Best theoretical approach to teach priests to sing the NO Mass?
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 583
    Hello! I recently got one of the best questions one could ever receive from a priest: "Would you teach me how to sing the Mass?" He's brand-new here, having spent his previous ministry in India in the Syro-Malankara church (with its fully-sung liturgy based on the anaphora of St. James), and has no knowledge of music notation and no instrumental experience nor familiarity with the Roman rite and its chant. He's got a beautiful voice and sings the Syro-Malankara rep beautifully, and matches pitch and sings patterns back flawlessly.

    My brain is probably poisoned by an almost-entirely-keyboard-based education, so forgive me if this is a silly question.

    I have taught choir members to read 5-line modern notation, and I've taught people to play the piano and organ. It's pretty easy to teach: "The note on the second line is G, which will always be right 'there' on the keyboard, and sound and feel exactly like 'this' in your voice."

    I've also taught people with no musical background to sing the chant from 4-line notation. That's even easier: "let's sing the scale; look, the funny-looking C marks Do, mind the half-steps, here we go."

    What I am really not sure how to do is to teach this priest the chants in the Missal, written as they are in 5-line modern notation, with what looks like absolute pitch. Of course in reality, the pitch of the preface changes depending on the Sanctus, and the collects are sung wherever they feel good in his voice. All the resources I would ordinarily give to someone learning modern music are built to reinforce "this is what C sounds like and it's always the same".

    Had the 2011 Missal been engraved with square notes, I'd have a much better time.

    Those of you who have taught priests with no [Western] musical background to sing, what did you do? Teach ABCDEFG as absolutes first, and then tell them the pitch is movable? Lead with "all of this is relative"?





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  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,347
    To start with, I wouldn't teach anything about Western music or pitch names or anything like that. Just teach him the solemn tone from the Missal and let him pick whatever pitch is comfortable for him.

    https://npm.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/presidentialtones.pdf

    I taught music at an American major seminary for 7 academic years and the vast majority of the guys had no problem picking up the simple and solemn tones, even if they didn't have much musical background. If he shows a lot of interest, you can go deeper.
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  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,203
    I taught the men at Ss. Cyril & Methodius Orchard Lake MI for several semesters on how to chant the Mass. This was a double-challenge, because these seminarians were all Polish, many of them quite literally "off the boat", and both English and music were rather foreign to them (forgive the pun).

    I began with the dialogues, which are the simplest, then moved to the formulae for the orations, including how to point the texts so that they could mark and chant any of the orations with the correct formula without slipping into improvisation. I thought it was interesting that the formulae are structured to follow the structure of the text.

    We were then able to build on that, and while I taught them how to chant the entire canon, I stressed that it was important that they at least be able to chant the preface, consecration, mysterium fidei, and final doxology.

    The last thing I taught them was the Exultet.

    For all of these, I used the resources available from NPM for their coursepack.

    If you'd like more info on how I structured things, please PM me. I'd be happy to share my notes.
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  • Benton
    Posts: 14
    Solfège
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,666
    Maybe it’s because he’s from the other Indian church with a Syriac rite, but I’m impressed that he’s interested at all. Excellent news.

    I've also taught people with no musical background to sing the chant from 4-line notation. That's even easier: "let's sing the scale; look, the funny-looking C marks Do, mind the half-steps, here we go."


    I am happy to hear this and would just like to sort of bump this to get the attention of people who may read this and feel discouraged or that they must rely on pros who can be coaxed into working with Gregorian notation.

    Of course in reality, the pitch of the preface changes depending on the Sanctus,
    I’ve never seen this, and I would go with the same approach as for the collects with the caveat that the dialogue should be comfortable but not so low as to oppress the congregation, which can always sing below. It really can’t sing above a bass. And only rarely would I ever make a priest change the incipit of a Gloria from the key used with the chant to better match a polyphonic Mass…it’s too risky.
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 583
    Thank you, all. David, I’d be glad for your notes. Another funny thing with this priest is that he’s not a seminarian; he was put directly into ministry in a parish where the “default” for all celebrants is to sing at least the Mystery of Faith and the Doxology. I caught him just before his first Sunday and focussed on those two and gave him the NPM chants, so hopefully he’ll be all right with those this weekend and we can move onward and upward as you slll shared.
  • tylerjpimm
    Posts: 1
    Use solfège where C in the Missal = Do.
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