Who will use the Responsorial Psalm during Ordinary Time?
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Friends,

    For those of you who play Masses at the OF, I wanted to let you know that I have added (and continue to add) practice audio Mp3 samples to the St. Noel Chabanel Site. I started this project earlier this week, and I have currently posted the next 14 Sundays (Liturgical Year A). That means that anyone who wants to can go and print off these free scores (for organist and voice) and send your cantors to the site to practice at their convenience.

    Also, many other audio files have been added to the site. Here are some examples:

    Dr. Kwasniewski's choir at Wyoming Catholic College (without organ accompaniment))

    Maestro Noel Jones and the Choeur Liturgique at Saint John Neumann Catholic Church (with organ accompaniment)

    A 10th grader and a 9th grader at John Paul II High School singing a Chabanel "Seasonal" Psalm (with organ accompaniment)
  • G
    Posts: 1,400
    Thank you again, for all you do, Mr Ostrowski
  • Jscola30
    Posts: 116
    Jeff, have you considered having these bound in a book? (Maybe another CMAA project).
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Thank you, G!

    Jscola30, I would love to someday, but the whole thing is still a work in progress: I will randomly look at one of them, decide I don't like it, and add another option. I would lose this freedom with a book.

    In Christ,
    JMO
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Yes, a book does introduce the absence of flexibility and the introduction of a thicket of other issues like distribution, legal technicalities, financial risk and blah blah blah. Better not to go there.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Says the co-creator of Communio and The Parish Book of Chant. JT, are you having "publisher's remorse?"
  • Jan
    Posts: 242
    There is a difference between Gregorian chant & contemporary composers' compositions.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Well, not really. Communio was possible thanks to modern methods and print on demand. It also happened inadvertently more or less. Richard Rice is an amazing typesetter who can do music and also put together the final project. It was all his doing, and then we just did the cover and marketing etc. It was dazzling in some ways, especially for an institution without money and established markets. It was a smashing success.

    Now, The Parish Book of Chant is an interesting case because we have moved here beyond PoD to actually produce thousands of copies. This has been a very scary project because it has been nothing but an abstraction since last fall. And in two weeks, it actually appears in real life. The real thing! I'm scared out of my mind about it. I mean, I have every confidence that it is going to be glorious -- but still I want to hold and see the real thing. I'll sleep better once that happens. Then we have to see about reprinting once the dust settles.

    In the middle of all of this came Psallite -- the book on music in the EF. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We couldn't say no -- well, let's just say that I said no no no no a thousand times, knowing that the timing is bad, that we don't have the money or infrastructure and that it just wasn't possible or wise to undertake this.

    But in the end, we agreed, and why? I credit Scott Turkington here. He would call and said, hey, it sure would be nice to have this Andrew Mills book. If you know Scott, it is impossible to say no to him. I tried many times, but no one ever wants to disappoint him. Finally a call from William Mahrt put it over the top. He spoke as if this was just an inevitability. Then the universe shifted and after many late nights and some crazy calculations and wow it was done.

    By the way, the book is selling rather well, but I expect it will be years before it pays for itself. So once again, the CMAA is in the hole again. You might say that we are stupid and we are in some way. Actually, the whole enterprise is preposterous from every angle: publishing all these books even while we try to have a massive national conference on liturgy and music -- with no staff or money or anything else.

    But after months and years of this sort of insanity, you sort of learn to thrive on it. If we had stability and security, I'm not sure what we would do!

    Even given all that, the very idea of yet another publishing project strikes me as gravely irresponsible at this point. Let's just hope Scott doesn't get interested!
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Well, again, what I think is really neat about the Chabanel Psalms is that a music director who has the internet and a printer in his choir loft has it all !!! He can literally print off the scores before Mass, in a matter of seconds. And the pieces are easy to play (big print, no page turns, etc.), so little practice is necessary.

    That is why we made the vocalist scores always fit on 1 page — so that those who print them or copy them only have to print one page.

    Formatting was a lot of work (the bulk of the work!). But I hope it is worth it.

    Again, thank you all for the support. Jeffrey, if people keep getting interested in the Chabanel Psalms, and they prove themselves over a period of years, perhaps we can eventually talk about publishing them.

    I beg you all to please let others know about them! THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU!
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Practice Audio Samples have also been added to the "Common (Seasonal) Psalms."

    I am hoping this may come in handy for some during Ordinary Time.

    In Christ,
    JMO
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