I believe I've posted before mentioning my current project of turning the "Gospel" music style choir I became director of two years ago into a chant schola. It's been an interesting journey.

When I first began giving them neumes they would complain and say they didn't understand them. Slowly some of the more musically-inclined ones began being able to read them.

I did one intensive 2 hour workshop on neume reading, accompanied by a booklet I put together that goes through everything a person would need to learn neumes and to go back and "look up" things for future reminders.

I handed out several Propers this week for Holy Week and I gave them both modern notation (from the Modern Notation Liber Usualis) and neumes. At the end of rehearsal I took a poll to see who read from the neumes and who read from the modern notes. 24 were reading from neumes, 4 were reading from modern notation. 2 were absent.