I first became interested when I began a weekly Saturday morning Mass at a Parish across town several years ago (probably about 5 years ago), where Aristotle Esguerra (a fellow forum member) chanted the gregorian propers along with the Jubilate Deo ordinary (he was the new MD at that time). That got me going toward the direction of chant, and after a few months, I had ears for chant and enjoyed it, and it really lead me to prayer.

The next year, I was in his class, and while I learned so much in the class (and still do), I have been able to learn so much more on my own with all of the chant resources online at MS, Watershed, and other places. It has only been in the last year or two that I actually started buying hard copies of many of these books. Now I have a GR, GS, PBC, VII Hymnal, Chabanel book, BFW, Mundelein psalter, and more. Never would have happened if I couldn't have first looked through them (at least some of them) and learned from them online first. Those that I bought that did not have online previews (BFW, Mundelein, etc...) I only bought after viewing a copy in person.

Simply from a business standpoint, I think it makes a ton of sense to put the chant books online, and also from a spreading chant point of view.

From a business point of view, people can look through the book, and even use print-outs for a while, but that gets tiresome, and if they find real value in the book, they will likely buy it. If they don't, they probably only would have bought one anyways.

From a spreading chant point of view, it's awesome as well. Those who can't afford the books can always access the content when needed, but those who have the means to buy the books will probably eventually buy them.

It's a win-win.

How's that, Tucker? :D

I remember chant as a child when the Tridentine Mass was the order of the day. I joined a choir that did a very limited amount of chant but it was enough to spark a flame and the blaze has been raging at increased intensity ever since! With the Simple English Propers, I no longer get complaints from the parishioners that they cannot understand the language. It is now appropriate to maintain the sacred while the faithful can fully participate by listening to the word of God.

I'm a convert who entered the Church in 1985, so I have no history of pre-Vatican II. Somewhere around 2005, our DM started up a Chant choir with under the directorship of another gentleman, and I thought it would be something interesting to learn, so I joined. A year later, he left the post, having become overburdened with church obligations. They were looking for a new director, and I thought "why not?"

The following summer I attended Fr Columba Kelly's wonderful workshop, then proceeded to be involved with Colloquia in 2008, 2009, and 2010. It's been an incredible learning journey throughout - not only with the music itself, but what it's given me with a deeper understanding of my faith and that of the Church.

My brother worked for a progressive liturgical publishing house in the late 1990s and brought home a handful of CDs one day -- I believe they had been clearing out their warehouse. One of the discs was a Paraclete Press cut of the Solesmes monks singing Maundy Thursday Tenebrae. That was permanently in my CD player for a long time.

I have always kind of known about the Graduale Romanum (insofar as I had seen it in the hands of a couple of my former choir directors from time to time) and Gregorian chant (at least Gregorian hymns, such as Pange Lingua or Veni Creator Spiritus), but I really did not know about Propers, or what they were exactly, until a friend of mine began sending me your articles on the propers a couple of years ago. This same friend also gifted me with a copy of the Simple English Propers (this friend actually attends the EF at our parish, but is eager to help me in my efforts to beautify the OF as well). I had always kind of had a basic sense of the types of music that were appropriate for liturgy, but the articles and the SEP book sparked an interest to know more. So I got on the internet and looked up the Musica Sacra website, as well as CC Watershed. I also very quickly ordered and read the books "Papal Legislation on Sacred Music", "The Musical Shape of the Liturgy", and BXVI's "Feast of Faith" and "The Spirit of the Liturgy". In addition, I took out a subscription to Sacred Music. Having done all this, I was eager to put these things into practice at my parish in my position as director of the children's and adult's choirs, so I began introducing SEP on the 1st Sunday of Advent 2011 to try and coincide with the new translation. SEP has not replaced hymns at our parish (the people would never go for it at this stage), but so many people, including our new and wonderful pastor, have said how beautiful the chants are and how it gives a whole different tone to the liturgy. I always come to this website to print out the SEP for my choir members, since it's so accessible and much easier than copying out of my hardcover version.

We also now occasionally incorporate some Latin chants from the GR as well. (I have, for some odd and perverse reason, known how to read Gregorian chant for quite some time, despite not knowing the first thing about propers. Go figure.) I now regularly use websites such as this one to find online versions of chants, including the Liber, since our adult choir also sings for the EF at our parish occasionally. Thank you so much for all the great articles you write, Jeffrey, and for the work that everyone on here has done. We appreciate it more than you could know!!

I grew up in the "old" Catholic Church, along with the Baltimore Catechism (we had to know every answer verbatim for Confirmation), and have always loved traditional hymnody. In school I particularly enjoyed music history and Gregorian chants. When our parish went through pastoral changes, the new pastor wanted chant and hymnody, and I was able to "go back to my roots". It's been a challenge with the people, but it's beginning to catch on. We stared with the Agnus Dei and are now incorporating at least one chant per mass (SEP and sometimes Latin from Parish Book of Chants, depending on the mass).

I had always been interested in Gregorian chant since I knew that "it was the music
of the Church", although I could never find anyone to teach it to me. Then I moved
to Portland Oregon and discovered Cantores in Ecclesia. That changed my life. I met
my husband there, in that choir, and also came to discover many great people like
David Jensen, who introduced me to all kinds of chant material online.

Short answer (maybe):
In January of 2008, as a senior in high school I got a call that the Latin Mass community was looking for someone who could play organ for them approximately every other week to cover times when their volunteer organist/director was unable to be there. This person would hopefully also be able to direct the men's schola.
Although I had no experience with chant, or the traditional Latin Mass, or as a choir director (or even a singer), I told the man on the phone that I could play organ for him since, after all, I was a tolerable musician and should be able to handle anything that he had music for. (I had had ~10 years of piano, and maybe ~3 1/2 of organ).
As things went on and the volunteer director and his successor found that they had other things to do, I eventually was playing every week, choosing the music, and running the rehearsals. From here, my course was basically set.

I played with a contemporary group at my childhood parish, and around age 20 got really fired up about how the music just didn't seem appropriate. At that point I knew nothing about the liturgy, its theology, or the music that goes with it. A friend hipped me to Ratzinger's Spirit of the Liturgy and then there was no turning back. I realized that something WAS wrong and there was music that SHOULD be at the mass ... and it actually made the mass feel like ... mass!

It was actually Aristotle's blog which converted me, believe it or not.

I've mentioned several times: The texts and melodies in the Parish Book of Chant were the big "turning point" for me.

When I started to read through the texts of the propers, and then even more so the various hymns and chants in the Parish Book of Chant, I couldn’t help but realize how impoverished was the theology of the music I grew up with. There are a lot of contemporary songs and hymns that I think are wonderful and rich, but I had never, ever been at a Mass and sung any sentiment as evocative as “Blood of Christ, inebriate me,” nor sung any melody quite as sweet as “Ave Verum Corpus.” There are untold riches here, and the contemporary liturgical movement has pretty much just forgotten about them.

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2011/07/29/a-liberal-discovers-chant-and-liturgy/

I was music director of a rather large and liberal church at 16. They sent me away to a rather liberal liturgical conference that encouraged chanting of the Liturgy of the Hours, but not during Mass. Somehow, chanting the Office made me think to myself, "this type of music belongs at Mass." Then I did some reading and, sure enough, that voice inside my head was onto something.

With apologies to Didymus, "If I do not see Aristotle's blog with my own eyes, and click its hyperlinks with my own cursor, I will not believe."

(Nope, it's nowhere near restoration…)

I read about chant first in the Organ method my sister had used when I was a pre-teen or so (a reprint of an older work whose last revision was in the 60s by my organ teacher's professor with an elaborate part on chant accompaniment).

My first real-life occurrence was when I joined the church choir of another parish in my hometown, which uses the Missa de Angelis on All Saints and the Missa simplex on Pentecost.

The first time I sang the propers was when I was asked for a Requiem on All Souls at our EF community for which I practised using Youtube videos by Giovanni Vianini; and to be honest I used the dictaphone even while singing during Mass to ensure pitch. Since then I regularly use chant for the EF Mass and occasionally sing some of the propers (Germany has an old privilege allowing vernacular hymns at High Mass, so we can chant only part or none of the propers or even ordinary [happily we do this only rarely by now]).

I grew up in a parish where the music was very moderate. We had 2 organ/cantor masses, 1 organ/choir mass, and 1 folk mass. It didn't take long for me to completely lose any interest in the guitars but I really liked the way our organist handled the masses. I became interested in music and the liturgy and begged the poor guy for more music after every mass. Eventually, (probably somewhere around 8 years ago when I was still in high school) I stumbled across several websites devoted to sacred music. None of those sights was nearly as stable as this one. I began checking it occasionally and have grown to the point where I am on here several times per day.

I had been exposed to chant before finding this website but had never realized just how vital of a role it should play in mass. Now, this is my go-to place for any chant related resources or answers to any questions I have. I will admit I am not a complete convert to chant but if it were not for this website I would still be completely clueless to the purpose of chant in the mass.

I've always had a penchant for dignified music at Mass. To me, that usually meant preferring Alstott's "Heritage Mass" over Haugen's "Mass of Creation," and choosing stately hymns over sappy songs. I knew virtually nothing of the church's treasury of sacred music at the time.

When I got asked to lead the music for one of the Masses at my parish (about six years ago), I chose music which reflected these preferences. But at some point, the "choosing" part got frustrating to me. I sought guidance and understanding regarding what I was supposed to choose. A little bit of internet searching led me to articles by Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker.

I recall a particular article ("Fourteen Easy Ways to Improve the Liturgy"), and actually a particular sentence within that article that was the tipping point for me, so to speak: "For that matter, the Amen need not be "great" but rather just two notes."

That was my paradigm shift. That was where I began to understand that solemnity and dignity was most fully embodied in the Church's own music -- chant.

The rest is history. I should mention that my interest couldn't have possibly been sustained beyond that first "aha" moment were it not for the incredible resources available online -- first, AOZ's and JT's Cecilia Schola site, and then MusicaSacra, CCWatershed, the Café, and the Forum. I should also mention that AOZ, JT, and Dr. Mahrt were also very kind in responding to some eager emails I sent, early on.

I was the organist in my parish and then choirmaster, when the previous incumbent took a back seat. He had taught me some chant basics and we did make very occasional use of the Missa de angelis and the Requiem Mass, plus a few other chants. We had an old 'Plainsong for Schools' and a Liber Usualis, but I never really understood what they were all about - having never known the Tridentine Mass the pieces of the jigsaw just didn't fit together - I am ashamed to say that, at the time, I didn't know what Propers were.
It wasn't until I read the GIRM of MR 2002, that I realised what importance the liturgy actually gives to chant and I started to explore the function of the Propers. At this time I had moved parish but was inspired to start a schola. The internet - and particularly the CMAA - made all of this possible through the availability of electronic editions, not to say that I didn't actually go out and buy myself a Gradual. Just sitting there leafing through the pages enabled me to start to understand how the Mass was really structured from a musical point of view. But I have to say that a profound knowledge of the chant/propers, etc. was only gained through familiarisation with the Extraordinary Form.
I live somewhere else now and have a well established schola, but it's not always easy to gain acceptance of what we do and promote. Frankly, some people just try to avoid the times when we sing but that's their loss. I sometimes consider defecting to the Extraordinary form parish where there aren't such conflicts. However, I feel it is my duty to continue to promote what I see as the authentic liturgy in the Novus Ordo.

Gavin, it's amazing to me how my writing came off as moderate as you remembers, because I consider myself rather irascible and struggle at not making the perfect the enemy of the good. And this irascibility wasn't helped at all by the tone contained in Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste, which I read six months before I took my first full-time job and started the blog. (I always include the subtitle when introducing the book to others, by the way.) I think I knew enough about the Internet back then to hold my least charitable sentiments to myself.

My music lists from 2004 until the blog was hijacked by Bangladeshis were propers-heavy solely due to my leading a schola at a "sequestered" 9:30 AM Latin-English Novus Ordo that was then replaced by a Missa Cantata post–Summorum. I know that before that I actually was a bit worried about my "hymn-to-song" ratio. (If I remember correctly, in 2002 I started out with a 50/50 hymnody/"songnody" split, which ended up at 25/75 by the end of 2003.)

The best thing about running that blog was being able to do a show-and-tell about not only the music that I was preparing but also delving into primary-source liturgical legislation and guidelines from the Vatican and the USCCB. It was a real eye-opener for me and for those who read along.

The worst thing about it was the maintenance and upkeep. Now that my offline life has exploded, it's unappealing to resurrect the thing realizing that those Bangladeshis may very well still have my account's number…

Here in the People's Republic, it's certainly weird, because we have the best of the best (Aris and his parish, my parish across town with an amazing pastor, a priest being called up to the Vatican Diplomatic corps, Bishop Morlino; but then on the other hand, we're home of the national Freedom from Religion Foundation, a crazy city, and some very liberal parishes... it's crazy. edit: our old cathedral rector is now a bishop in SD too.

Melo, as Ben has been here longer than I have he has described the situation better than I ever could; it's the best of times, it's the worst of times (and may ever shall be, world without end).

"Songnody" is a neologism I thought I cleverly coined; turns out that Steve Collins beat me to it by around six years.

We're on a roll--"Songnody" and "Colony of Chant Punks." Nice one, Ralph. Keep 'em coming.

Da, Komrades!

My story isn't real relevant to the question, I suppose. I was an early music guy in later high school and college, so I heard chant, sang a little bit of it, but never really thought of it as liturgical music. When I started grad school, I got a singing gig at the local Anglican Catholic church, where they did the Burgess Rossini-clone, Gregorian Ordinaries and occasionally propers (all in 5-round notation). Later, I sang some for the local Latin mass... in mostly for the polyphony, but they did Propers from the Liber, so I learned to deal. Someplace in there, I converted. And really, only in the past 5 years at most has it seemed possible that chant could serve as liturgical music in the Ordinary Form Mass.

1) Hearing it
2) Reading your article in Crisis
3) Getting invited to join a schola

The online chant editions are wonderful but they merely fed the beast. They did enable me to easily implement chant in new parishes.

sang the translation (of the antiphon) in place of the psalm verse;

A Best practice!