I think it's entirely proper to the style of music (i.e., secular popular song). When a songwriter writes a song with chord symbols, I believe that gives the keyboardist or guitarist permission to improvise. Improvising vocal harmony is also not foreign to this idiom, as it would be in a piece of composed music (unless specified by the composer). My question is, how does improvising a melody or harmony (much less through loud speakers) help to lead the congregation in singing as one? If it doesn't, perhaps the problem isn't with performing music according to its musical style, but with the musical style itself.

Moreover, there seems to be no awareness that "the music of the Mass" could be different from the music of secular culture. To most people, it's just "music." There is no such thing to them as a special kind of music set apart specifically for sacred use.

Darth Linux, there's nothing wrong with improvising such music from a liturgical standpoint. I recall hiring a fellow organist as trumpet player for Christmas (he didn't have a midnight Mass) and he improvised some brilliant descants without my asking - it was great! Of course, leave it to an organist to do it right, eh? That said, one can debate the MERITS of improvising a descant given how it may confuse the congregation or the artistic merits of the improvisation. I'd say on the Mass of Creation Gloria, go nuts since everyone knows it anyway. You can accompany it in f# Major and most Catholics will still sing it correctly; it's built into their DNA by now.

As far as cantors improvising descants for responsorial music, I'm not against it so long as there's still a clearly audible melody for the congregation to hear. I do have to wonder though what's up with such a lack of control over one's musicians that you can't get them to sing the right notes. Now I KNOW people want to do what they've always done or what THEY think is "neat". But at my last parish, if I asked a chorister or cantor to stop doing something or to do something, they usually obeyed. Sometimes it would take some repetition, and on occasion there might be questions after Mass, but by and large they did it. I didn't snap at a cantor and yell "DON'T SING THE HYMNS INTO THE MICROPHONE!" but I might approach them immediately after they "led" the offertory and say "Oh, I'm sorry, I must not have mentioned that you only need to be at the microphone for those bits you lead, namely the psalm, alleluia, and propers. Please, sit in the pews until you need to approach to sing. If you feel the need to provide some leadership, go ahead and step up to the rail and sing out strongly, that should help nicely!" If someone was improvising a descant or harmony, I'd tell them "I appreciate your initiative, but I'd prefer this hymn be sung in unison" or "That's not the correct harmony, but I'd be happy to teach you the correct one next time the hymn comes up." Never have I had someone directly disobey me, and if they did I think they'd only do it a few times before I told them their service was no longer needed. And this was with 5 cantors.

I understand sparing people's egos, but to repeatedly sing a solo descant when directed not to? You just CAN'T let that happen, that's a direct attack on your ability to lead the music at the parish. We work with the singers and they work with us; you can't "agree to disagree" on something as simple as singing the melody.

I'd say on the Mass of Creation Gloria, go nuts since everyone knows it anyway. You can accompany it in f# Major and most Catholics will still sing it correctly; it's built into their DNA by now.

I can honestly say that I cannot recall this melody even though we use the Holy almost every week at our "family" Mass (whatever that means). A local parish musician recently made a similar comment about Celtic Mass being part of our collective musical knowledge, and yet I've never been to a Mass at which it was sung. Now, I grew up in a very GIA-OCP oriented parish and even spent a year directing a 12 piece contemporary ensemble. It just goes to show that there is no music that is universally known, so why not stick to music that is at least universally available, such as the responses from the sacramentary, motets in the public domain, the chants of Jubilate Deo, etc.

I'm not a huge fan of it. But at least it is organ based and sticks to the correct text. With some of the other "great music" out there, I'm not going to spend my "political capital" on a moratorium on the Mass of Creation.

Olbash,

The distinction you make is an important one . . . organ accompaniments (although I tend to use Noel Rawsthorne's books because the melody tends to stay in the top voice, as against T.T. Noble's stuff) and choral descants which are both un-miked and therefore unamplified, certainly do add (with ambient sound) to the glory and splendor of the music. Many of the members of my choir and others "in the pews" will tune in to the local broadcast of "Lessons and Carols" on Christmas Eve from Kings College and revel in the amazing, glorious sound. A single, amplified voice booming down through a PA system is just plain noise, and adds nothing to the splendor of the music being sung. Not only that, but it completely undoes any "help" that a "song leader" may add. Even the gurus of the NPM tend to agree with this.