term.

Gavin, at the risk of giving unwarranted attention to your snide remark, what doctors do you know that are barely making middle-class income?

$250k? Wow, that is amazing. Most parishes I have worked for really do music on the cheap. They are abetted by workshop people who brainwash cantors into believing that they should not take money and that it is a ministry. That thinking undermines all professionalism in church music. At a previous parish, the choir members were required to purchase their own Choral Praise copies and the DM relied heavily on photocopies of octavos -- needless to say I am not there anymore.

I think a decent guideline for DM's who don't also have to play organ -- btw I disagree. I've never liked being a chorister and having to follow an organist who is playing. Untrained singers have a much harder time with this than I do -- is to look at what the local HS choral director makes. I think the job is roughly equivalent in time and effort as well as training.

How about scholas for hire? What's fair compensation there?

Gavin,

I don't think you're understanding me. What I'm saying is that parishes should either pay the musician a fee that truly lives up to what is expected of him, or they should give him sufficient freedom to support himself via additional means.

Pes wrote
How about scholas for hire? What's fair compensation there?

Just one quartet's experience: we often get $400 to sing a service (including prelude) in a Protestant church. Usually choir directors want us to sing selections from our repertory (Renaissance, Baroque, and classical) and also to join the church's choir for a couple of anthems.

Catholic churches? Typically they expect to pay nothing when we join their choirs for Vesper services and ordinations or provide music for a diocesan Mass.

I have mixed feelings about singing for free . . . but we do it because we want to take our repertory into Catholic parishes so the faithful can hear music from the church's own tradition.

John M,

I don't punch a time clock, and am full-time and salaried. I'm also expected to put in odd hours that "accordion" according to the program year. That's not news to anyone who works for the Church. Church music is a very jealous spouse, and I'm lucky to have the precious odd hours off. I'm expected to function within the paradigm of being available at odd hours, and yet I'm held to the same standard as other staff in terms of vacation days, personal days, sick days, etc. Fortunately I'm single and have no social life to speak of, so I can be available at odd hours. I'm not saying that to complain or gain sympathy, I'm just stating the matter of things for me.

The REAL issue comes down to a complete misunderstanding on the part of the Church, either at the parish or diocesan level, which is this: we church musicians aren't being paid for "face time" or "clock on the wall" time. We don't fit the paradigm of either the 9-5 Monday through Friday desk job, or even the 40 hour per week job. We're being paid for what we are able to produce, apart from the actual "bench time" we spend as organists, or the time we spend rehearsing and directing ensembles. Some weeks we're at the church for as little as 25 - 30 hours a week (especially during the summer or "off-program" times) or 55 - 60 hours a week (Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter). In my situation, there's precious little incentive to be there all the time, because there's little support for the work I do. Often the programs I'm trying to develop are challenged, undermined or sabotaged because it doesn't fall in line with the limited scope and vision of the typical suburban parish. It becomes as much a morale issue as a financial or HR issue. Why should I work to "earn" my salary when the work I do is not unlike trying to build a sand castle at high tide . . . get the tower built and here comes the surf to pull it down.

I've spent, between money from my parents and my own, countless thousands of dollars and at least 15 years of my early adult life acquiring degrees and building my professional skills, only to have the likes of David Haas and the NPM repeatedly pour scorn on the "professional class" musicians in favor of marginally trained "pastoral musicians". So many times the American Church has bought into the idea that it's more important that people who serve in music positions mean well as amateurs than work hard to bring professional quality and standards to the music used in the liturgy. I'd love nothing more than to pull down $60,000 (plus benefits) but it's simply never going to be a reality. All that a fair number of priests and HR types see is when you're on the bench, in front of the choir or behind your desk, and that's all they think they're paying for. They simply have no clue what kind of creative effort goes into the work we do, and even less of a clue how much work we did to get where we are, or how much energy the whole effort takes both on and behind the scenes.

Don't get me wrong. For the most part I've been fairly generously treated by my employers as far as financial arrangements are concerned, but the reality is I'll never, ever be able to replace the money I spent to get my degrees, and am facing the practical reality that I will have to work pretty much until I die, because no matter how frugally I live, my salary is now, and always will be, hand-to-mouth. Neither the AGO, nor any other professional organization, is going to be able to correct the problem until the work we do is taken seriously.

And here is where getting a priest to the CMAA Colloquium can and will make all the difference. Here they witness first hand what goes into making music, that it is not as easy as pushing a button on an iPod, that it requires long rehearsals, vast preparation, and requires rare skill. The priests who have attended go back home and rearrange their priorities.

I know that only a tiny minority will ever be inspired to attend but if there is a way to get them there, it can make all the difference. In this respect, the Colloquium is a better and more fruitful experience than a priest-training workshop.

A pastor once offered me what I though was an enormously generous hourly rate.
After a bit of conversation, I realized that he thought directing the choir took 2 1/2 hours a week -- an hour rehearsal and preparation, and an hour and a half for Mass.
After I stopped laughing, I said -- your sermon only takes about 5 minutes -- so does it take you five minutes to write it?
You could almost see the light bulb go off over his head.

Lawrence, I wasn't suggesting that the amount of compensation be related to the size of the parish, but to the average parishioner's life. A full time MD, whether at a wealthy suburban enclave or at a dirt poor urban parish should be able to afford a life-style more or less comparable to that of the other members of the community.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

My thinking too!

We have so many resources with the CMAA and those in the know. I have worked in the marketing/communications/publishing industry for many years and can provide production to any type of publication, CD, DVD that we would want to distribute. I know the workshops are a great way to get the music into parishes, but education for the priests is key. We had a priest friend of our over last night for dinner. My wife asked him about the EF but time to study is an issue. Training in the seminaries is critical. There needs to be a 'path', a well thought out series of resources that drive to the same end; a sort of matrix that tackles this issue from the different persona that approach the subject. Priest, Deacon, DOM, CD, organist, cantor, chorister, congregant, etc. It means educating each from their own perspective and have a meeting of the minds for each of them. It's a tall order, but I am not aware of anything quite like that.

Oh, there's money there, you just have to be a priority. A neighboring parish with a thriving life teen program (2 masses) pays the band $75 per player x 4, sometimes x 5. That's minimum $600 a WEEK just for the band.

Paul

Ah.. the LifeTeen movement. Ian, it is a phenomenon here where mostly adults play in very loud rock bands at Mass for young people. There is almost no congregational singing as we understand it, but it is very popular. Frankly I don't see how the "active participation" crowd has allowed it to flourish. Maybe they feel its the only way to get teenagers and young college students to come to Mass. It is most certainly a living definition of the colloquialism "flash in the pan."

Not to sound cynical, although it most certainly is: they are probably hoping that God will help us so they don't have to.

I'm not sure why this thread was revived after 5 years in cold storage, but, in re the above-

Ah.. the LifeTeen movement. Ian, it is a phenomenon here where mostly adults play in very loud rock bands at Mass for young people. There is almost no congregational singing as we understand it, but it is very popular. Frankly I don't see how the "active participation" crowd has allowed it to flourish. Maybe they feel its the only way to get teenagers and young college students to come to Mass.

This recent article is VERY relevant.