Welcome to the forum, darrharis!

One weakness in most parishes' music can be summed up in the phrase: "Don't sing at the Mass, sing the Mass." In a lot of parishes, people sing four hymns (entrance, offertory, communion, recessional), but don't sing the ordinary parts of the Mass.

The Church actually sets objective priorities for us in her teaching about sacred music. The priest and the congregation should be singing their dialogues ("The Lord be with you"/"And also with you") and the major parts of the Mass ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei). The Mass is sort of designed to work well that way, and the Church's teaching about liturgical music urges us to sing those parts first of all. That's the kind of "active participation" Vatican II wanted, in which people are directly involved in their role as the congregation at the Mass.

Instead, many parish musicians have their choirs or congregations sing hymns, anthems, or songs. They may be good music or even great music (or maybe not-so-great music) perhaps, but they're not an official part of the Mass text, so they really are just being tacked onto the Mass at the parish. They're incidental to the Mass, and they're not really the prayer of the Church. It's lawful to use them (generally), but it's a poor second or third-choice, considering how wonderful it is for a congregation to sing the Mass itself.

When a congregation and priest do sing their respective parts of the Mass, the role of the choir makes sense: it's to sing the variable elements in the Mass -- the entrance antiphon, the psalm between the readings, the offertory antiphon, and the communion antiphon -- which require practice because the texts and melodies change from week to week.

I hope this is sort of along the lines you're thinking about.

Anyway, welcome: to find out more about what the CMAA is and does, watch the great video about our annual summer colloquium, produced by artist collaborative Corpus Christi Watershed.

Many thanks Chonak for your comments which I agree with. I guess my question (which I didn't frame very well) was more concerned with the optional music in the Mass, and what is presented to congregations. If the Church allows options X, Y, W, Z, and assuming are all possible in a parish, but a choir only "likes" or prefers option X, then the congregation miss out on Y, W, Z, simply because it is not the personal preference of the choir. So my question relates to the competing priorities of personal preference, over what is allowed by the Church - should the musicians be doing all they can to explore all options and present the diversity of legitimate musical possibilities the Church provides, or should they be content to just gravitate to what they personally like. For example, some people have expressed recently various views on organ accompaniment of chant - it is allowed by the Church and has a long tradition in some parts - some members of any congregation may like it, and some may obviously not - but will they ever be offered both alternatives if the choir has his own personal preference on the matter and places that on a higher level to what the Church allows? In the Pope's letter to the Bishops re Summorum Pontificum, he asked the Bishops to "Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows." Do people also see this as an obligation of church choirs?

I think the answer is that a choir that gets to dictate the style and choice of music at Mass is not led by a director but by...would the word be facilitator?

Musicians have obligations: to present music that conforms to the liturgical norms, to develop their own skills, to foster choirs, to develop the congregation's abilities, to present music of the highest artistic quality possible.

There isn't any real duty to use all the various permitted options, or to adopt music in an extensive variety of styles. As one observer put it, variety is not a liturgical value.

On the other hand, monotony in style may be a lost opportunity to make the Mass more beautiful and to expand the choir's abilities.

At my previous position, I inherited a choir of mixed ability that had been led by a director that played guitar primarily, could fake the piano, and had absolutely no training, skills or background in training and conducting a choir. The majority of the choir library was made up of generic anthems by Craig Courtney and others of his ilk, with maybe one or two anthems that I would consider appropriate for use at Mass, and much of what they did was driven by his tastes and abilities, and the tastes of some in the choir.

When I got there, I worked with what I had, but introduced some more sophisticated music that challenged their abilities, worked on various aspects of choral/vocal technique and slowly raised the bar over the 2 1/2 years I was there. Some didn't care for what I was doing, but most did and the choir gained a few new members.

By the time I left, the choir was singing vastly better music and was more musical than when I arrived. I would say that we were one of the best all-volunteer choirs in the Archdiocese. The associate music director told my parents when meeting them that she had learned a great deal about sacred music, choir technique and about what the Church asks us to do with respect to music at Mass under my leadership.

I'm happy to say that while the circumstances surrounding my abrupt departure from that job were painful, I have found out that the bar I set remains pretty much in place. However, I also found out via email that one gentleman who sang in both the parish choir and the "contemporary" ensemble has since left the parish and moved to a much more serious "reform of the reform" parish and sings in the choir there, due entirely to what he learned about chant and polyphony and what the Church teaches in these matters while singing in the choir under my direction.

The circumstances behind my departure (which was essentially a forced resignation) had nothing to do with the quality of my work. It was brought on by a select number of "sheep" (including the school music teacher) who felt threatened by my growing desire to bring orthodoxy to the music of the parish. The majority of the choir and congregation were shocked and disappointed that I resigned and left so quickly.

Sometimes we can't tell what influence we may have on people or what direction things will take, so my advice is to follow your instincts, but work as best as you can to move toward musical orthopraxis.

@JC-
Does your "irony" necessarily mean that DMz who've remained at one parish for two decades (me) or four decades (Salamunovich/Mahrt) are incompetent?

@Charles in CenCA
Of course not. Read what Noel said.

You and Dr. Mahrt are examples of the fortunate ones.