Does she receive a stipend on which she is partly dependent for her living? (That's about the only fact IMO that would potentially involve some additional consideration in terms of framing and timing.)

Can you give more information as to why you feel the need to dismiss her? If she is so instrumental (no pun intended) in the choirs, why is it necessary? Can you do retraining or recommend voice lessons to bring her up to your standards for cantoring? Can you have her step down temporarily till she can learn the skills she is lacking?

Word of advice: Do not succumb to any temptation to inform her by email or letter.

I would love to be in the position where I could pick and choose cantors. Currently, I have one cantor left after the others moved away.

Liam- No stipend
MatthewJ- I have avoided "reauditioning" but that seems like a wise idea now
Carol- Thanks for asking. It turns out that she was just beginning the process of learning to cantor- but did not actually cantor yet- when I arrived. She stepped in to show me the ropes even though they weren't always right! (lol)
Re responsorial psalms: thought many cantors still struggle with the unmetered chant verse, hers is very rigid and metered, almost accenting every work. Quite a few times she doesn't get the notes right or misses a line. In my opinion, the tone of her voice is not pleasant to listen to on the psalm tones or even refrain. I can only describe it like a laser beam, compact and forceful. I have worked with her to lift the palate, sing open (ahs), sing from the diaphragm, how to chant less forcefully and more naturally, but whether nerves or something else, when she goes up, she falls back to the previous habits. My biggest problem was she would slough it off and laugh afterwards and say, "Well, the important thing is that I tried." I understand this may be a way to protect herself from feeling bad.
Liam, Idek- Of course not. I understand.

Don- I actually do believe some help could get her closer to where she needs to be, but I do not enjoy working individually with her. There is a lot of time spent, but I am starting to get the feeling that I should be putting the time in with her.

I do not wish to work individually with her each week, but I would be open to helping her when she is scheduled to cantor. Or perhaps we could do a cantor workshop this summer. Or a weekly time where all the cantors rehease (we have 4 weekend masses). Comments, criticisms and ideas welcome.

This sounds like a person who could become a cantor with the right encouragement. If you are able to work with her on the psalm, that might be the best solution. I like the idea of a cantors' workshop and having cantors provide feedback to each other. I think having another cantor mentor her might also be useful if you have someone who could do it. If you do feel the need to actually let her go, I agree that having a third party sit in is a wise idea, especially if you are male and she is female and prone to crying- I would enlist a kind older woman to be there. I think if she doesn't already think of herself as a trained singer, encouraging her to take voice lessons doesn't tear her down. It recognizes that she has talent and desire but needs to work on real confidence, intonation, and expression in order to sing the psalm properly.

Don9of11 I don't cantor down front any more but when I did, I tried NOT to make eye contact. I kept my chin up, but I didn't want the focus to be on me as a person, but on the text of the psalm.

Don, that makes sense to me. As was the custom, I did have to raise my arm to indicate the response should be sung by all. I really prefer being up in the choir loft, as we currently do here. You are right, a lot varies from parish to parish.

I don't care for raising the arm (even though I did), after all you're supposed to be Catholic congregation, you ought to know what to do!

Carol, I love to sing in the choir loft. My first 30 years of singing in the choir was singing in St. Mary's choir loft. Now I'm being punished, I'm in the corner at St. Paul's...lol.(we don't have a choir loft)

Often, but not always. Depends on acoustical favorability of the space and congregation location in it. I've been in spaces where no amount of competent aural cues will do as well as the visual ones.

There is a certain cantor I remember in grad school who would conduct everyone with both hands at the beginning of each hymn and psalm refrain.

Musicam Sacram (my emphases)

21. Provision should be made for at least one or two properly trained singers, especially where there is no possibility of setting up even a small choir. The singer will present some simpler musical settings, with the people taking part, and can lead and support the faithful as far as is needed. The presence of such a singer is desirable even in churches which have a choir, for those celebrations in which the choir cannot take part but which may fittingly be performed with some solemnity and therefore with singing.

GIRM 104. It is fitting that there be a cantor or a choir director to lead and sustain the people’s singing. When in fact there is no choir, it is up to the cantor to lead the different chants, with the people taking part.
IGMR 104. Decet adesse cantorem vel magistrum chori ad cantum populi dirigendum et sustentandum. Immo, cum deficit schola, cantori competit diversos cantus moderari, populo pro sua parte participante

CGZ I agree definitions are needed, I don't think we now have them. Way beyond my responsibility, as a PIP in a small town in a tiny country, to provide them.
I would, however, suggest that "as far as needed" refers to relatively complex music assigned to congregations which if assigned to a choir would be conducted (a modern invention). I have been in congregations at special events in English Metropolitan Cathedrals where we needed conducting, but did not always get it.

Does God care?

Jackson,

You placed the "not" in the incorrect place, in my reading of the situation.

You wrote: "is not really intended to establish a definite guideline".

I think it is more correct to say, rather, "Is really intended NOT to establish a definite guideline".

The only other possibility, it seems to me, is that the rules can be applied in a Catholic way only by those who already have a Catholic heart.

I agree so much with the last post. Someone recently said to me (about another church choir) 'they had a go at the Hallelujah Chorus, and it really wasn't too bad'.
I would have found that Mass an Occasion of Sin (as they used to say to us at school) because I would have been incensed by what seems to have been the poor quality of the music. But unaccountably some people seem to feel that a have-a-go attitude is something to be desired. Maybe I am being elitist.

I do think there is a difference between people having the real capacity to do better (including aptitude, education, culture, money, books, teachers, etc.) and communities that simply have bigger fish to fry, or are so 'behind' in these things that to prohibit them singing unless they do well would be like banning children's school concerts on the grounds that they are often badly performed. They are edifying despite the badness, and the beginners have to begin at the beginning, and will give up in sorrow if not allowed some context in which to participate in things. And if there are none of the above-mentioned things, they may not ever get better. Aptitude is probably the only thing that is universally available. But without the rest it languishes.

But for instance, who is to tell the sisters at the convent down the street that their singing is like fingers on a chalkboard? They sing every Mass every day. They seem totally cheerful about it. They wail their way through hymn after hymn, with gusto. They've probably never heard anything else.

Should the parish that has had nothing but a guy on electric guitar and three ladies singing for decades just have silent Mass? No one sings along, usually, but apparently no one has complained (except me, privately, to God and to you).

The next parish down has no music at all unless it's a funeral and the family paid to have the keyboard player come; this despite being in a wealthy area and having a large congregation. Sometimes one of the more creative priests sings random things during the Mass - possibly in Greek or Hebrew, with melodies I don't know.

The sisters at the next convent over have no musicians but gamely sing strange "hymns" about fraternity and solidarity every morning.

I dare not go to Mass at the Jesuit place that's designed like an auditorium, with padded chairs and abstract art, lest it terrify me.

I'm pretty sure some of the folks that listen to us chant the propers at the EF every Sunday wish we would sing some fun hymns instead. Even some of the priests have asked us to. The schola director rigidly refuses, on the grounds that if you give an inch, they'll take a mile and in a short time all chant will be replaced by an EF four-hymn-sandwich. I believe him.

Just on a random note: I once chanted the ordinary for a deacon's ordination, at his request. His fellow ordinand got to choose the music for the hymns. It was a rock band. Gregorian chant alternating with rock music was weird as heck, but the bishop kept a straight face, and I did, too. The kids in the band were very nice, though leaping up and down yelling during Mass seemed weird.

I'm not sure if things need to change from the bottom up or top down, but I think a good deal of divine intervention is needed. And it seems to me that 'fixing the music' is only one of many things needing fixing.

hers is very rigid and metered, almost accenting every work. Quite a few times she doesn't get the notes right or misses a line. In my opinion, the tone of her voice is not pleasant to listen to on the psalm tones or even refrain. I can only describe it like a laser beam, compact and forceful.

From a few hundred miles (or more) distant, looks to me as though she's 'freezing'--stage fright. Often (not always) that's cured by practicing the material a lot before putting it 'on the road.' Sometimes the 'freeze' results in pitch problems, too. If you REALLY want to try a rescue, make her do the lines for at least 30 minutes before attempting at Mass.

As a fairly seasoned cantor, I have noticed that stage fright usually occurs when one is focused upon oneself. Being very comfortable and well prepared with the psalm prior to the Mass and then being able to focus upon the text during the Mass will produce the best result- non-mechanical singing and the best technical singing the person is capable of. Running through the psalm with the accompanist, to be sure of how the melody and accompaniment mesh, is very useful even if you have picked out the melody at home and are solid. I was recently thrown off momentarily by an atypical G9 chord which was created by my melody note against the accompaniment (thank you Owen Alstott & OCP).
Unfortunately, it was the "post mortem" analysis that revealed where I had gone astray. Lesson learned for me. I also mark up my text when necessary to be sure I don't lose my place, if I find during rehearsal at home that I am having trouble tracking and backtracking through the lines of text. Some of you who are younger and better trained musically may find this overkill, but for me these tricks keep me from becoming nervous.

If possible, to set this person up for success, look ahead to a week when the psalm is very simple and mostly step-wise, especially if it is repeating a familiar psalm melody and assign it to this singer if you think you want to try and get improvement for this person.

imno the quickest way to extinguish any good congregational singing is to put a cantor with a mic in from of them.

You have to make sure that they extend their hand mechanically at a forty-five degree angle at the point where the congregation is supposed to join in. That seals the deal!

The cantor microphone in my loft hasn't been turned on in many, many months. Notice I used "cantor" and "loft" in the same sentence. They are in the loft and that's where they are staying.