It amazes me to no end that publishers do not consider practicality of page turning in their publications. I always wind up photocopying everything and taping it end to end, especially larger organ works. Now that I have gone completely digital, I size all the music to a large flat screen monitor which sits on the music desk...

Look ma! NO HANDS or FEET! ...and now, no more paper!!!!

marajoy,

The skill is admirable, and sometimes necessary for legitimate reasons. There is, however, no legitimacy to this skill being a necessity born out of the publisher's incompetence.

We live in an age where products of higher quality, both in their composition and presentation, and of increased relevance to the demands of the Roman Catholic liturgy, are available at a much lower cost (often free). There is no reason to defend GIA, and they no longer have any excuses (if they ever had any).

The major publishing companies were once all that was available, and competent musicians were able to "deal with it" when the products were of poor quality. This is no longer the case, as we now have so many alternatives available. The digital age offers an ease-of-access to products of superior quality (and relevance to the liturgy), and at a much lower cost (often free).

Necessity is the mother of invention, while amateur publishing is so often the mother of necessity.

Imagine what treasures will spring forth when creative efforts can be directed toward quality sacred music, rather than avoiding these scornful oversights of mediocre publishers.

Sadly, my pastor also doesn't want the readings in the hymnal, so we will probably have to go with another hymnal.... Any possibility of print on demand with no readings?

Well, let me think up some reasons.

A parish might want to use sung psalms from an authorized psalm edition other than the one in the V2H, and would rather not deal with questions and confusions arising from the discrepancy.

Or people might think that the hymnal's useful life would be diminished by eventual revisions to the Lectionary.

And there's the possibility that a version without readings might be slightly more lightweight (i.e., a convenience for some folks in the pew, or it might be slightly cheaper.

Or they might just not like the print in which the readings are presented. It looks small to me.

JMO,

Chonak hit on one reason why some choose not to have readings in their hymnals. I worked at a church that consisted of mostly older people and one of the biggest complaints was that the hymnals were too heavy and they got tired of holding them. These hymnals had all the readings in them. Now, my solution for that is to just rest the hymnal on the back of a pew or something, but then again, the older people may need to hold it up closer to be able to read. Personally, I don't find it to be a huge reason to change hymnals, but I'm just letting you know some feedback I had regarding hymnals with readings.

@Marajoy: I am in awe. I'm still trying to get competent with playing hymns with the melody on the great, middle voices on the choir, and bass in the pedal....the choir has to make do with watching my head bob.

I photo-copied when I was using the Adoremus 1st Ed, since the organ edition has the exact same page turn issues as the choir edition.

Reminds me of the children's story, read from an edition with an ill-placed page turn:

"... and the little engine huffed and puffed and chugged into the station-yard because he needed to have a leak

(pause, with sound of page being turned)

fixed in its boiler. ..."

CHGiffen,

Haha! What a great point for well placed page turns!

We have Ritual Song, which has the readings. It's too heavy and unwieldy. One mother summed it up by telling me that handling a small child and that hymnal at the same time were impossible. Weight can make a difference in whether or not people use the hymnal.

My worry was a matter of cost. Wouldn't a hymnal without all the Propers cost less to print and therefore to sell?

Maybe it's also a matter of hearing "hymnal" and thinking "Gather" rather than "Breaking Bread." Having seen the hardcover Vatican II Hymnal in passing it occurs to me that solid construction is not an advantage if you're really aiming to compete with the Breaking Bread brand. It is a liability. Solid construction is expensive.

Breaking Bread is specifically disposable each year, freshly printed at an inexpensive cost, so that when Advent rolls around people have something nice to look at again. This, I think, is part of its success. Missals get ratty-looking and broken very quickly. It is no small comfort when Breaking Bread gets ratty-looking that we'll replace it in December.

Again: Hymnals get ratty, and quick. Solid construction doesn't pay off, IMO, because people will find a way to trash it throughout the year, while simultaneously decrying beaten-up hymnals, finding it one more reason to complain. The crispness of a Breaking Bread right through the year is one thing going for it. For that matter, having a softcover hymnal would help out with the weight immeasurably.

Occurs to me that the missal as is doesn't make sense for choirs because of the readings and doesn't make sense for the laity because of the solidity and weight. This hymnal tries to be all things to everyone and everyone will find something to dislike, and for good reason.

I am very grateful for these conversations, because I like to read what everyone has to say. There certainly are a lot of different opinions! And that is what I have found since this hymnal first came out: many people have strong opinions about different aspects.

For instance, some people absolutely love the fact that the Vatican II Hymnal contains all the Readings for Years A, B, & C. On the other hand, there are also those who feel very strongly that people should not follow along with the readings at Mass, even if this helps them to follow, understand, and pray the Mass.

The response has been truly amazing, and we are so grateful. I personally haven't heard any complaints about the weight of the hymnal, because it is so much more lightweight than many of the hymnals on today's markets.

A few thoughts, if I may:

1. Regarding the idea that people should continue to pay money every few months for cheaply printed, disposable books, I can tell you that some parishes simply cannot afford to do this.

These are the parishes who are so very grateful to have a permanent book, whether it is the Vatican II Hymnal, GIA's RitualSong, etc. The Cathedral in our city has used such a book for more than 15 years.

Incidentally, I know that several of these disposable books have to be destroyed (by law): they cannot even be given to poor mission countries. I personally know several people throughout the country who have been threatened by lawsuits from the major publishers after they failed to properly dispose of what their church purchased.

There are currently no plans whatsoever for a revision to the Lectionary (many sources have confirmed this, including the USCCB committee on Divine worship source), so this Vatican II Hymnal will probably "last" between 10-20 years. The USCCB office has also confirmed that the "Revised Grail" Psalms will not appear in Lectionaries until the Lectionary itself is revised. However, it is allowed to sing the Revised Grail at Mass, for those who choose to do so.

2. The reason that we have included everything necessary for the people in the pews is because over the years so many have expressed to me that they hate switching back and forth between different books, the bulletin, the missalette, etc. and they usually just give up. For this reason, we eliminated much page turning, and included more than 100 pages of Mass Settings (Rice, Weber, Esguerra, etc.), hundreds of hymns, 100% of the Propers, all the Responsorial psalms, alleluias, all three years of Readings, Motet translations, etc. etc.

3. Finally, I would like to share with you that the response to the FREE ONLINE RESOURCES we provide has been truly outstanding.

Again, thanks for all these thoughts, opinions, observations, etc. I always learn here!

Ritual Song held up for a good ten years at my parish. Overall, I'd say using those saved a LOT of money compared to buying the the disposable hymnals. Sure, some of them were in bad shape, but most were still in decent shape. If the Vatican II hymnal is anywhere close to those in binding, then I think they should hold up ten years, too, no problem. Even five would be good enough to make up for the waste of money buying from OCP or WLP.

Marc,

Were you referring to my paragraph as an "argument?" I did not intend it this way, but perhaps it came across that way. I was merely pointing out the utter waste of paper that this practice requires.

Curt Jester

The binding is fantastic: the most durable, long lasting currently available.

One pretty big potential problem as aesthetics go: I noticed the VatII hymnal has a glossy cover. Seems to me that this will scratch like the dickens.