I think the concept of "liturgical" versus actual East was not so much brought about by scholars but by architects: A side altar might not face East, and if the property did not permit a building to be built with the altar along the East-West axis, that created a problem and the main altar would not face East (either versus apsidem or versus populum). I don't think that "Liturgical East" really came into its own until around the 16th century, when new parish churches were being built in already heavily-populated towns and cities: I don't know of any Mediaeval churches that are not built on an East-West axis with the main altar facing East (real Mediaeval churches not neo-Gothic churches from the 19th century). Of course, I wouldn't blame Trent for that: I would, though, blame the Renaissance equivalent of the city planner and building inspector.

It's not so much a question of preserving a tradition insofar as Ad Orientem is concerned after Vatican II---its a question of iconoclasm in the name of progress by a small elite. I have seen no record of the average parishioner or average priest or even bishop clamoring for Versus Populum celebration on the eve of the council: it came afterward, in a wave of clericalism from an elite group of modernist liturgists, who were able to convince a bunch of gullible bishops and priests that this was "what the Pope wanted", and in their ultramontanist hyperpapalist jesuitical obedience to the person of the Pope did it, and for those who resisted, their communist curates did it for them by vandalism in the middle of the night. (I have heard many horror stories of curates who smashed high altars and sawed down baldachinos in the middle of the night to force an elderly pastor's hand to "get with the times".) Not to mention that the defunct ICEL translations of the GIRM didn't help matters.

Unfortunately, in the West, unlike the East, a cult surrounds the person of the Pope so much that he is oft seemed to be as the Oracle of Delphi : for many priests and bishops trained in the "Old Church", obedience was taught in such a way that all that was needed was the words "the Pope wishes it" to be uttered and it was done without a second thought lest those who 'disobey' cut them selves off from the Unity of Faith.

@heartfeltsong I've had little time to examine further comments apart from your first opening thread worthy comment so I am responding to that directly.

I am an organist. (Not really.)
I am first and foremost a bassoonist by undergraduate degree; my post-graduate degree enabled me to wear the hat of choral conductor with a degree, and my other post-graduate degree enables me to wear the hat of "teacher."
Can I play the organ for the liturgy at the standard of musicianship of a grand concert organist? No.
Can I play the organ for the liturgy at the standard of musicianship it takes to understand the purpose and style required? Yes.
Would my standard of musicianship compare to that of a grand concert organist? On occasion yes.
Now, I don't have the same technical ability as those fancy organists do but what I do have is a solid grasp of the purpose of liturgical organ music and sometimes I execute this knowledge better than (some of) the grand concert "pomp and pride" organists.

Would playing the organ qualify me to take a choir... probably not. Does taking the choir to qualify me to play the organ. Absolutely not. These are separate skills I have to master and I must admit I've preferred taking on roles which involve co-operation with conductors and organists both more qualified and completely unqualified to do these roles. I just love the learning that takes place.

If by solo singing you are referring to cantors or a motet I can't see any issue. That being said, if there is the opportunity to do a choral motet with polyphony I'd rather do that than have a dramatic opera singer taking "the stage" to sing like an olympian.

Tasteful, liturgical, solo singing - got no problem with it. Accompany it all the time. (and am apparently the first accompanist being asked to play louder because the singer - despite her qualification - unfortunately sounds like a prima donna and changes the words to suit her buddhist belief.) I would enjoy accompanying the appropriate singer with the appropriate liturgical solo, can't see the harm - but I rehearse a community choir for a reason - to let them sing beautifully and learn how to read music and soar in communion.

But hey, I'm a nerd. I do all this and hope NOBODY APPLAUDS IN CHURCH!

WELCOME friend! We always need more trained vocalists.

Jes, I think you are correct that we could use more trained vocalists. Unfortunately, vocalist training as it exists in our universities and colleges is singing for the stage or the opera. Not much emphasis at all on church singing.

I enter with trepidation, especially as this discussion seems to struggle to stay on topic...

I'm an organist with a BMus (organ perf. & mus. ed.) and MMus (organ/sacred music), who has sung in choirs of varying quality since I was a kindergartner (so, 30ish years). This includes a current stint singing with an excellent early music choir here in Birmingham directed by another organist-singer who has similar training to me, but a Yale DMA and was associate director of music at a residential choir school. I also was a member of the top choral ensemble (section leader in one) at the two major universities I attended. Some observations (replete with some generalizations, hopefully not as many as the OP, but hey, this is anecdotal, so here goes):

1) Obviously, an organ degree does not make you a good singer or choral director;
2) Generally, playing the organ is going to put you in contact with a lot of choral music. If you are smart, you pay attention and learn, and even go study on your own with someone you see that seems to have it together.
3) It's difficult to be any good at all with the organ without a solid music theory background, which is also an essential skill for a choral trainer.
4) Most organists do NOT have voice lab as students, which I think should be a part of programs. I missed having this. On the other hand, now we have...the interwebz.
5) Not very many people take up the organ, since it is (I think without exception) the most challenging instrument to play. So, it takes lots of time to prepare for your degree...I think schools are wary of loading people up too much (with things like vocal ped, which is, admittedly, another instrument).
6) Most organists DO have to take practicums in leading church music programs, and these are often very thorough and leave you prepared to lead in most Protestant denominations. Some also include a Catholic component. Almost all include some sort of reading of chant, even if it's not super in-depth. You are at least aware!
7) Most organists do have accompanimental duties in university if they are on scholarship, with instrumentalists and/or singers. I wish I had had singers instead of saxophone and trombone...that rep is...not fun.
8) It is difficult to get a degree without satisfying all of the above. On the other hand,...
9) It is very possible to get a degree in voice (or even a terminal degree in voice) without doing ANY of the above (excepting #4). How do I know this? My wife has a BMus and MMus in voice, and while a fantastic singer and good musician, had to do a lot of this on her own. I have many friends who have likewise suffered from this. It is also big business to get people to pay their own way in vocal programs, something very uncommon for an organist.
9a) I live in a major metropolitan area and direct (I like to think) a reasonably good semi-pro Cathedral choir. I have a TERRIBLE TIME finding pro singers who have solid fundamentals as musicians, even after they have a degree and/or years of experience. Even those that do sometimes have substantial pedagogical issues that I have to help correct (vowel inconsistencies, poor production, unhealthy vocal habits, bad placement, the whole nine yards). We only have a few in our group, so they have to be really good and they have to work very hard. In exchange, I can make things reasonably lucrative for them, and try to be sure they know they are more than just a monthly expense to me.
10) Vocalists often seem to struggle to understand that being in a choir should indicate that they intend to submit their vocal gifts to the larger whole. This seems a very basic idea for any ensemble. If they can understand this, do it well, and still work on the solo singing, they will have a decent job. The ones I have like this probably can make quite a bit every year just from weddings, for example. At the same time, those that cannot adjust seem relegated to a life of singing for whatever parish will take them. I think of one person in particular here in town who really fits this description. There always seems to be an issue wherever this person goes...but there is but one common thread...

Anyhow, this is a big time TL;DR, I know. Compounding all these issues is the fact that salaries have remained stagnant in our field for over a decade, we are constantly being asked to do more with less, and yet lip service is paid to "high standards" by clergy and professional organizations alike. I have a couple excellent private organ students, including one who is an amazing keyboard talent. Do I want to recommend this career to him? Not sure. So, who knows? Maybe there will be lots more openings soon. I pray we have the people (organists or vocalists...doesn't matter to me!), but I'm not optimistic.

@mmeladirectress present tense... priest not okay... but can't do anything til the bishop bothers to put him in charge of the parish.

@CharlesW agreed. Where have the sacred music courses gone? I was going to study one in melbourne straight out of school but it shut the year I applied. 30 people applied and it shut down because that was not enough to run the course. So sad.

Heartfelt, wherever you are, the sun still rises in the east. Muslims change their direction of prayer according to their location, but we generally don't.

The churches of the Near East also face east: the gesture seems to predate Christianity, but has gained an eschatological meaning, focused on the New Jerusalem symbolized by the rising sun.

Jerusalem is East from Jericho, if you're willing to go the long way.

Jes, I studied music in a Baptist university. The praise & worship people were around, but some of the faculty were old school and wanted to promote good church music. It wasn't Gregorian chant, although we did touch on it, but stressed well-written and reverent music for use in worship.

OK - "The sun may always rise in the east" - but in Finland, where it will rise at some times in the NNE and sometimes SSE, the language has separate words for six compass points, not four.

@heartfeltsong An idea maybe?
7 years ago, I simultaneously experienced some of the same frustrations you describe, and “discovered” the Proper of the mass and the Roman Gradual.
I started singing the Proper of the Mass, sometimes in English (Adam Bartlett’s or Father Weber’s), often a-cappella, wherever a pastor and/or MD would let me. Seven years later, singing every week from the Roman Gradual, mostly a-cappella, has yielded the following benefits, mostly unexpected:
- better understanding of the liturgy and of the important place in it of the Roman Gradual,
- vocal and musical benefits: fluent sightsinging, no more need for voice lessons or coaching with piano. Chant is like honey for the voice.
- ability to help other singers constitute scholas
- appreciation from priests who can now decide to sing the mass, whatever their level of practice of doing so , and have a trained cantor to “answer them”, Tridentine or Novus Ordo (volunteer: no budget needed, especially for these expensive organists). We prayed a full Tridentine Triduum this year which was a very real and heartfelt sacramental experience to me.
- appreciation from organists who can complement the singing in liturgy, not support it or play “accompaniment”.
- much less time spent in rehearsal (better ratio mass/rehearsal with chant than with any other type of church music I ever sang)

If this intrigues you, please visit www.longbeachchant.com where I support my various chant projects.
I hopes this helps,

The Cathedral in Phoenix (originally a parish of Tucson), despite being built in a time of some interesting choices, does face east.

As a church music director, apart from choir members not showing up, there is nothing more frustrating than cantors who are unable to sing a responsorial psalm or similar music well after one or two read-throughs. This is especially true with paid cantors, but no less true with volunteers. The situation you describe with a cantor reading so poorly that he or she has to memorize the response in order to sing it decently, and the organist pounding out notes in the church shortly before Mass, is intolerable. Music directors hire cantors to make our work easier, not to create more work for ourselves. If there are lower expectations from volunteers and they are unwilling to learn the music on their own or meet with the organist during the week, they should find another way to serve the needs of the parish. Finally I remind you that Vatican II said that choirs including women are not to be placed in the sanctuary (Musicam Sacram 23), and GIRM 312 says that the schola cantorum is to be positioned so that its nature as part of the assembled community is clearly evident. Placing a mixed choir a few steps from the altar does not fulfill these requirements and contributed toward the liturgical distraction you mention.

MJOsborn:
Thank you for setting out the many considerations encountered in deciding who should do what. We had a talented keyboard player as MD (he just left) but he had no musicality. He played everything as fast as he could. I knew singing with him he wouldn't miss any notes but trying to shape things tempo-wise was another story. The new girl has a great deal of musicality but apparently could use some people skills. The prior fellow was a really nice guy.
I don't think we have addressed this issue--people skills and does "too much" musical learning and ability so isolate you from the people who'll be working with you to make it hard to empathise and thus communicate. I guess being an organist or a vocalist has little to do with it but I would think one who sings can better appreciate other singers' needs.
Then too, is the MD's job to be inclusive or exclusive? Does your parish want someone who facilitates musical expression in those wishing to participate or want the MD to be the bad guy telling less than sterling talents to get lost?

Thanks for this information, @a_f_hawkins. The document bears the heading
SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
MUSICAM SACRAM
INSTRUCTION ON MUSIC IN THE LITURGY
5 March, 1967
which is what I was going on, but you're absolutely right. The Council closed December 8, 1965, so anything after that obviously wasn't voted on by the Council Fathers, but it is nonetheless classified as a document of Vatican II.

If you want an instrument closer to voice I found the trumpet to be close

Actually, the oboe is the closest to the human voice. Some include the violin and cello, but the double reed of an oboe mimics vocal chords, and its diversity in expressiveness when played well is greater than all of the other musical instruments out there.

I thought the cantor was there because he/she had a special gift for presenting the psalms/hymns and was an enriching element. I never thought it was purely for the convenience of the MD. No wonder I'm confused over my role. Kind of makes me feel like the upstairs maid.

You're right. I'm sorry if I was a little harsh in how I phrased what I wrote. If you're trying to understand the organist's side, that's how a lot of us think.

I spent a number of years at an organist position where I was expected to show up for choir rehearsal and play whatever the choir director set out for me without any prior practice, which normally shouldn't be a problem for a professional musician. My successor had (and caused!) all kinds of problems there because he was unable to sight-read well. Apparently, he wasn't skilled at quick study either, as the choir director started giving him the music several days in advance and there were still wrong notes at rehearsal. I've experience similar problems with paid singers. Some sing wrong notes when they've had the music a week in advance and recordings at their disposal. BruceL's comments are right on target.

Wow, we're Rick Rolling people about oboes now?! LOL

...absolutely sight read...

Though I'm sure that Schonbergian is remarkable, the abilities he enumerates should not be at all remarkable. They should be taken for granted in anyone who thinks that he or she is a cantor. Why does someone who can't perform something as basic as a psalm and its responsory in three minutes (let alone a week!) even think of being a 'cantor'. And, why is he or she even put in that position? Such persons are not cantors - they are not what a cantor is.

Scintillating, Chuck -
And then there is what Mozart does with an oboe in slow movements.
I agree that the oboe is most like the human voice.
But it's a tie betwixt oboe and 'cello as to which is the most poetic.

Of course the Serpent also has a very vocal quality. Here's some Palestrina with lots of diminutions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Sbq-XL_VU

I did not have the pleasure of trying to play an oboe but have always loved the sound. I have no idea what sort of technique for producing the correct pitch is involved. I wasn't so much talking about how the instruments sound as how the sound is produced since that seemed to be the whole point in approving of the pipe organ. With the trumpet, not only is there a breath component but the physical manipulation of the lips to get the pitch which I felt made the instrument more voice-like not in sound but in production.
At least, as a vocalist I felt a definite connection. You sort of have to think like a singer to get it to work. (Please lets not quibble over vocabulary, okay? I know "work" isn't the best choice of words.)
I was and still am an excellent cantor. I do not accept your rejection of anyone who doesn't have all of the many qualifications you seem to think you deserve to have before allowing a person to participate in your music ministry. Most of them aren't necessary at all. One would hope having given cantors the music beforehand and gone over it that they would have enough pride to be sure to get it right. It's a sad state of affairs that doesn't happen for you. Sorry to hear it and I sympathize as it reflects on you. I always made sure I did whatever was necessary to be accurate.
For those who don't, is the solution to stop trying on your end to make it a possibility for them? Maybe you should ask them to record your rehearsal with them on their cell. When I was a sort of co-director for our choir I made up practice tapes for the choir to use to practice. I did the same when I prepared the kids at the Catholic school where I taught music twice weekly for the hymns at monthly kid Masses. I asked the teachers to have them sing with it once a day. People who have a whole week to forget what to do usually do forget. Many can't read or don't read accurately. They need to hear it.

Richard Mix
The organist I referred to already was paid a salaried position as music director. His overly loud playing was so over the top the pastor had techs come in to limit how loud the new organ would play so he wouldn't blow out the system. (That was one of the reasons the church needed a new one.) The price was so high (although the organist was able to cut it significantly by supplying the pipes from another organ he was able to access) that the whole focus of the church became to raise enough money to pay it off. The people who were at my Saturday Mass didn't want the purchase and unfortunately someone quipped to the priest that Saturdays were not days with the organ. That eventually spelled the end of my job as the organist started playing every other week
on Saturdays and told me the pastor was giving him extra pay to do it. (The organist requested it and got it.) Eventually I was cut out totally. I certainly can't feel there is any symbiosis between voice and organ at church although that, to me, would be the ideal.

The organist I referred to already was paid a salaried position as music director and … the pastor was giving him extra pay to do it. (The organist requested it and got it.) Eventually I was cut out totally. I certainly can't feel there is any symbiosis between voice and organ at church although that, to me, would be the ideal.

I have to agree it doesn't sound like a collegial relationship.

Oddly enough (in light of MJO's observations), I sang and thrived in the early (Renaissance) vocal music ensemble Zephyrus when I lived in Charlottesville, directed by Paul Walker (now on the faculty of Notre Dame), in an ensemble that ranged from 10-16 singers or so, and we rarely, if ever, had to resort to having parts played through on a keyboard (whether it be a piano, organ, or harpsichord). I had the distinct impression that Paul's (and soon to become my own) philosophy about learning a cappella choral music was best left to a cappella rehearsals. It helped that we were collegial enough to point out cheerfully or to be happy when corrected of occasional mistakes.