I think it is important to also remember that imitating a Benedictine (or any monastery for that matter) is not necessarily what works best when offering chant in a normal parish church.

Monks specifically are instructed not to stand out and to sing (chant) only as loud as is necessary so as to engage with the community. In addition, they sing in choir in (typically) acoustic spaces that help to amplify their voices. But they also have less concern for participation outside of the quire.

That said, to imitate their chant "style" (I'm speaking only of whether one is on the voice or not, not the school in question) is not a great comparison to a parish church that may have anywhere from 20-400 people in attendance. I do not believe chant needs to be amplified by any means! But, one sings very differently depending on the space one is in and with whom one is singing.

Of course, we don't want to shout... But neither is it proper to take on the musical aesthetics of a Monastic community just because we like the sound.

It is the more laudable approach to focus on unity of sound (una voce, if you will) than to imitate a Monastic community that sings together for 3-4 hours a day.

Just my 2 cents.

I fundamentally disagree with the above insofar as it tends to privilege the operatic and performative style that degreed/highly educated vocal musicians have, and which the vast majority of Catholic musicians will never have — unless you wish for your choir to permanently be two people or to only ever pay musicians. In which case, good luck! This is an unsound strategy.

Monks specifically are instructed not to stand out and to sing (chant) only as loud as is necessary so as to engage with the community. In addition, they sing in choir in (typically) acoustic spaces that help to amplify their voices. But they also have less concern for participation outside of the quire.

I can pick out voices in my schola but for a while, it was because I was the confident one, and we’re specifically working on better blending so as to have the right volume for our space but without any one individual overdoing it and sticking out.

But the second is absurd. They’re not singing to be inaudible to the people in the nave. They know that people visit them for the chant and that this has been the case for a century with Solesmes which is reasonably close to Paris. And sometimes they even sing for the KTO microphones when it’s televised!

You don’t have to sound overly nasally or whatever. But it is a matter of developing the mixed voice and head voice, occasionally falsetto, and not being afraid to drill to extend the range. One might carefully consider occasionally starting and descending rather than vice versa, once you’ve established a singing voice at least.

I think it’s a matter of practice. And while anyone who hears me sing knows the tradition that I’m in, which does come from Fontgombault, but it’s a little more comfortable — that is, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priests.

I wish I had more to say on the technique. But listening has been a huge part. Even when we sing Vespers, breathing matters. I sacrifice quality for the head bows and such, but otherwise, I can feel my belly expand even when seated.

As to dynamics part of it is that the dynamics are on individual neumes, especially the first notes of compound neumes (and especially on accented syllables in ascending passages), with a little swell or at least a longer note (and then then all of the little lengthenings that Dom Gajard treats in his explication of the method). It’s not simply up=more volume and vice-versa. Carefully listen to the ordinaries from Fontgombault and even classic Solesmes. I wish that I had the Triors Mass XI available online.

For instance at Vespers of Quinquagesima: I always speed up towards the middle of a psalm or canticle before slowing at the mediant and final. In this case I lengthened the first note with the virga on the 1D ending and let it really hang. And I decrescendo moving to the final note of the verse, remembering that the softest note is before a bar (including an asterisk).

Hopefully someone who is a more skilled choral teacher can chime in. But I have basically zero problem with anyone who wishes to sound like Fontgombault so long as you understand (and I think that you do) that they also sing all day together.

It is though. Because I hate the way that Westminster sounds.

And again you don’t have to listen to the monks. The ICRSP recordings are much better if you want to harp on technique. And you can emulate the monastic sound with good technique.

Sometimes I wonder what the heck we are doing here.

I am responding to the questioner, who speaks of difficulties in singing. I posit that the difficulties he experiences are a result of imitating poor singing technique and could be solved by good singing technique. That is the most helpful advice I can offer in this medium.

For example, when a person is trying to sing too solftly, it generally causes instability in the voice, especially in the passaggio. Singing with a breathy tone can also cause one to need to take more frequent breaths that do not serve the music, but rather retract.

You are certainly right. When I say imitate, I am referring to solo moments. In the intonation of Gaudens Gaudebo, Introitus of the Immaculate Conception, by the monks of Fontgombault, a monk sings solo and you can clearly perceive the aspects to which I refer.

Looking at that example, the first thing I noted is how very high that recording is pitched. I assume their instrument is not at 440, but the first note is somewhere between an E and an F, making Do as high as C or Db.

My assumption here is that this is a deliberate choice helps them keep a uniformity of vocal register throughout the chants. By and large they are basically singing in head voice, which can translate into a kind of invisible mixing in of their falsetto for some of the very high notes, which is perhaps a more consistent sound than if the chants started in chest voice, and the very high notes were sung in head voice.

By pitching it up, they avoid completely the disproportion between the chest voice and the higher notes up in the head voice.

I think this might also be the secret to some of the rest of your observations, too. Singing up in the head voice naturally achieves a lighter sound, and it is sort of the aggregate of the lighter gentler timbre of each individual monk that creates the blended, present, but never heavy group sound that is desired.

Tl;dr — if you want this sound, pick higher pitches.

I might look less towards the classical, and more towards the folk tradition for how some of this is navigated on a technical level. It’s always incredible the fullness and consistent sound that a folk singer, or even someone in the Bluegrass tradition, can achieve way up high in the register.

I am very self-conscious of myself as a vocal technician, and especially of my ability to communicate anything worthwhile or technically sound, but maybe I have a picture of the way this feels to me as a singer, and I think as a successful one, in both worlds:

I think the analogy would be that a classical vocal technique would involve playing rich notes on a violin throughout the register in a very resonant and full way while really digging in with the bow, whereas this sort of thing would be analogous to playing a very responsive and resonant violin in a very resonant room, but not digging in so much with the bow, and enjoying the consistency that not digging in provides between your regular fingered notes and your upper harmonics.

They sing in a high register, but just a bit off the voice, which avoids a lot of the stress and the strain that singing so high could generate. Nevertheless, as good vocalists, they still seek the resonant spaces in their voice, and they really inwardly “aim” the sound to maximize its effect. The results it’s a light voice, but one that is as present as possible. The highness of the register than allows them to really focus on mixing in the falsetto in a consistent way, giving them quite a large effective range with a basically proportionate sound.

As a group, I think they focus a ton on diction and matching vowels so that they get the compounding interest of the individual resonance of each voice to create a very pleasant and sonorous whole.

I should have set out, that the description I gave above of my take on the Fontgambault technique is not what I in fact instruct my own singers to do. AnimaVocis and I are much more aligned with each other in that opinion.

I would also point out, though I’m not sure that he’d want me to drop this, but I’m pretty sure he’s not going to, of the two of us… he is also the Benedictine oblate.

Cf. German-speaking Benedictines, here from Switzerland: Dominus Dixit, from Einselden

But that ICK insistence on French through-the-nose singing is tragic.

But they don't, not universally and not as comically as some French choirs/Gregorian scholas. I lived with them. You all just make stuff up sometimes. It's also…just a question of what you can live with in such a mixed community at the seminary.