Hi Steve:

Thank you for your response. I can contact you via phone if that would be better. However, for the benefit of those who come to this forum, you might share a synopsis of your experience for us all. The church has a fancy publishing copier that actually does two sides of an 11x17 and self binds with two staples all in one fell swoop. I am seeing endless possibilities with this model, and the ability to pick and choose anything is very attractive (including standard chants, responses and hymns with excellent translations). Have you ever used a service specifically designed for this purpose?

My email is available right from this forum if you want to collaborate offline.

We publish a complete order of worship, including all hymns and service music and texts to choral pieces in the sunday bulletin. It's a great idea and is less costly than hymnals or a subscription to "Breaking Bread" or something of the similar sort. Ours takes up one page front and back, divided into two columns on each side: Entrance hymn/Gloria, Liturgy of the word with psalm and gospel acclamation, liturgy of the Eucharist with acclamations, and Communion hymn/Recessional hymn.

Paix:

Thanks for your input too. I would love to see examples, even just photos would be great. Does anyone use a subscription service to create any of these resources? Does anyone use a scanner? Are there any templates that are preconfigured with content in place for the liturgical year?

I play the organ AND provide worship aids for two weekly EF Masses. My primary one uses 11x17 in a tri-fold arrangement. (The English Masses and bulletins tend to be "C" folded, but I prefer "Z" folded.) I include melody lines and hymn texts all created in Finale with the same settings. I pick/choose verses to emphasize the day or season, and still fit within the time frame of that part of the Mass. All Proper texts are included, even the complete endings to all Collects, and the Preface if it's not the "Trinity" Preface in the red Missalette. We print 150 for each Mass - which isn't that much when you consider the 750 for the English Masses and 1,000 for the bulletins!

The other EF Mass is not quite a year old, and is in a smaller Chapel downtown - with even less $$ available. The organ is only a "spinet" home organ, so I can't do a whole lot with it. Most Sundays we only sing hymns at Entrance and Recessional, mostly to save paper. And, since I don't have access to the large Risso printing machine, I use plain letter-size copy paper, and less graphics.

I think the tabloid size is more convenient. But if you don't have a machine for that size paper, letter works well also. And, with the possibility of folding and stapling, it's pretty much the same area to fill.

Steve: Can you put up a sample perhaps? I like the idea of Z-fold. I wonder if the machine does that? Makes for easier reading and less paper rattling I imagine. Where do you get texts? Do you type them yourself?

My weekly leaflet:
1 sheet, legal, folded (4 pages)

Hymns: texts in full (only way to avoid bastardized texts without using Adoremus or Saint Michael Hymnals) with common tunes; music for less common; I use Cyberhymnal more than Oremus, as the latter has a higher percentage of politically corrected texts.

Ordinary: Mass name/composer, reference to page/item in current hymn book (Music Issue 2007)

Motets: full text and translations, citations for text and source of music

Readings: citations, 1-line summary

Responses, etc.: verses and antiphons given

Organ: full name, translation, composer, etc.

I almost never need to scan.
My format rarely needs changing, but is fairly flexible.
I do very extensive booklets for Christmas and Holy Week/Easter.
It has become a bit of a hobby/passion as well as a job task!

Oh, now I see that one can attach files.
Here are a few.

We are only in the beginning stages. (From a big OCP church- no chant history.) Progress is slow, but programs are so helpful. I have found in the two weeks we have done them that more people do in fact sing.

Steve - Do you have an online source for the appropriate Catholic text? We'll be using it for our First Thursday vespers next month (First Friday falling on the 4th of July when the church will be closed). I too use Finale and would love to have appropriate text.

Daniel:

Those are quite nice layouts. Thank you for sharing them with us.

I too have a slew of different hymnals and can draw from them for layouts like this. I was once a Sibelius Ambassador (representative teaching workshops, demonstrations, etc.), and am quite fast using MIDI for input.

I guess what I am hoping to acquire is a library of music files that I can plug into my own layouts. Perhaps we could share among us, whether in Sib, Fin or PDF. What would be good is if we had a common place to post them.

If anyone is interested, I can create a page on RomanCatholicSacredMusic.com as a free library resource for others that do this type of thing. What do you all think? Of course we would only be able to utilize public domain material, but it would certainly be a huge plus for those of us who prefer to use traditional music/texts.

Thoughts?

This is great. Daniel & Steve, wonderful programs! I need to take some lessons. Pipes, I was unable to
open your .doc. Francis, I've got Sibelius & have never been able to figure out how to get more than the
small limited number of texts placed under the notation. Hope we can talk at the Colloquium. (I hope
people have name tags with their 'forum names').

Janice Clark
California

Thanks Francis. I saw the new thread. I'll get my questions together but I'm off to schola rehearsal right now.

Good luck with your new DOM position. I look forward to hearing about it.

Francis: I used OneLicense, and found it easy. But I only used it for the psalm responses, a few Alleluias, and Proulx's "Community Mass". If you want to use it for hymns, don't bother. There's no point in using hymns cut down to 2 verses to a neuter God to whom you say nothing of substance. There are good hymns that are copyrighted you may wish to use, but if you want to avoid royalties altogether, it's worth the sacrifice to stick to texts only. For texts, I reccommend going here: http://oremus.org/hymnal They have the FULL texts of a great number of hymns.

When I planned the White Mass for our diocese, I took a page from the worship booklets that the Vatican publishes. What the Office of LIturgy for the Supreme Pontiff does is have an icon depicting the particular feast celebrated on the front cover and on the back cover, it has the Papal Seal (in this case, Pope Benedict's). The inside has both the music and the readings. It even has the General Intercessions (including the various languages used).

I took that booklet and modified it for our White Mass and the result was exquisite and functional. Of course, I have to confess that I bought most of my Papal booklets from ebay and I had a graphics company work with me. Nonetheless, the resulting booklet really works. I have proposed that the diocese follow this model for all other Masses (ordinations, Chrism Mass, etc). I haven't heard back on that one; however, I figure, if it's good enough for Benedict, it's good enough for us.

Let me check if the graphics company still has the CD. I think they do. I'll also hunt down my copy and try to scan it. It may take me a couple of days. In the meantime, you might also want to check ebay. Look under Pope Benedict XVI and you will find that they'll have the Mass booklets (as they call them) for bidding. Click on the image and you'll see what I mean.

I am still trying to get the program scanned in and sent. I should be able to, if all else fails, get the original from the CD since the Feast of St. Luke is coming up again.

The little booklets from the Office of Liturgy for the Supreme Pontiff are great examples. I suspect that they probably went through some more improvements now that Msgr. Guido Marini has taken the helm as the Papal MC. Certainly the artwork has improved over the ones used for Pope John Paul II.

These are well worth the investment for those who plan diocesan liturgies.

OneLicense also gives access to works from OUP, Augsburg, and Selah... altogether a better class of congregational music.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

May I suggest that, as far as the hymns are concerned, you offer the people the choir hymnals, instead of just the ones with the melody? Some people might be interested in this. Then you could use chant or polyphony for communion, and after people have received communion, they can chant or sing a quality hymn. That being said, my church, which is AU, also uses bulletins for the people instead of hymnals.

With the pricing structure from the major hymnal publishers that produce a "pew edition" and a "choir edition", you can expect to pay upwards of $25.00 per book for the choir edition, better than twice the cost of the pew edition.

Also,ISTM (having been raised Presbyterian and then converting to Episcopalianism before "swimming the Tiber") singing in parts in the congregation assumes several things that aren't as true for Catholics (or indeed for many Protestants anymore) in the 21st century: musical literacy and a well-developed culture (at the parish level) of singing at all.

I'm not certain that Catholic congregations will really sing well if offered choir editions of their particular hymnal.

Why get rid of the liturgical music? They have some fine settings in there - I'd flip out to hear the Matthias service at a Catholic church.

It's very sad to me to see that you imply that most of the Catholics who can sing are converts. Ok, well, this generally seems true, but it is sill very sad.

I love singing parts when I'm in a congregation. The first time I attended Mass when I was a teen, I was seriously annoyed that the hymnals were all unison. Seemed like baby stuff to me.

I guess it is a fairly well known fact that most of our schola is populated by people who are not yet Catholics. It seems to work fine.

If we only had a rubric that allowed for use of the transitional translation of the Ordinary, I would even more highly recommend "The Hymns 1940". But, alas, if it doesn't have an "ICEL" stamp on it, we're not allowed to use it. I am not impressed with the new translation. We had a perfectly good translation in 1965, and we used it for over 5 years. It's no longer allowed.

I know that the Mass is the Mass. I am just tired of English Masses. They just lack something, close to everything, intellectual and artistic. I plan to include in my will that my Requiem Mass will be exactly that - EF, and I don't even care whether or not it's sung. I especially don't like the current "Rite of Christian Burial" from any point of view.

oh, I misunderstood. I also dearly love those old timers. I get so excited when an older person comes up and says, oh I sang the communio with the schola today! that is just thrilling.

Paul Viola - I see above that you belong to an AU parish. Which one? At Our Lady of Walsingham we, naturally, use The Hymnal 1940, plus a service folder containing the hymns of the day, propers, gradual psalm (to Anglican chant), ordinary, and anthems. I have seen a few Catholic churces which use The Hymnal 1940. It does contain a (very) few objectionable hymns, but one knows they are there and simply avoids them.
Steve - as for The Hymnal 1982 without the liturgy section: I did not know about this. Who publishes it? Is it the Church Hymnal Corporation? I don't really see the point in it. There are some good ICEL settings (Matthias!) which would be splendid at a Catholic high mass in English.
Jackson -
Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston

M. Jackson Osborn,

I go to OLOA in San Antonio---we just commemorated our priest's 25th anniversary to the Catholic priesthood, as well as our 25th anniversary of our parish about a month ago. Now, a little off topic, but I understand that the AU Conference next year is gonna be held in Houston? I hope to be there.

That being said, I don't know what hymnal we use since I am not in the choir, but I was fishing around for decent hymnals a few months ago and that is how I stumbled across Adoremus. It has many of the quality hymns which Catholics would be familiar with, however, it does not have a few good hymns which we use at OLOA, such as "Thine Be the Glory." In addition, our clergy adds their own lyrics to some recycled, if you will, tunes. An example is the "Grafton" melody---on Easter Sunday we sang a tune by Fr. Phillips which starts with "God our Father Lord of Glory/Thanks and Praise we give to thee..." Then we sang that tune again a month ago, to different lyrics. That is a very nice melody.

Overall, the music in the Adoremus is very good, though the language is in its original English as regards the English hymns, provided you can get the CD to work.

Steve---I understand the ICEL is finished with working on the Novus Ordo Missae? I haven't been to a Novus Ordo in English in a long time.