My parish sings robustly. Mr. @StimsonInRehab confirms this. But the 8:30 NO? Barely anyone sings the hymns, even when they did a pre-Mass sing-through which probably dampened enthusiasm that one would think could hardly be less as it was.

I think announcing is good. Especially if there are also motets sung: do the less experienced realize the difference between “congregation should sing” and “congregation should listen”?

As for vernacular plainsong, yes Baldovin’s essay is a “surprising admission” in several ways, but switching away from popular hymnody to plainsong propers is a robust multi-year project, and no solution to @canadash’s issue.

I have to second @kevinf's comment. Don't forget that there really is no culture of people singing in the US to being with; music is something to be consumed, not made. I wonder if all 500 in the pews were making the spoken responses at full voice? That would be thunderous and thrilling by itself. If not, it seems like a very long shot that even a majority of them would sing.

You can't make people sing. All the announcing and inviting is a distraction - the people who really want to sing figure it out, those who don't ignore it. What you can do is provide the right environment for singing as best you can, which starts with solid music done well and often.

Catholic parishes tend to assume that the only people who are attending Mass are regular fellow parishioners who are familiar with the parish's musical resources, not other visitors and seekers. (There are parishes near where I live that never provide any clue about where to find the music for the Ordinary of the Mass, assuming that everyone attending either knows the music or won't bother singing it.) After all, Catholics are required to attend Mass, optimizing for them to do anything more is an afterthought if it's even a thought, right? Programs - it's helpful to have greeters offer them - or hymn boards (provided they provide sufficient room for more than just hymn numbers) are helpful.

As I bleat here from time to time: resist the temptation to commandeer all the strongest singers for choir/schola, but identify and welcome stronger singers (including members of the choir/schola who miss rehearsals and aren't prepared or able for any number of reasons to sing in choir/schola at a given Mass) to support congregational singing from within the pews, particularly in the middle third or so of the congregational seating area(s). The presence of such voices amid the congregation can make all the difference.

I find that it depends on the day, too. We could have a hymn programmed that they typically sing robustly, but for some reason, it’s like crickets with that hymn on one random Sunday.

Consistency is key. Plan new stuff for certain times of the year. Use Mass settings seasonally. Cycle through your repertoire throughout the year, making use of all the good stuff you typically do while periodically introducing new stuff.

Not knowing your current practice, but assuming the “default” musical setup in many parishes with 4 hymns and a psalm at each Mass and no repeats through the year: there’s 52 Sundays, + Christmas and 1 liturgy of the Triduum someone might attend (leaving out any holy days of obligation), so 270 pieces there. Then there might be 4 Mass settings in seasonal rotation, often more, each with 6ish things to sing, so in all, 294 different pieces of music for a parishioner to sing in the course of a year.

For us who can sightread with ease and spend our days thinking about and making church music, this is nothing and of course we can sing this much. For those who do not read music and are not accustomed to singing nor thinking of this rep except for an hour each week, that’s kind of a lot.

Protestants have no problem with such a workload, but they are encouraged by their neighbours’ example, and singing has just been “what everyone does in church” for 4 more centuries for them than for our people.

I will say I’ve found that the closer a parish is to what the Church actually wants of us, the better the singing is. If the priest is singing everything proper to him, it builds up the expectation that “everybody sings, no one sits out” and gets the congregation used to hearing itself sing. Then the extraneous hymns, be they “traditional” or “contemporary”, are sung with the same gusto.

Best yet is when the rite is actually celebrated as given to us. The only places where a hymn is really contemplated by the rubrics are the entrance (+/- the introit) and just prior to the Prayer after Communion. 2 hymns a week is a much more reasonable expectation! Notice also that there’s nothing else for congregants to do at these two times. At the offertory, they’re fishing in their pockets for change. At the communion, they’re walking or eating or praying. After the dismissal, they’re rushing for the door to beat the Baptists to lunch making their thanksgiving. Putting hymns in those places sets them up for failure and reinforces the expectation that participating in hymns is optional and they’re for the cantor/choir.

But when you’ve got hymns only in those two spots where they belong, they can be announced without breaking the flow and calm of the liturgy. At the offertory and communion, let the people do what they instinctively want to do, while they meditate on the proper and/or motet sung by the choir/cantor. Play the organ at the end. Let them feel good about themselves and confident in their singing as they focus on getting the dialogues and ordinary of the Mass locked in, and worry last about the two hymns.

I have yet to meet a layperson who is not a self-appointed Liturgist who truly wants to be singing at offertory, communion, and the end. It’s just a weird hangup among musicians and clergy that I hope can be overcome.

It helps if there is a leaflet with everything printed in it, but that’s less important than the foregoing.

After the dismissal, they’re rushing for the door to beat the Baptists to lunch making their thanksgiving.

Despite the fact that I very much agree with only having two or three hymns at Mass, I disagree quite strongly that singing a hymn as the altar party retires is awkward placement doomed to failure. My experience has largely been that the recessional is the most strongly sung hymn of them all.

Singing all the verses is important. The best singing will be on verses 3-4+. If they think you are going to stop after verse 2, it’s not worth it to them to find the number in the hymnbook.

(There are parishes near where I live that never provide any clue about where to find the music for the Ordinary of the Mass, assuming that everyone attending either knows the music or won't bother singing it.)

shoot

I put it on the hymn board. Before, I didn't really know what to do. We will see what happens in the next few months. The people will not pick up the propers because they are attached to their missals. I can appreciate that perhaps we should put out the text for those who lack a missal or forget it, but then what about everything else including the music (the ordinary, the Marian antiphon, and the hymn)? Some forgo the ordinary when I set it out, which saddens me, but at least some of those people also ignore the hymn. But most take one or both (rarely the ordinary but not the hymn unfortunately).

Visitors are basically truly lost anyway.

I would stick a kyriale in the pews if it were up to me, complete with a list of our usual customs.

Catholic parishes tend to assume that the only people who are attending Mass are regular fellow parishioners who are familiar with the parish's musical resources, not other visitors and seekers.

The flip side of this is that printing the same thing week in and week out is not an option. Nor is not doing things which wouldn't be found in a hymnal (because I'm told that this is what we should do) and where my only option otherwise is a bad copy and sometimes, worse, just a screenshot dragged into a word processor (when Gregorio, however you publish normal text, and notation software exist). Our benediction material is currently organized seasonally and then by weekdays (so Sundays and then weekdays per annum; in Advent and Lent, in Paschal Time, and in June — just Sundays thankfully since most of June's weekdays would be per annum, not in Paschal Time). That is a lot to manage where between all Sundays or weekdays, the devotional content is largely the same but where melodies change seasonally. I have to remember to find the litanies (in English) which we say according to the months (Holy Name in January, Saint Joseph in March, Precious Blood in July, and Our Lady in May and in October), and then they're sometimes on sheets of different sizes. Trust me, I don't like it either, but we used to not stick anything out. Text, in Latin, no translation, with the words to hymns without music.

Now everything is done in LaTeX since 95% of the music is chant; for modern hymns, then it's a PDF exported from Musescore Studio (I crop the PDF in Apple's Preview, then include in LaTeX as a graphic; it looks almost perfect).

What I would like is a book with a proper table of contents and an index, which would allow us to have almost everything selected from the Solesmes books and other sources which we would reasonably do at least from time to time. Exposition, our customary prayers, benediction, reposition, First Friday Holy Communion (since it follows adoration), the Marian antiphons, a selection of other chants, our customary prayers including the various novenas…That's one of my current projects.

On Sundays, it'd be trivial to come up with a syllabus. It's much harder on weekdays, since those adoration periods aren't attached to Vespers (where you make a sheet anyway). And I get it: my congregation tries new things, like the seasonal hymn for Vespers of Lent, or an antiphon that they have never seen before…which makes them most unusual!

Singing congregation? Highly overrated and is a fabrication of modernist tenets. The cantors and choir are the singers. The people need to sing dialogues at most, and no one should be “expected” (this expectation mostly comes from the musicians in place) to sing. People have widely varied spiritual dispositions at any given point in time. Someone praying a rosary during Mass should be entirely free to concentrate on just that joining his/her prayers to the priest. Internal participation is the key.

The Spirit breatheth where he will and thou hearest his voice: but thou knowest not whence he cometh and whither he goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit.

On that note, buy my hymnal!

I believe the role of music is supporting the Liturgy and bringing the congregation deeper into prayer. If that means silence on their part or singing along, that’s up to them. The best feedback I got was actually from a choir member this past week. We sang Hear Us O Mighty Lord, and afterwards she said, “That song was REALLY a prayer, and that’s so important because we need to be praying as we sing!” Bingo! Granted I think the majority of my songs, especially at the offertory and Communion are very prayerful, but this one resonated with her. Similarly, certain songs will resonate with the congregation to move them to sing or go deeper into silent prayer. Neither is bad. And I found it’s not linked with familiarity. The Mass most “notorious” for not singing had one person in particular singing clear as a bell a song I wrote. We have sung it over the years, but this was the first time it was in the hymnals for the congregation to sing along. It was a common tune, but different lyrics. That individual must have been moved by it. It’s the only explanation I have because I didn’t hear her singing the rest of the hymns.

@Andrew_Malton

singing is foreseen and expected. No?

Yes, and this IMVHO is a real problem.

Everybody is expected to do everything in unison, including posture, actions, responses, hymns, etc., all in march step. Personally, I think this is part of the banality of the Novus Ordo rite, and truly is reflective of a protestant mentality that stresses the importance of focusing on self, and one another. The holy sacrifice of the mass is unique unto the Catholic Church, in that we are partaking in a sacrifice celebrated by the priest. “Active participation” from the congregation in someways, makes us think that our involvement in the mass is important, and even critical to its execution. That just is not the case.

For every other non-Catholic worship service active participation is crucial to the survival of what it represents. This is also why the vernacular is a huge distraction to the essence of the Roman rite.

There are many books that will treat this very subject better than I.

@canadash
The congregation in my parish of St. Mary's in Akron, Ohio, which I would characterize the congregation as more traditional than contemporary, has only a few people singing aloud or robustly, this is in the Ordinary Form, and it largely depends on the hymn. For example, people sing more robustly or perhaps more people are singing with "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" then with "Save Your People O Lord". The same could be said with a Christmas carol like "O Come All Ye Fainthful" vs "See Amid the Winter Snow." Do you notice this in your congregation?

I have found in my nearly fifty years of singing and about a 1/4 of those as a cantor, that St.Mary's congregation sings more aloud with hymns that have traditional melodies like "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" and "O Come All Ye Faithful" than with hymns with less familiar tunes dispite that our music minister schedules these less familiar tunes over and over. My experience has also taught me that St. Mary's congregation favor hymns that remind them of their Catholic faith vs those that don't.

In my parish you have people who will pick up the missallete and sing or at least try and those that absolutely won't, feast or famine. But then there are those who pick up the missallete and they want to sing but end up putting it back down, why?

I think it is because some church musicians program hymns that make themselves feel good or that doesn't bore them instead of caring for the needs of the congregation. That need is to teach them their Catechism and hyms are the most efficacious means of passing on the Catholic truths to the Catholic faithful.

So success is achieved by sing hymns with more tradtional melodies and with texts that are sacred, beautiful, and familiar, IMHO.

I've been to a few TLM parishes with such strong congregational singing that it was normal to alternate lines with them in the chanted Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo. It's just amazing - better than any polyphonic ordinary, I don't care who composed it - and that's why I will always advocate for congregational participation in those, as did Pius XII and St. Pius X.

@canadash and any others who are interested: I've written a chapter on congregational singing for my book (expected release date: posthumously)...glad to share with anyone who wants it. heath.morber@gmail.com

I've written a chapter on congregational singing for my book (expected release date: posthumously)...glad to share with anyone who wants it. heath.morber@gmail.com

Ha ha! I'll send you a request because I hope it's not released soon!