Hey, folks. I am going to repeat a request I made last Advent and got no response for.

Well, I got one. It said, "Good luck with that." Thanks.

I thought of it again in discussions about Words with Wings (see Chant Cafe this morning), with the videos for the Madeleine Choir School, with mention of David Hughes's outstanding program.

As Jeff Tucker and others have shown, modern technology provides a great way for people who are interested in Sacred Music to find each other and to share knowledge. However, it takes CONTENT. The amount is growing--thank you, Corpus Christi Watershed, among many others. But there needs to be more. I figure there are 3500-4000 chants in the L. Usualis, but even if I restrict myself to settings for major masses, the pickings on YouTube are very uneven.

There is a generational thing at work here: most people in positions of authority who are trained in music think technology is hard and expensive. I just downloaded a 128-track audio recording program for my iPhone--for $15.99. A film school grad showed me KEH Camera, where I got a good Canon video recorder that a tech person at my school described as "a steal." There have to be other sites.

Of course, for a music director, this is just "one more thing." But it doesn't have to be. There's a solution usually wandering down the hall.

If you have enthusiastic kids, THEY DON"T FIND THIS STUFF INTIMIDATING. You might even get a choir member;'s son who's not interested in much else to do all the work. You just have to watch them, as they are kids. (And if they are filming a kids' program, they might just show pictures of someone they have a crush on, so you have to, you know, get them to focus.)

You can do it with one decent camera and a $40 shotgun microphone, but you can also do more easily. And it would be so helpful.

I am finishing a catalogue of chant videos for Advent and Christmas. I can always find most chants done by Giovanni Vianini in Milan, which are all quite nice. BUT HE HASN'T DONE ALL OF THEM. And it would be nice to have more versions, and more four part stuff, etc.

So let me encourage you, during summer down time, to think about it. And then start recording EVERYTHING that might be useful to others.

Just a thought as we head into the slow season.

Kenneth

PS--Please label the music clearly--the Sunday or Solemnity, the Latin Text. Put in the Latin text, and you don't always get what you want on the first page.