One tip I give all of my priest/seminarian friends:

After the initial interview/audition, bring back the best group of folks back and have them actually provide music for a Mass.

I've heard great concert organists who could do amazing things during concerts just brutalize the musical flow of the Mass. Have them work with your choir, do a rehearsal on a Saturday afternoon, and then play/direct at the Saturday Vigil. Do this with all of the candidates (using the same choir) for several weeks (one for each candidate). Give them complete free reign, though answer any questions they might ask (i.e. "what Mass Ordinaries do the folks here know?"). Have two or three people (if you have another celebrant, one of them possibly being yourself) fill out a review of how they were lead to prayer during Mass by the music, whether or not anything was jarring or less-than-edifying, how the Mass was more edifying because of the music, etc...

I've been offered so many jobs over the years without being asked to actually provide music for a Mass! It seems INSANE to me.

Never rely mainly on an individual's ability to play the organ. MANY organists including 'Catholic' ones, don't have a clue what the liturgy or the FAITH is truly about. If they don't like chant, for instance, you have the wrong individual. If they don't understand obedience to the pastor, they don't have a clue either.

I have begun a new organization that promotes thinking and philosophy entirely in line with the Magesterium. If you want more info, contact me via email.

I agree with much of what has been said so far. I am both a parish music director and - in my "day job" - a hiring manager. When I look for employees, there are two big things I look for in addition to the necessary skills to do the job: 1) Goals, objectives, attitudes that are consistent with mine and that of the company, and 2) Positive results in the past that match what we a trying to do.

The first is intended to ensure that both sides have a chance of being satisfied and successful. When company and employee goals match, you obviously end up with a more motivated employee. The second demonstrates that the person is as much an effective practitioner as a theorist. I have hired some very brilliant and skilled people who just didn't have the knack for getting a job done. I'd much rather have a person whose skills or qualifications might be less than some other candidates, but who has a record of getting it done in practice. I love matthewj's idea of having candidates actually provide music for a mass as part of the audition. Seeing is believing (I am a doubting Thomas!).

David - I sympathize with your situation and am glad you are now enjoying success. An employer might very well miss out on a good candidate like you and would have to weigh in any mitigating factors that are particular to your history. I am just saying that most employers will try to minimize their risk - especially if they recognize that hiring the right person is the most important decision they can make. In parish life, I believe hiring the right music director can almost make or break a parish.

Some dioceses have their own guidelines for hiring DMs. Here's an example: http://home.catholicweb.com/DOSP_OFW/files/Guidelines/Hiring_a_Music_Director_-_6403.PDF.

Also, have you checked out NPM's guidelines? They have a list of qualifications for a DM: http://www.npm.org/Sections/images/qualifications.pdf.

I'm also not a "concert organist", but I do play chorale preludes, pieces such as the Bach preludes and fugues (i.e. BWV 578, Prelude in G Minor, etc.) and pieces such as the Franck Cantibile.

I do not, however, play the very involved Langlais or Tournemire pieces, nor most of the Guilmant Sonatas nor the Bach Sonatas. I'm sure I'm capable of them - but I don't learn them because they are either extremely loud, or in excess of 10 minutes, which there is little call for outside of a concert.

I guess it all depends on how you look at it ...

MaryAnn's observations about knowledgability of vocal and choral technique vs. organ ability are certainly valid and commendable. I don't disagree with them at all. One might only wish to point out, though, that nearly all 'organists' who really qualify as fully trained church musicians are, in fact, as well grounded in liturgical choral repertory and technique as in that of the organ. This is part and parcel of the training, especially in regard to Anglican and Catholic tradition and practice.
All of which is to assert that qualified 'organists' may very well be, and usually are, as qualified to be choirmasters as those trained only in vocal paedagogy. Too, every vocal and choral expert is not at all necessarily equipped to lead a liturgical choir, nor can it be assumed that he or she is by any means a fitting scholar of sacred music. I have never known a choirmaster-organist who was not as skilled a choral director as he or she was an organist. Such men and women are in my experience much more grounded, qualified and balanced as liturgical musicians than are choral only persons.

In Catholic liturgy, the organ plays a vital role, but is not the foundation of a music progam. Organ rep, while vast and beautiful, is not liturgical music per se. Chant and polyphony are the music of the liturgy, and as such the foundation of Catholic sacred music. This repertoire relies on a body of well trained cantors, schola, and/or choir to execute them well and lead the congregation in the parts belonging to them.

While university and conservatories help prepare the organist to lead singers, the same programs train singers more extensively. Advances in vocal pedagogy in the last 20-30 years have been significant. Caveat: the organist who trains equally in voice is rare, but they do exist.

If we want the best singing in parishes, we need to hire those most often most competent in training singers- excellent singers who are qualified to teach. Or, if money exists (and I'm never sure why Episcopalians can do this and we can't- it's an embarrasent) hire 4-8 core singers. Again, trained pros and semipros.

If we return to the model of unimusician, in most places that means the organist is he only trained musician in the program. Hymns and organ rep will be ok, but chant and polyphony will be in the same position they were before the council- limping along but not developing, and not the core of the music program in most places. Music progams become nearly identical to strong Protestant programs. But our liturgical music is very different. We need a different model.

Chant and polyphony need a schola cantorum- I advocate a return to the model that best develops and accompanies this form of singing. This means hiring singers.

MaryAnn, I wonder if you have any recordings available to demonstrate what can be done in the model you suggest, as evidenced in your excellent parish music program.

MaryAnn, with all do respect, most conservatories and schools of music have pretty much one genre in mind when it comes to vocal training: opera. I have seen it and lived it. My wife happens to be a HIGHLY trained singer (and Met young artist finalist) from one of those schools. She is a first-rate cantor, section leader, soloist, and can sing chant like no one's business! I can assure you she did not learn these things in school. Organists, on the other hand, even at public universities, are exposed to the great treasury of sacred music. My conducting and church music courses dealt extensively with both chant and polyphony, as well as Latin, German,and French diction. We all took voice lessons and sang in choirs. I was constantly getting my classmates together to sing solemn vespers at my church. Now, I will grant you that a singer from a school with a strong liturgical music program is a different matter. But even then, they would be required to study keyboard, hopefully organ. If you look at the overwhelming majority of fine Roman Catholic music programs in this country that use chant and polyphony as a major part of their repertoire, particularly at the Cathedral level, they are staffed by musicians who are primarily organists with extensive choral backgrounds. Just as not all good organists are good conductors, there are as many good singers who are also not good conductors.

In a perfect world, churches could hire both organist and choral director, both full-time. But in most cases this is not possible. Again, one most be competent in BOTH disciplines.

I am also concerned that while we should be promoting the use of the propers at Mass, there seems to be an all-out assault by some on metrical hymnody. Let's not forget that metrical hymnody in Catholic practice is not something that came into being in the 1960's. It's been around for centuries. Germany would be a good place to look at as an example of this. And even if we use chant as the basis for congregational singing, the organ needs to be a part of the equation. I stand by my statement above referencing the need for a strong organist. Chant is even more challenging to accompany than metrical hymnody, especially since rhythm is text-driven, and therefore, not regular. And, while I certainly believe in the practice of unaccompanied chant, there is a strong tradition of accompanied chant. Imagine a world without the music of Durufle!

DougS,

Well said. I have seen many organists who can play the literature beautifully, but can't play a hymn to save themselves (bad rhythm, no sense of line, missed notes, lack of creativity, etc.) Likewise, I have seen too many singers who can't think vertically-it's all about the melodic line. This is not particularly helpful when dealing in choral texture. Singers too often aren't given the best foundation in musicianship skills during their studies. This is a shame.

I also agree that teaching a choir to sing is only part of the job. A large part of being effective is being a good cheerleader. You need to inspire, encourage, and push them beyond where they think their abilities are.

(Mary Ann, otherwise, I think everything you propose is great...didn't mean to come across too strong!)

The DMA is a kind of "union card" for acquiring an academic position in a performance area, yes, but that's not necessarily its only function. All the "hoop jumping" through your academic classes and document writing is supposed to make you a more sensitive and thoughtful person/performer, at least one hopes. But this is the old liberal arts vs. job training dilemma.

I don't think one necessarily has to throw out metrical hymnody because someone can't play giant Widor organ symphony....As noted, I'm not anyone that you'd come hear in recital, but I can play hymns. I do think a fundamental ability to play the organ is necessary to be effective as a DofM in most cases....but I simply do not think being a mind-blowing organ prodigy is necessary. More important is to be a master of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony with the ability to improvise in a very basic manner and to play basic preludes, postludes, and interludes. To demand that your DofM be a master of the organ, I believe, is unnecessarily narrowing your field to exclude some very talented, very smart, very liturgical-minded musicians.

Adam S.

DougS "the old liberal arts vs. job training dilemma":

EXACTLY! But I would just point out two things. First, to go back again to the great musicians of the past, they managed to not just be sensitive masterful performers - but they actually crafted the monuments of Western music without any degrees. It was precisely because they saw music as a craft, and apprenticeship as job training, that they were able to become masters. You show me someone who has a profound interpretation of Bach because of their 'rounded' education, and I will counter with Bach himself who created that music with no degree whatsoever.

Second point - an education can never make you more sensitive or thoughtful unless you are open to changing in those ways. Your education is what you make of it. A person who wants to broaden their mind and become more thoughtful and knowledgeable (say through the Great Books) can do that through a personal course of reading and conversations with other people. And in fact, another common attribute of the great (and even the mediocre) composers is that they were well-read and well-rounded through their own efforts and circles of acquaintances.

As far as church music goes we need more job training, and musicians can take responsibility for broadening their mind on their own. This is the information age...the great books and ideas are all free now for the inquisitive person.

Widor is overratd

conducting is overrated

true organist/ choirmasters are rare

a good well rounded church musician deepens the faith and tradition of the church including the big three

chant
polyphony
organ

Isn't it somewhat disingenuous to suggest that, because Bach had no degree and yet crafted in his own oeuvre our civilisation's Summa Musicae, we should trust Catholic liturgy to present day choirmasters and organists who haven't wasted their time getting an education? Are you suggesting that most of our colleagues here, and colleagues-to-be in university studies are made of such stuff as was Bach, and that, then, they need little or no musical education? Your argument rests on thin ice.
It has been my observation that MOST of those who denigrate an advanced education have not bothered to get one and really are not as good as they talk. Some, it is true, have the requisite inborn talent and skills, and the Good Fortune, to scale the heights without the academic study that the rest of us are blessed to have acquired. They are very few in number. I have also often observed that a goodly number of not-all-that-talented men and women have miraculously parlayed themselves into church music posts for which they are comically unqualified. Clergy, and music commitees, are too frequently hoodwinked and their people cheated because they often know little or nothing about the Church's musical heritage and true needs, and are too easily impressed with a talented conversationalist who is a dazzling 'people person' and a pitiful musician.
You want musicians who have nothing but their own native, unlettered talent? You have had them for forty years. They are called 'folk musicians', etc., and we will be another forty years undoing the damage they have done.

I agree with Jackson that one is on thin ice to say that great composers didn't need degrees to become great composers but I want to follow a different train of thought. Obviously this is a true statement on the surface, but take, for example, the fact that the Paris Conservatoire wasn't founded until the 1790s. After its founding, virtually all of the "great" composers of France studied and/or taught there.

The Vienna Conservatory was founded in 1819 (while Beethoven was still alive), and the first institute of higher musical education in the German-speaking lands outside Austria was founded by none other than Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig in 1843--long after the deaths of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. After that time similar institutions appeared in Berlin, Munich, and Dresden.

The oldest conservatory in the U.S., Oberlin, was founded as late as 1865, and even Harvard didn't have a music professor until the 1870s.

The point is that these centers of learning appeared very late in music history. It isn't as if Bach rejected the academy, because it wasn't there. Clearly musicians didn't "need" an institutional musical education before one was even available, but once music education became institutionalized and streamlined along with higher education more generally, older paths of musical instruction such as years-long apprenticeships simply became economically unviable.

The culture that created Bach isn't around anymore, and even with all of the free information that's available now, there is no substitute for tutoring. Even Bach had that.

The whole degree/university vs. apprenticeship question is involved, and would maybe be a good subject for its own thread. The reason I bring it up is that employers need to be more aware of what is actually taught in the university music programs. It is laudable for employers to expect dedication and many years of training from an applicant, however the fact that you have a degree is not necessarily any indication that you have spent years learning the actual skills required of a church musician (or that you have any sense of serving the church). I know a lot of people with advanced degrees (Eastman, Oberlin, Yale, etc.) who, failing to succeed at the nearly impossible task of becoming a university and/or concert organist, turn to church work because it is good money and the only real route to go with their training. Many have no real sense of serving the church - they just need a job.
Some (myself included) will lament the horribly unqualified amateur folk musicians who inundated the church after V2. But I would also avoid a blind reliance on degrees. I see this pretty often, and it is almost worse than the amateur situation. This is because those churches that see the need and take the step of doing a quality search for a quality director, very often put too much faith in degrees. The reason is the same - they do not really know how to assess skills, so they put their faith in the academy to do that for them. I am saying, with the current state of university music education you cannot put that much faith in the American academy. (by the way, notice I keep saying "American academy" - I've also studied in Europe, and those church music programs do emphasize improv, sight-singing, and other practical skills).

M Jackson - It's interesting that as soon as I criticize the academy you make sweeping generalizations about people without degrees. If that is a veiled ad hominem, I will pass over it. Your point about Bach approaches the bizarre. If there is any example of someone who constantly worked throughout his life to hone his skills, it is Bach (Bruckner is the only one I can think of who was even more meticulous about training himself). You are making a categorical leap that no degree=no training or tutoring. Bach absolutely had years of tutoring (including his self-imposed famous trip to Lubeck to see Buxtehude), and a lifetime of hard work and careful study. You need inborn genius, PLUS a lifetime of hard work to become a master like him. I am all for dedicated years of hard work and training - everyone needs this in order to be a good church musician. I am saying that our American music programs are not the only or even the best way to get this training. We share the same concerns about poorly qualified people talking their way into jobs - but again, when you are talking about the real skills needed for church music a modern American advanced degree guarantees very little.

DougS - First, you can absolutely get tutoring without a degree (private lessons) - agreed, tutoring is essential in music. Second, the Paris Conservatory is a great example of an institution that is nothing like our modern American music schools. We always talk about that conservatory, with a kind of awe, in my organ department - it is just so much different that what we do today in America. I love the Paris Conservatory, and I think if we could replicate that model here we would really be on to something. Rigorous training in solfege, counterpoint, fugue, harmony, improvisation, chant accompaniment, and - as just one of many areas of work - some repertoire as well. It is no coincidence that so many great composers came out of such a program of study. Until our American schools look like that, I will not concede that they are any kind of apex or ideal of musical training.

Sorry to go on at such length (and a bit off-topic), but this is an issue that is very much on my mind as I get to the end of my (academic) studies. I think the strong responses on this thread show that it needs to be discussed more.

I’m mildly surprised that most of the dialogue here has been, pardon the pun, so academic, save for Kathy’s comments. This is not to say that all statements aren’t valuable, but many seem only remotely connected to a career choice that has so many aspects and attributes that it seems like the argument’s being held in a petrie dish.
Last comment about “academic preparation and degrees”- When I was faced with going on to the DMA, or taking a public school choral gig virtually being handed to me, it was truly humbling to realize within days of taking the teaching job that nothing I’d ever taken in MusEd courses had prepared me for the reality of dealing with all those “stakeholders” the profs and books kept chirping about. Now, a factual fable illustrating that- our boy Bach at Leipzig (and likely elsewhere, according to Groves) had no compunctions about taking a switch to his unruly choristers young kiesters if they, in ANY way, displeased him in the course of exercising his duties. Try doing that in the secular or sacred music arenas, citing JSB as precendence, and then head for the border before the parents and cops show up with pitchforks, not tuning forks.
For the gentlemen seminarian’s project, I’d suggest directly interviewing a broad spectrum of cathedral, parish and seminary DM’s and faculty, all of whom can be readily identified through googling known folks like Jennifer Pascual, Peter Latona, Scott Turkington, et al. Then move towards interviewing “local heros” such as we have on this very forum: Jeffrey Morse, Sam Dorlaque, Rudy deVos, MaryAnn Carr Wilson, Kathy Pluth, Jackson Osborn, Michael Olbash et al. Then, to be truly complete, contact diverse diocese chanceries with the intent of ID’ing DM’s the locals consider to be “successful.” Such lists of names might just contain some of those “comicly inept” folks that Jackson and Noel Jones rightly decry, but you need to know why they’re regarded as successful locally. Our friend Todd Flowerday might not measure into the suit we think a modern RCC DM should wear, but he has a skill set that perhaps not a few of us have overlooked or outright dismissed that keeps him gainfully employed and which his constituency values quite clearly.
Sifting through forum combox debates, just like taking the time to type out responses like this, seems a rather exorbitant use of one’s research time.

As Charles just did, I think we should get back to answering the question of the original poster, rather than argue about what "hypothetical candidate" (by which we obviously mean ourselves) is the best ever to hire.

I'd suggest look at the requirements for the basic certifications of the AGO and NPM. That will tell you what basic skills one should expect a service player should possess.

One other thing I've been disappointed not to get in an interview is any test of my liturgical knowledge. Find out if they have a basic knowledge of the liturgical documents of the Church, and rubrics of the Mass. Once I was asked, "How do you go about selecting music for each service?" Seems like a good questions to me.

Another issue you may not have considered that may be useful to research: how do you get applicants? What kind of applicants will each posting service give you? What's the cost-effectiveness of each?

When I last did "serious" job interviewing (dozens of interviews over several months), it was 2007.. Things have changed since then, and I noticed that in my last "slightly serious" phase of job interviewing.

In 2007 people were willing to fly you places to interview with them in person. Sometimes I'd fly to a place more than once - and stay there for several days worth of interviewing/vetting.

In 2011, Skype is a common word. Send me your YouTube videos and we'll do an interview on Skype. This is not a positive trend. Cheaper, yes. But when one wants a thriving music program one has to have the right person... and you can't tell everything about a person via skype and youtube. I've been offered three positions over the last few years without ever meeting the priest or seeing the parish in person.. I took none of those jobs - how could they be sure I was the right one via Skype and Youtube? I could I tell that they were the right parish for me via their (sometimes shoddy) parish website?

Meet people in person once you're finished your first batch of telephone interviews.

CHOIRS BELONG 'IN CHOIR'... and that means in front. Out of view says it all: the choir's contribution is extra-liturgical and totally ancillary and of no fundamental importance; also, it means laxity in being liturgically 'engaged'... not being seen means behaviour and demeanor that should not be permitted in leaders of liturgy and that would not be tolerated if it were seen. Inherent in a choir's ministry is leadership by liturgical act as well as in song. A well trained choir is an inspiring sight to behold... IN CHOIR. (Vainglory has nothing to do with it. God's glory has everything to do with it.)

I do agree with Francis about The Widor Toccata. It was something that everyone else learnt as a freshman (or even a high-schooler) and which I thought was musical hot-air. Many years into my career I decided to play it and actually enjoyed it for a while. Now I play it about once every few years just because I know that people find it thrilling. It's sort of an ecclesiastical 1812 overture. It's nice every few years as a closing voluntary on Ascension.

The difficulty in making the modern day choir actually "in choir", Jackson, is that women cannot properly sit "in choir". So unless your choir is men only (and perhaps it is), I think the tradition of the choir in the loft has served us quite well for quite a long time.

It can be just as strong an argument that the angels surround the banquet, since medieval imagery tended towards that imagery.....

That said, I am for whereever the choir is placed for best acoustical advantage; for music, I care more about the acoustics than the visuals (and I believe church musicians should emphasize that dimension, because practically everyone else ignores it, and that is a bad habit - a habit encouraged by the fact that it is much easier to write about visuals than about sound). That can be the loft, but is not always the loft; I've certainly been in lofts that don't deliver acoustically compared to other places in the same space, as it were.