Methodist church is making music available FREE to its churches, for choirs, congregations, keyboard players and more, which should have a MAJOR effect upon the music used in that denomination, especially small churches with limited budget for music.
This is a denomination that understands the power of music in worship and wants to guide it.
When is the last time your diocese, the USCCB or even Rome gave you music that is appropriate for worship? The new Mass Chants are there, people, let's get behind them.
Eft, I immediately thought of Jubilate Deo.
Our (Catholic) problem is only partly IP stuff. We have all the music ready, its a matter of getting it in the hands of pastors and musicians.
We have such an identity problem, that most of the above haven't even heard of Jubilate Deo, and that came right from Rome (albeit in '74) to every bishop.
Maybe BXVI could send an urgent email letter to every bishop, with a PDF of the Roman missal... Ok, just dreaming here. It's not a complaint. I see he is accomplishing so much, and I thank God for that.
People smarter and with more time than I can come up with how to get sacred music out there, clearing hurdles of liturgical ignorance and the obfuscation of the publishers/ liturgical industrial complex.
In response to Mary, I often wonder how much evangelism is being done by us. When you visit a chuck, and the music is less than ideal, do you take a minute to talk to your colleague at the organ console? I don't mean being some nut with a list of what he and the priest did wrong. I mean a genuine friendly positive chat, excitedly mentioning what's happening now in church music. A lot of people are interested in chant, and don't realize there is a world outside of the "big three". I perhaps know one musician who rejects chant altogether and refuses to learn or implement it. Most anyone else just has questions left unanswered.
Gavin, good point about spreading the word.
As a DoM, I don't get out as much as I used to, but I do chat with other directors, organists, and singers when I sub for weddings and funerals. The last choir I heard when traveling was Prof. Mahrt's. How exciting to have no need whatsoever to evangelize. The all unaccompanied chant was glorious, as was the polyphony.
In my diocese, I'm known as the chant lady. I've co-led two workshops and taught basic diocesan-wide chant courses through my parish for the last two years. If I wasn't expecting my fourth son in March, this would have been a perfct year (late Easter) to offer a four-week course or somesuch before Lent. Maybe next year.
Oh, and I plug CMAA far and wide. Hopefully some of my choir members will join me at the Colloquium this year and experience that my enthusiasm about the work of CMAA is not exaggerated!
I realize that CMAA as a whole is in no position to mail flyers hither, skither and yon. But if CMAA made up a flyer listing its major free music offerings or announcing the existence of stuff like Chabanel Psalms, maybe CMAA individual members could mail it out or hand it out to colleagues?
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