Hello everyone! I've lurked here for some time, but this is my first post because I wanted to ask a question. If there's a previous discussion on this and I just haven't found it yet, please point me there!

I've been looking at our parish's music program and wondering if we need a DOM. But I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what that would look like in our parish. I'm hoping those with more experience can give me some ideas.

For context, we are a large-ish NO parish of about 900 or so families, with 4 weekend Masses. We have 2 priests, but they also serve one nearby church every week, and sometimes supply for other nearby parishes. We are, by far, the largest parish in the western deaneries in our geographically large archdiocese.

I am currently accompanying 2 Masses every weekend. For the 9 a.m., I work collaboratively with a cantor to put together music every week, while with the other (11 a.m.) I am just the accompanist to an SATB choir that already has 2 co-directors. Our other 2 Masses are led by a group led by a guitar (4 p.m. Sat) and an older couple with a group that sings mostly unison (7 p.m. Sun) at the piano. We also have a children's choir that sings at 9 a.m. once a month, more or less.

Each of these Masses functions independently of the other, and there's not a lot of cross-communication between them. For example, the 4 p.m. is mostly folky and appeals to a certain age group. At 9 a.m., both with myself & the cantor and the children's choir when it sings, rely more on traditional music, working mostly from the St. Michael's Hymnal. The 11 a.m. is all over the map, musically. Some of this is definitely because of the co-director business, but also because this Mass has a lot of newcomers to Canada attending. That has flavoured it somewhat, so it oscillates widely even within the same Mass. I'm not saying that negatively, but you don't know what to expect there from week to week lol except the 1st Sunday of the month is "Latin Week", with Latin Ordinaries and usually a Latin motet in there. The 7 p.m. is sort of middle of the road, sometimes using more traditional music but also some folk stuff, as well as newer stuff.

At the end of the day, our parish tends to function as 4 mini-parishes all sharing the space and resources. Most people go to "their Mass" and stick to it. We do meet twice a year (before Christmas and the start of Lent) to plan Christmas & Holy Week, which is super helpful. No one is paid in our parish - all of this is strictly voluntary.

So.... those who function in a parish similar to that, do you have a DOM, and what do they do? I'm thinking it's time for us to have one to try and bring some degree of unity between Masses (we have 5 different hymnals in the pews, which is cumbersome to say the least), but also to have a resource to coordinate, train, recruit and provide music to the different groups. We have the SATB choir, but neither director has a lot of formal music training, for example, and don't spend time on teaching singing as a skill or music theory, or anything. During Holy Week, some groups had a hard time sourcing some bits of music we needed, and it showed. Also, only some of the leaders have a good sense of what the liturgy entails. The rest seem to be always winging it.

Thoughts and perspectives are greatly appreciated!