Finding a piece to teach middle school
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 259
    I am wanting to teach some real music to my middle school students, and am unsure of the best piece to try with. I'm thinking probably a short and easy piece of chant. I don't actually teach music class, I teach religion, but the kids don't learn chant in music class, and I received permission to teach a but of chant, since all of the different subjects tend to overlap anyway. I have each grade for about two hours most days, so I figured if I could spend 5-10 minutes a day with each class on the chant, we would get it down eventually. This is just for singing in the classroom, not Mass.

    At first I was thinking the simple tone of the Alma Redemptoris Mater, since it will be the season for that soon, but then I was realizing that even that would probably be too difficult (and long) for them. Then I was thinking the simple Regina Caeli, since it is so intuitive that even babies learn to sing it. But it's out of season, and we would have to stop singing it for Septuagesima season and Lent. Then I was thinking the simple Salve Regina, but I think that's longer than I can get their attention spans to last for.

    Suggestions (and prayers) are greatly appreciated.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,822
    Pater Noster (recommended in the minimal repertoire)
    Ave Maria
    Kyrie xviii
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  • rvisser
    Posts: 54
    I teach high School choir at a Catholic school, and also assist with Middle School. This year I've been doing a liturgical response game with my students. I'll sing the priest's part and the students respond with the congregation part. It's harder than it sounds when you do it out of the context of mass. You can also have the kids respond individually instead of as a class for extra challenge. My goal this year is also to teach them all of the Marion antiphons, but it is challenging. We do parts of the Salve Regina as class prayer (by the end of the semester I hope to have them all singing the whole thing).

    I think the most important music that students need to learn in a Catholic School is the responses/dialogues of the Mass. I do a lot of liturgical catechesis with my students, simply because my background is in liturgy and I worked for many years as a parish MD before falling into teaching.
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  • GerardH
    Posts: 461
    Start with the Salve. I don't think I've known any other piece to have the same impact on otherwise in-Latinate people. It may not be Authentic Gregorian™, but it's very effective and meaningful.
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  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 326
    The utterly simplest thing?

    [teacher] Sancta Maria...
    [students]...ora pro nobis!

    As in the Litany of the Saints. Pick whatever saints you like, or use the Litany, bit by bit, over time. Teach them the intonation with individuals assigned to a saint (in Latin). And even after you teach other chants, you can append this to the end of a class prayer.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Liber Cantualis offers quite a number of chants, many of which are more than suitable for grade school students - including Ave Maria, Ave verum corpus, a mass, the mass dialogues, hymns, and some very easy responsories, including the Advent and Lenten Proses.

    There is also a version of St Francis' hymn of creation, 'Most High Omnipotent Good Lord', in The Hymnal 1940 (Number307).
    While not exactly 'chant', the tune, Asissi, sings and feels like that of a chant hymn - best sung a cappella.
    I have never encountered a choir of any age group which failed to find it enchanting.
    Once begun it sings itself.
    Thanked by 4OMagnumMysterium CHGiffen Anna_Bendiksen LauraKaz
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 259
    Thank you all so much! These are some wonderful suggestions for me to work with.
  • CGM
    Posts: 697
    "enchanting" — good one!
  • CGM
    Posts: 697
    There are simple chant hymns, such as
    — Adoro te devote
    — Veni Creator spiritus
    — Jesu dulcis memoria

    And brief chant antiphons, like
    — Ubi caritas
    — Tu es Petrus

    Cardinal Kung, who was imprisoned by the Chinese Communists for nearly 30 years, was once allowed a visit by another bishop, and granted permission to sing one song. The Communists had spread rumors that Cardinal Kung had apostasized and renounced his faith while in prison. The cardinal then sang the Tu es Petrus antiphon, demonstrating to the visiting bishop that his fealty to the pope and the Church were intact, even after all his decades of imprisonment.
    Thanked by 4OMagnumMysterium CHGiffen LauraKaz Anna_Bendiksen
  • Reval
    Posts: 186
    In my dream life where I teach theology (my kids tell me that it would not be as fun as I think it would be) - I play Gregorian chant at the beginning of class when the kids are entering the classroom. Then you could introduce the melodies to them and set a nice tone for the room at the same time.
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