Video streaming is a great idea!

I had thought that The Ward Method was more or less an American phenomenon resulting from the, um, studies(!) of an American heiress who got the not-wholly-convinced-ear of Dom Mocquereau but was less (far less!) successful in getting the ears of other European scholars. Many here, of course, know this, but it bears repeating for those who don't: namely, that the resulting Ward-'Solesmes' method was never actually put into practice at Solesmes, and is not in use there now; not only that, it has been repudiated by Dom Cardine and other more recent Solesmes luminaries. Semiology is the fruit of the greatest and most rigourous scholarship of our time. The 'Ward Method' is an historical curiosity and does not represent the serious scholarship available to us at this time. Again, Semioloy will lead you to the truth. Ward is to chant what Dick and Jane are to grammar. It is, in effect, paint by number chant. Don't take my word for it! Just ask Fr Columba Kelly (who assures us that he has in 60 years never seen a mythical ictus), Dom Cardine, Dom Saulnier, Fr Anthony Ruff, Alberto Turco, et multis alii.

The Ward Method does build up to instruction in the old Solesmes Method, but its more basic content -- instruction in scales, intervals, rhythms -- isn't tied to that.

Until his death, the late Theodore Marier was president of the Ward Foundation, and taught it for decades at the Catholic University summer school. He also taught beginning and advanced classes in chant. (Ward and chant were separate courses). As founder and director of the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School, he taught "Ward" to the boys from 1963, until his retirement in 1986. Ward is based on learning to read music, pitch, intonation, correct rhythms, intervals, etc., as bonniebede has indicated. Over the years, these same boys performed and recorded with the Tanglewood Chorus and Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa on many occasions. Some of their performances included Symphonies III and VIII - Mahler, Damnation of Faust - Berlioz, Joan of Arc - Honneger, Spring Symphony - Britten, to name a few. Their basic training in the Ward Method assisted them greatly in performing these and other difficult works. Works of Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, Langlais, Peeters, Bruckner, Tallis, Palestrina, Durufle, Britten, Vittoria, Handel, as well as chant were composers sung at Sunday Mass as well. Again, because of their solid foundation in Ward they were able to perform these works. Paint by number and learning music by rote are closer in relation. Ward is the anthesis of both of those approaches.

One of their many test assignments at school was to sing and conduct, simultaneously, a movement from "Missa in Simplicitate" -- Langlais. Again, no easy feat for boys grades 5-8. Ward has been compared to the Kodaly method--which some teachers prefer. But there is nothing substandard about the Ward Method as Mr. Osborn seems to indicate. If he had taken the course and used it, I hardly think he'd refer to it as an "historical curiosity". And until his posting, I had never seen or heard Ward-Solesmes separated by a hyphen. Of course Ward wasn't taught at Solesmes, it never was intended to be taught there. Only Gregorian Chant was taught to students who already had basic foundations in music: voice, piano, organ, conducting, etc. Not intended to be taught to students who had no musical skills or training at all.

Bonniebede's comments on Ward are on point. Clearly, she understands the treasures and benefits that Ward holds from her study and teaching of it. In fact, many Catholic school music teachers in the U.S. in the 1940s and 50s taught Ward to their students. After Vatican II, and the implementation of guitars and "folk masses", Ward was considered unnecessary, and its applications weren't necessary for singing "Sons of God", "Today" and "Priestly People".

I was never under the impression that Ward was ever taught at Solesmes. It was taught in Catholic schools in Europe as well as the U.S. This was Justine Ward's hope, that children could and should be taught to sing. Mr. Marier was a strong proponent of Ms. Ward and her teachings. He also studied chant with Dom Gajard at Solesmes (a student of Dom Mocquereau).

Scott Turkington, Director of Music at St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Charleston, SC, studied both Ward and chant with Mr. Marier, and continues to teach both at Catholic University each summer. He might be a contact who would know where other Ward classes are being taught as well.

Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Osborn, but Ward is still alive and well, much to your dismay. If you had ever heard the boys sing Sunday Mass under Mr. Marier's direction at St. Paul's Cambridge, your "paint by number chant" and "Dick and Jane grammer" theories would die on the vine.

I would recommend that you enroll in a Ward class, and then after completion, come to an educated decision, rather than take hearsay about Ward as "gospel truth". A small amount of erroneous knowledge is very dangerous.

.

Jeffrey Morse -
This is all very enlightening to me, and tempers my views appropriately. Of one thing, though, I remain certain: that is that Ward and chant have no more in common than Kodaly and chant. It takes a certain sort of deliberate and institutional blindness, whether it goes by the name of 'Ward', or 'Solesmes', or 'old Solesmes', or whatever, to disregard the entire academic world of serious chant scholarship, the knowledge that has been gained by research in semiology, and what has come from Solesmes' very own choirmasters and scholars in recent generations, and continue to inculcate a system of chant interpretation that has no more historical validity than those of the Renaissance or Baroque. (At any rate, thanks to you and the others above for widening my understanding and appreciation of Justine Ward's labours [outside of chant!].)

My experiment in Ward music class/Eucharistic adoration combo outreach is getting ready to go ahead. The idea is to have a singing class in the parish room, for about 20 mins or half an hour, followed by eucharistic Adoration in the chapel for 20mins or so. Starting with a gorup of homeschoolers i know, but hope that this may develop into a program to offer to all kids in the parish.
The aims are
1. To evangelise the children by introducing them to Jesus Truly present in the B.Sacrament. (these homeschoolers are well catechised, but the majority of kids aren't)
2. To give them time, including time in silence to develop a real, contemplative, conversational prayer life with Jesus.
3To give them time to worship Jesus in the B.Sacrament, using the best music they can produce.
4. To begin to train them musically for singing at the liturgy, according to the desire of the Church that chant should have prominence in the liturgy. (No point hoping this will happen magically - it will only happen by educating the people, and where better to start than with the young.)
5. to see if this ward/worship combo works - i am starting off with 4 weeks - will they cope? Will I cope? Better not to commit to too much to begin with, -I'm an amateur myself.
6. Ward from week 1 has the children chanting familiar prayers on a single tone - so we can have something to sing at Adoration straight away.

what you can do for me:
Please pray for this little venture.
Any constructive advice welcome!

How does the 'Schola Cantorum Sancta Eucharistia' sound? Blessed Sacrament Schola?

M. Jackson Osborn- Suffice it to say that Dr. Mary Berry is with whom I also studied semiology, and yet she had a profound love of the Ward Method all her life. Dr. Brown is dedicated to it as well, and as a Protestant has no need for Gregorian Chant in her choirs. So you're correct, that a use of the Ward method does not necessarily have to lead to a Solesmes Method interpretation, or even to Chant. Unfortunately, Mrs Ward was the worst enemy of her method in the end- the Cambridge Ward Center which directed Ward Method Studies for Great Britain and Ireland and that was directed by Dr Mary Berry (Mother Thomas More) was closed by Mrs Ward because Dr. Berry in her teaching at the University of Cambridge was teaching the new scholarship about the chant, though in her work at the Ward Center she was not, and just teaching the traditional Ward Method. This was not good enough, and the whole center was closed down by Mrs Ward. Dr. Berry later said that in her work at the university she had to be true to academic principles and teach the new scholarship- besides her work at the University was completely separate from her work as Ward Method director. The Paris Ward Center was closed for an even more ridiculous reason and Odette Hertz, the director was particularly persecuted and threatened by Mrs Ward, and yet Mrs Ward always always used to tell people that Odette Hertz understood the Ward Method than she herself. Unfortunately, this was a pattern in Mrs. Ward's life, her founding then withdrawal from the Pius X School of Liturgical Music is told in a fascinating little book, A HISTORY OF THE PIUS X SCHOOL OF LITURGICAL MUSIC 1916-1969, by Mother Catherine Carroll, R.S.C.J. This was also true in her dealings with the Abbey of Solesmes, where she is still referred to by some of the older monks as "the widow Mocquereau" and is more than hinted at in the book JUSTINE WARD & SOLESMES, by Dom Combes.

At the time of her death in 2008, Dr. Berry brought up often in conversation the Ward Method and her fear that it would just die unless someone was able to breath new life into it and come up with new editions of the books, perhaps this time not dependent on the Solesmes Method as Solesmes itself has distanced itself from it, and has even said that future editions of Chant books would be devoid of the rhythmic markings upon which the traditional Ward Method relies. We are certainly lucky to have people like Dr. Alise Brown interested in this method and who definitely understands these difficulties.

We've just added a page to musicasacra.com about Dr. Brown's dissertation on Ward, at
http://musicasacra.com/ward-method-studies-in-colorado/
The page also has links to information about her courses at Northern Colorado. If there is eventually any information on the web about the course in Calgary, please let me know so that I can add that too.

Hi,
Sorry to be so tardy posting this information - we were gone for a week and this last week has been hectic. The Ward Method course that is being offered in Calgary will not be streamed "this time" - perhaps "next time". If you would like attend a Ward Method course, there is a Ward I class being offered at UNC in Colorado July 8th-15th and a Ward II class July 22nd - 31st. Information can be found on the UNC web site. There should also be a link provided on this web site - type "Ward Method" in the search bar.

Dr. Browns e-mail address is: alise.brown@unco.edu Feel free to contact her about up coming classes or information about the Ward Method.

Ellis Brown

It really is possible to hate what goes by the Ward Method too much and also to love it too little. Mrs. Ward herself truly was her own worst enemy -- seeking an global monopoly on chant practice. She held back scholarship and made unsustainable demands and claims. She demanded editions be destroyed if they departed from her strict approach on the paradoxical grounds that they violated her copyright. She made enemies everywhere she went and contributed to the marginalization of chant in the name of saving it. It is a grim thing to read that history. All that said, her approach was brilliant in many ways -- it just needed customization as a pedagogical tool. If you want to see the results, have a look at Words With Wings. This is a fantastic distillation and an employment of what is really a very valuable system of learning music and chant.