Permit me to explain just a bit.

In Adam's project, there are multiple ways to sing the propers....and some of this may also apply very nicely to singing the Responsorial Psalm.

The simplest way to get people to sing is to use the same melodies over and over again - that's why they will sing Holy God and Come Holy Ghost.

There is a very successful music program here in which the congregation really sings the RS because the music director for that mass is essentially untrained as a musician, and admits it. It's the guitar mass. Since he is not sophisticated musically the OCP music settings are beyond his ability. To get around that problem (he's very, very bright) he has a couple of melodies that he's made up and he uses te ones that fit the text.

Look at the source. Melodies created to with English composed by someone with no pretense as to creating great music.

Within the Flexible Propers are melodies, simple melodies, even easier to sing than Gregorian Chant psalm tones. Why simpler? Most Gregorian tones start with a melody, then chant on a note, some go to an auxiliary note, then sing a cadenceon , then chant the second line and then sing one of many endings.

To make this clear, there is an excellent page here created by Aristotle that adapts the GC Psalmtones for English:

http://www.cantemusdomino.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/English-Psalm-Tones.pdf

To make the psalm tones match the ending and beginning notes of the antiphon, the alternate endings are used....

Confusing? Not once you get used to it, but not as simple as Anglican Chant Psalmtones:

Simple Anglican Chant Tone - called a single: Sing the psalm on one note then sing three notes. Sing the next line on one note and end by singing 5 notes.

1.............234, 5.............678910

Learn just one psalm tones, 10 notes that never change and you can sing every psalm.

Learn one tone for Advent/Lent and say, three more, for the entire year and sing them over and over again and use them for the Antiphon and Verses of the RP and you will have a singing church.

AND, there is no rule that requires you to sing Antiphon Antiphon Verse Antiphon Verse Antiphon Verse Antiphon Verse Antiphon Verse Antiphon Verse Antiphon. Inserting multiple repetitions was to foster ACTIVE PARTICIPATION not listening to the verses as the psalms were written to be sing, listened to and understood and taken to heart.

The current practice of interrupting the psalm with Antiphon Commercials destroys the impact of psalm. It has, correct me if I am wrong, never been the practice of the church, if it were we would not have bread, wine and other things made by monks and sisters because they'd be stuck singing the hours for hours beyond what is normally required.

Flexible Propers permits you to sing all the propers from these simple 10 note psalm tones created to fit the cadence of English speech. They also offer more involved tones, called doubles that use 10 + 10 notes for a choir. They offer a hymn melody for the antiphon as well.

Flexible Propers may not be the best name, but at this point it tells exactly what they are, flexible.

While there are different psalmtones suggested, there is no indignity to use just one for months on end. When your cantors begin to complain that they are bored, people in the pews are just getting the hang of it.

Complaining Cantors....my cello teacher loves to play her part on the Pachelbel Canon....only the same 8 notes over and over again. She loves to play it because it gives her the opportunity to play them different every time and experiment with the musical interpretation. Cantors....few of them are excellent. Challenge them to study the psalms, understand what they are singing and strive for perfection.

Less changes in the melodies means more people sing.