Should there be a diocesan certification for singing and playing?

noel jones, aago

I'd suggest interested parties create a wiki as a guide, referencing church documents...and CMAA guidelines could be publicized. When it's in print it gains power.

Music Issues such as this would be a good start, with direct links to references.

Communion

Communion verse should be sung by schola or choir (as the priest receives - GIRM) and the Community may sing (join together in song and reflection after all have received - STLL).

This could easily become a useful guide to all liturgies, especially holy week, and wrest the control from pulp pushers.

[you have to admit, the possibility of kindles-in-the-hand of every worshipper would make such a huge cut in their profits that they cannot sleep at night. Especially if they have competition.]

DougS

I think certifications in general are just a bunch of hoops to jump through, especially for those who have legitimate credentials in other areas. Pastors/committees simply need a better idea of what to look for in the musical product, not what goes on paper. If I were in charge of a big time job search, I would call back a variety of people with different backgrounds, credentials, and experiences--and then I would ask the right questions. Being certified might get someone a call, but it wouldn't shut someone else out.

noel jones, aago

Doug's right, and the great thing about certifications is that people who have backgrounds quite different from music are able to also demonstrate some sort of proficiency.

DougS

That's a good point, too. If certification opens the door for someone without other credentials, then it's a good thing.

marajoy

so what's wrong with the certification from AGO/NPM? I just read through the recent description of the AGO certification requirements, and they are quite impressive!

For those who aren't familiar with it, the various levels of certification require such interesting abilities including harmonizing plainchant or other types of melodies, improvising, modulating, aural skills, fugal construction, transposing, composition, and writing essays on various aspects of music/liturgical history.

I'm just saying...I'm not sure how either the diocese nor CMAA could come up with a more rigorous test, for those who were inclined to take it!

noel jones, aago

noel jones, aago

NPM's Certification Documents include this:

11) Areas of Concentration: Each area of concentration has basic skills and issues idiosyncratic
to that specific area. Mentors are encouraged to address these issues specifically and others that apply:

Choral Conducting—Ensemble, warm-ups, vocal health, sensitive use of microphone if necessary and the understanding of natural acoustics, score preparation, working with an accompanist, conducting technique, rehearsal procedures, knowledge of choral literature, understanding of vocal styles employed for different choral literature.

Guitar—Amplification and an understanding of natural acoustics, fundamentals of good technique, ensemble, sensitivity to text and singing during hymn playing, working with singers and an assembly, articulation, understanding basic style regarding guitar literature, rudimentary improvisation.

Organ—Understanding of registration for liturgical literature, sensitivity to text and singing during hymn-playing, working with singers and an assembly, ensemble, articulation, understanding basic style and registration regarding organ literature, rudimentary improvisation.

Piano—Varieties of accompaniment and stylistic understanding, amplification and an understanding of natural acoustics, ensemble, accompanying, sensitivity to text and singing during hymn playing, working with singers and an assembly, articulation, understanding basic style regarding piano literature, rudimentary improvisation.

Voice/Cantor—Use of microphone and understanding of natural acoustics, gestures, Gelineau and other psalm tones, diction, understanding of basic style regarding literature, fundamentals of vocal technique, vocal health, techniques for teaching the assembly.

noel jones, aago

If your area of concentration is guitar, you are not required to have any background or understanding of chant, the music with pride of place.

Of course, if you are a cantor, choral conductor, organist or pianist, it's not required of them either, so I suppose it's fair.

And even worse, if you are a cantor you do not need to know anything about...psalms.

ClergetKubisz

Do you really think the GIRM is clear enough? I'm not sure it is reader friendly enough and written in a way that most musicians can really understand.

I think the GIRM is crystal clear: the problem is not clarity, but the fact that there are people interpreting and making decisions on it that have no business doing so. Combine that with the fact that many people don't even know the doc exists, and you get a free for all.

CharlesW

I don't worry about certifications, and even as an AGO member have never sought out any of them. I figure a Masters in organ is enough for anyone. Having spent years in teaching, I have also found that learning to take tests successfully is not the same as mastering content.

GIRM is clear. Buy one and read it is the best advice to give any musician. Notice I said, "read it" not read into it.

M. Jackson Osborn

Yes, there should be.
But then.... second thought...
just imagine the sort of people in most dioceses who'd be doling out 'certifications'.
Why, things might be even worse!

What we really need is a Catholic AGO....
But then..... second thought....
what do people who accept fraudulent advertisements
from the makers of organ simulacra have to offer us?

G

But then.... second thought...
just imagine the sort of people in most dioceses who'd be doling out 'certifications'.

Yes, imagine being able to assure people that you are as well qualified for your ministry as your catechists or EMs or DREs are for theirs.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

chonak

A few years ago, the USCCB subcommittee on this topic published a list of organizations whose certifications it recognized.

ClergetKubisz

There's NPM, but no AGO?

melofluent

Could be just symbiosis: Hilgartner to NPM, check.

teachermom24

I think a lot of pastors don't even realize that the music in their parish is badly performed, and that they could improve their musical results by just requiring that the organist have *some* credential.

This would negatively affect parishes like ours (rural southern). My son started playing the organ at our parish nearly 5 years ago at age 13. He has no certification. Of course I'm biased toward my children, but I still say he is an excellent organist suited to our parish. If the pastor had waited to hire a certified organist for our parish, we'd still be waiting and, in the mean time, subjected to either LifeTeen guitar Masses or programmed music with the synthesizer (which is used now for two Masses each weekend because the parish doesn't want to pay a real organist beyond one Mass).

francis

First you would need a certification worth the paper it's written on. Don't think that could even happen this day and age, so, forget it!

fergusryan

For Ireland I've often thought that some kind of certification should be in place but avoiding standards of musicianship as such. Practically all our musicians are volunteers with widely varying standards of musicianship. What is missing is knowledge of the sung responses and of a decent repertoire of hymns, etc. for the seasons and special occasions. There are no hymnals in the pews in my country save a tiny percentage of parishes. There is no hymnal for the country which reflects the real repertoire used by choirs; recently British hymnals have been used with different versions of the hymns and without our particular repertoire (e.g. Irish/Gaelic language hymns). Certification could help with establishing knowledge of the sung responses, sung Ordinary, responsorial psalms (we have an excellent collection by Fintan O'Carroll, composer of the Celtic Alleluia and popularised outside Ireland by Christopher Walker) and suitable vernacular songs/hymns. It could help restore the idea that the primary place for music at Mass is singing between priest/deacon and people (using the Missal melodies for dialogues, responses, acclamations) - even if clergy who can sing are at present reluctant to sing anything for fear of criticism by the lay faithful.

I often wonder whether the byzantine churches, especially the Ukrainian churches in Canada/USA, could give us ideas on how to train church musicians and put the singing back into the position where it belongs. In theory there is really no fundamental difference between East and West.

BruceL

I think this is a great idea. I'm starting work as the chair of the local AGO committee on certification and continuing ed, and these sorts of things help make so many practical issues (finding competent subs, hiring, etc.) so much easier for musicians, clergy, and so on. The danger is when you turn it into interrogation, as Fr. Rossini tended to do (I think) in Pittsburgh, although the expert here on that would be Fr. Chepponis: he (literally) wrote the book on it!

G

our particular repertoire (e.g. Irish/Gaelic language hymns)

Fergusryan, could you tell us a bit about what your repertoire is? (In a different thread, of course.)

Save the Liturgy, Save the World!

dad29

Heh. This thread is revived as a report circulates that "church organists" are becoming as scarce as hen's teeth.

See: http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2014/09/wissj-as-number-of-church-organists.html

That scarcity is the logical result of the typical hire process: 1) We have X dollars to pay somebody; 2) hire whoever will work for that pay, when "X" represents 40% of the cost of living in a given area.

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