I like them. If they were in square notes, I wouldn't use them. I have too many things to do now, without taking on teaching a new system of notation to people who already read music. It would be great if they could be indexed to the new calendar.

I've used them a couple of times . . . at the very least, don't take them away!

As one who isn't very familiar with the EF, how much would it take to make them useful for the OF? Would there be gaps in them?

Btw, it's amazing how stupid it is to call the Alleluia verse a "Meditation Song". Arrrrrrgh, the pain!

I've got an old missal and a new missal with propers, so I can index 'em for you if you want. What format (of files and information) are you looking for?

I find it interesting that the Alleluia has for text only one Alleluia, rather than the more common today of three or four times through. Have we lost the distinction of the Easter Vigil triple Alleluia? How many does the current Lectionary list?

I can do lists. :) I'll get started today, then.

Thank you so much for doing this!!!

This is taking a bit longer than I thought. While I realized that Psalm numbering in Arbogast was old-style Catholic, and that the current lectionary uses the new style of citation... I didn't realize that this didn't just change the numbering of the Psalms, but the numbering also of tons and tons of individual verses, even within Psalm unchanged in number.

Am I missing some kind of standard EF/OF lectionary conversion worksheet? I don't mind doing work, but repeating work seems silly.

Re: why not 1974 Graduale?

Because I didn't know it was relevant, as I've never seen or possessed one, nor have any idea where to download such a thing (unless it's hidden somewhere on Musica Sacra)? Heh. Now you begin to understand the depths of my ignorance, and why I'm eager to perform a gruntwork task like indexing.

I sincerely thank you for giving me this Graduale clue, as I see via Wikipedia that there _is_ a nice table on the website here which I had no idea existed. It's in Latin, though, so I'll still need my EF missal for the Latin names (unless I want to play searchie-searchie with drbo.org or the Clementine Vulgate), and my OF missal for a big chunk of saints' days that are in Arbogast and aren't on this chart. Still, it's quite a speed boost.

(But why does the 1974 chart even list graduals and tracts? I didn't think the OF had either one. I thought it was all responsorial psalms all the time, unless you "alius cantus aptus". (I realize these sorts of questions have probably been covered elsewhere, so let me know where to look.))

There's always something new to learn here.... :)

Yet another reason we need an FAQ section....

fantastic!!!

THANK YOU Maureen! It is done done done. These are now opened up!!

Arbogast Propers with Indexes for Ordinary Form Use

The psalms, and even the Alleluia verse, are readings, not musical interludes to which we may think beautiful thoughts -- unless you count the other readings and the Gospel as also interludes to which we may think beautiful thoughts. Also, it sounds lame. As a child of the Seventies I strongly object to certain Sixties and Seventies flavors of annoying (like the poem "Desiderata", or hymns about butterflies). The good Arbogast probably didn't mean "Meditation Song" in the gutchurning way I read it; he may have even meant "meditation" in its technical St. John of the Cross sense and not in any of the common usages. But I am allergic to the merest whiff of such stuff when associated with Catholicism.

Re: psalms in general -- The more I look into patristics, the more I see that psalms are not optional pretty things to play with (which was the impression I got as a kid).Other than the Eucharist, the psalter was pretty much the foundation of all modes of Christian worship; and if you go through the propers and the Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office, you can see that the psalms still are the foundation. It would almost be accurate to say that the first reading (where there is one), epistles, and Gospel are the treat, but the psalms are the main course. (In the sense of the old days in most cultures, when you were living off bread or rice and vegetables, though the high point of the meal was the little bit of meat or fruit or sweets.) But psalms aren't treated as a major food group at all.

The key to understanding this is the Christological lens through which the Fathers sang and read every single one of the psalms. It's not the only lens (though it's the only one I never got in school), but it's the most useful one for understanding huge chunks of their liturgical uses. Psalms should be the subject of homilies discussing their various levels, and kids should learn about them in school. (I don't say we should go back to using them as every Christian's first reading book; but every Christian should know them well.)

As for Alleluia verses... well, there's more room for calling them meditations, and often they're foretastes of the Gospel to come. But they aren't reflections on the greater message, so much as integral parts of the message -- if you're using all the propers, anyway. (Which most American parishes usually aren't -- maybe not even the right Alleluia verse for the day.) But having just spent a couple three days immersed in propers, it's hard for me to see anything else but the whole combo message, just now! :)

Adam, I'm kind of getting the FAQ need here.
Maureen, so- the Arbogast Proper Index you've provided does not necessarily correlate to those of the 1970 or later missals? (As I suppose is similar to Bruce Ford's settings.)

Have a look at the file and see just how useful it is . You can really find your way around.

The psalms, and even the Alleluia verse, are readings

Sorry, the psalms were sung, not read. Let's not rewrite history.

God's blessing be on you, Maureen, for doing this. How wonderful.

I think we are talking past each other. Of course psalms were sung. Everything that was regarded at Holy Scripture at Mass was probably sung, just like everything that was Holy Scripture at a synagogue was probably sung. That was my point -- that calling the Liturgy of the Word stuff "readings" is perfectly normal, and doesn't imply that they aren't sung. "Those thingummies that change every day" isn't particularly respectful as a name for the ensemble of all the "Scriptural selections" for the day, including psalms, canticles, et al.

You probably already know that one of Tertullian's list of joys of marrying a Christian wife was that you could have somebody to sing the hours' psalms antiphonally with, even when you were home alone.

I realize I'm not terribly coherent today; I'm full of nervous energy and can't sleep. You'd be better off ignoring my sad attempts at wit, before I start proposing that we call most of the NT "memoirs of the Apostles", like Justin Martyr trying to explain Mass to the Emperor and Senate.

----

Anyway, circling back around to the original point which I may finally have understood as referring to the book and not to what one calls the Liturgy of the Word readings...

Every single text printed in the Arbogast Propers is supposed to be chanted. However, pretty much all your Alleluia _verses_ and tracts aren't scored in Arbogast. If you read the book's original foreword, Arbogast is assuming that for those particular unscored bits, you'll just follow your own devices to chant them, like psalm tones and such. The foreword is full of all kinds of information and a list of four ways to chant and all that sort of thing that I don't particularly understand, but which I encourage other people to knock themselves out with. This is the sort of thing they did in the Sixties and Seventies; and if you've put it out of your mind or never experienced it, you're lucky.

There are also a bunch of extra Communion psalms in an appendix in the back, also printed without music, also meant to be chanted or sung to some melody of your own personal choice. They're not in the index because they weren't in the lectionary.

Seriously, I'm not the person to ask about this stuff. You're a lot better off reading the book for yourself. I just index things.

There are specific instructions for what is to be sung and said at Mass, and there always have been, priests came out of the seminary knowing and able to sing the Mass up until the seventies.

And this was the tradition of the church. Unfortunately it is blurred now in current practice. It was common practice to chant all the propers in psalm tones in many churches, including the parish that the Colloquium was held in this year. That parish of all parishes!

However, the goal was always to sing at the highest level possible. So if Fr. Rossini in Pittsburgh had singers who could sing the propers from the Graduale Romanum, I am sure they did so.

However, in this English chant, they were adapting so I can see why some of the propers might have not been included.

Chanting was not merely a way to make the Mass more solemn, but rather to make it audible. Turn off the electricity to see what that means. The parts of the Mass that were considered to be most important to be heard by the people were sung/chanted by the priest and choir so that all could hear the words.

Words that were not as important to be heard were said.

Words that were determined by the church to be said silently or under the voice were also marked and the rules followed.

The current belief that everyone should be able to hear everything makes everything equally important.

Of course, if you have a priest who insists on saying Hello at the beginning of Mass and personalizing everything, he has totally lost the understanding that the Mass is not about him and us.

I'm not sure I follow the controversy,.....In my own view, they need to be redone on a four-line staff with square notes.

I agree with your first statement, but think you've manufactored a new controversy with your second proposal. What rationale would be served by rescoring the Arbogast to neumes? It seems that the good Father's opus was a "Rosetta Stone" like effort to help propagate and proliferate the use of "chant" as the setting for English translations. My "catholic" experience doesn't go back to '64, but common sense suggests that familiarity with "modern notation" among liturgical musicians was the prime mover in the Arbogast project. And that rationale still could be efficacious today. Resetting them for scholas conversant with square notes would either be motivated by an intentional interest to use those specific settings, or by an adherence to an idealistic notion of unity of form. As illustrated by your "Fourteen Introits" article, there's plenty good room for all such versions, and likely for more innovations.
I hope that my successor will take my gradual efforts to have our choir schooled in neumes thoroughly. But they've been singing chant (round notes) for 17+ years and polyphony as well. So, I have a critical decision to make every rehearsal: do I spend time re-inventing a wheel (music literacy) that already they use with extreme efficiency, or use the settings of either of the professors Ford or of Fr Arbogast? Jeffrey, do you see what I'm getting at? Were I to start a new schola project from the ground up, with capable singers who don't read, that's another story: PBC time definitely. Or Weber/Kelly/AUG time.

Personally, I'm a big fan of stem-less five-line notation. People can read it. It doesn't suggest rhythm. I can write it in Finale.
I know it isn't as good as neumes, but it's a decent compromise.

I find the stemmed, everything-is-an-eighth-note notation that seemed to have been common in the late 19th/early-mid20th cent. rather unattractive and unhelpful.

Charles, I'm not really sure what is right here. Truly. But my case for neumes involves two considerations. 1) these are pretty easy so reading the neumes would not be a big stretch, and 2) in the experience of our own choir, singers just sing better with neumes rather than mod notes. The square work as a signaling device that this is liturgical music.

But I'm kind of a believer in neumes actually. I seriously doubt that anyone can make much progress in Catholic music without learning to read them. And yes, this does ask something of people. That can be a good thing.

Somehow we need to deal with the seemingly competitive demands here: 1) accessible as possible, 2) give people a challenge so that they will take the job seriously.

The exact way this is resolved is not entirely clear.

I do fear that these kinds of questions will keep the publication of the Parish Book of English Propers forever at bay. This is my biggest worry.

I do fear that these kinds of questions will keep the publication of the Parish Book of English Propers forever at bay. This is my biggest worry.

Doesn't seem like it needs to.

I can't imagine why things there couldn't be too editions. My Church of Christ friends can get their hymnal with shape notes or with regular ones. I can get accompaniment editions to Gather Comp that have landscape format with spiral binding or 3 -hole punch.
I don't see why there couldn't be multiple editions. I know that takes more work, but it seems feasible.

I feel like the translation issue is a much bigger problem for a bound, for-sale book.

Please help. I cannot get the index to work. Is there a secret?