Antífonas (OCP)
  • btodorovich87
    Posts: 100
    So I just came across this apparently new resource from OCP, having not heard of it before - https://antifonas.com/. My feelings are mixed.

    On the one hand - obviously this music is typical status-quo, OCP style. The online model is also a plain rip-off of Source and Summit's innovations.

    On the OTHER hand - this is a resource sorely needed! Any effort to get these texts being sung, even in baby steps, is progress. I used to try and compose simple entrance antiphons each week but gave up because I just don't have the time...

    Most significantly - it is obvious that OCP now considers Source and Summit to be a legitimate competitor!! One of S&S's weakness is lack of material for chanting the antiphons in Spanish, aside from applying them to psalm tones. Surely the big publisher men have noticed that and created this in DIRECT response to their competition.

    On the last hand, it's nice that they offer a 30-day free trial and PDF downloads of everything. Just sayin'.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores [Deleted User]
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,068
    I believe OCP does consider Source and Summit to be a threat. The vast majority of the men who have been recently ordained as priests and who are in seminary, when they become pastors, will not want OCP music sung at Masses in their parishes. OCP realizes that, or they should.

    If a parish doesn't have to purchase pew missalettes from OCP, then there's no reason to be locked into OCP's musical ecosystem either. The primary reason OCP succeeded over the past 45 years is because it conveniently wedded bulk pew missalette purchases (now almost entirely "Breaking Bread" in OCP parishes), which every parish believed it had to provide to churchgoers, to economical access to its music resources, similar to how Microsoft used to consider Internet Explorer to be a component of its Windows OS, in a practice that was later ruled to be anticompetitive.

    It's very interesting to me that the Archdiocese of Portland's cathedral, where OCP is headquartered and whose archbishop is the ex officio head of OCP and whose music director is OCP's director of new product development, uses very little of OCP's "Breaking Bread" music at its Masses. In my judgment, that is a clear signal that "Breaking Bread" is inferior schlock for inferior parish music programs, that isn't really suited for Mass, and even OCP's directors know it.

    Enough people are now purchasing their own missalettes, such as Magnificat, or accessing the Mass readings via their phones that it's no more than a toss-up now whether a parish needs to buy pew missalettes anymore.

    The whole OCP catalogue has an expiration date that is probably less than 40 years away. Priests who have been recently formed tend to want authentic liturgical music sung at Mass, which means propers, chant, and other sacred music, not OCP's flavor of sentimental, woke religious music therapy that is stylistically modeled more and more after Disney songs.

    If you look at attendance at OCP, GIA, NPM conferences and workshops, generally speaking there are not many people there under the age of 40. The Church is struggling to get Catholics under 40 to even attend Sunday Mass.

    Children's faith formation enrollment and celebrations of baptism and confirmation have plummeted.

    The future Church in the United States will be smaller. Those that remain will not want to buy what OCP is selling.
    Thanked by 1LauraKaz
  • TimTheEnchanterTimTheEnchanter
    Posts: 202
    OCP will be fine. They cater to a wider market than Source & Summit (and we have to remember that Source & Summit currently caters to a comparatively narrow market), and they also have responded to changes in the overall market. I don't know if this side quest will work for OCP, but it's definitely a reaction to current trends.

    GIA, on the other hand, is in big trouble, I think. The post-Haas era has been rough on them. I went to NPM a couple years ago and have been to a couple post-Covid choral readings (it's the only place area music directors can gather to talk shop), and the selections are increasingly boring. Gather IV's a disaster, and they haven't used the WLP assets well.

    Priests who have been recently formed tend to want authentic liturgical music sung at Mass, which means propers, chant, and other sacred music, not OCP's flavor of sentimental, woke religious music therapy that is stylistically modeled more and more after Disney songs.


    And they will quickly be hit by the cold hard reality that there are not nearly enough capable musicians for what they want, nor any guarantee of parishioner buy-in. So a lot of them will simply have to accept whatever they can get.
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