They all (the musicians so far) picked it up quite easily. I just taught it to our contemporary music group. (lol) So the guitarists are all singing GC a cappella for Lent.
Not to be the fly in the ointment (hopefully I'm not mixing metaphors..) but why keep the stems? While I like this the best of what you've shown, I typically feel stemless modern notation is best. Looking at this, I wanted to sing it in a strict rhythm.
Gavin, the slurs didn't help? I like how Francis did the slurring.
(Mia, maybe a good approach is to say something like, "Well, Lent is about paring things away, emptying oneself, giving things up. You wouldn't want Lent to sound 'secular', would you?")
Here is a version we used in my parish a couple of years ago. I actually prefer eighth notes because you can connect them. Others prefer no stems, or quarter notes. I called it the "Rosetta Stone" version because I included both the Gregorian and the modern notation.
This version includes only the Kyrie and the Agnus. We didn't do the other parts because I was trying not to push my luck.
And here is my version of the Agnus in English. I may be missing something, but it seemed the English text could fit pretty easily into the Latin melody.
Give them modern notation and they are none the wiser about it being GC... this is my tact in trying these varios methods of notation. If I put Gregorian Notation in the PIPs hands it will get a more adverse reaction than this modern notation version.
Well, in this area I don't think it's the notation. It's just the idea that they don't like the musical style and the language. (and also not familiar, so not comfortible etc...) Their idea is that they are happy when they sing and worship in a way they like.
But in your case, it looks like you have prepared them well to accept GC even in modern notation. I truly congratulate you that you brought the contemporary group this far. Brick by brick. I remember you saying in one of the posts that you started accompanying them with organ. What a good idea, instead of turning back on them. I'm sure that takes a lot of charity. Someday they might even sing Introit acappella. ;-)
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