Ha! A clever retort!

Actually, my home parish is our Lady of Walsingham of the Ordinariate, so I have no discouragements to participating in mind, body, and soul, and song. Also actually, I rarely have occasion to attend mass at parishes at which the liturgical praxis is lamentable (but I am aware of what 'goes on'). At times I play at St Basil's Chapel at Houston's UST, where the NO liturgy is quite decent and the music decent as well. I just finished playing there for the summer during the choir's summer recess.

I ran into an ordinariate priest at a bookseller's recently who asked what it was like playing there, and my response was that it was sort of like playing for a very reverent low-church mass. There are no 'abuses'. We sing the Belmont Mass (very simple, but nice) and real hymns (entrance, offertory, dismissal). During communion I usually sing solo a capella psalm-tone psalmody or Gregorian hymnody, sometimes Latin, sometimes English. The people are most hearty in their song, and very responsive to my varieties of organ playing. They always sing 'all the stanzas', including those of the hymn at the dismissal. The psalm, I myself chant from the ambo, giving the congregation a simple improvised chant-like responsory and singing the verses to my own ornamented psalm tones. Alleluya is likewise a capella and chant-like. Most of the Basilian fathers don't sing, though several of them do but don't always, which is strange and disappointing. (For those who keep track of EF happenings, there is an EF mass there every Friday morning.)

St Basil's is also home to St Basil's School of Gregorian Chant (semiologist), of which I am the choirmaster and lecturer in chant studies. We have special masses attendant on our chant courses there at intervals throughout the year. For these, which are NO in English, we always have a guest priest who sings every last word of the mass, and our auditioned schola (mixed) sing the full propers (usually Palmer-Burgess' or Fr Columba's). For the ordinary we usually sing one of Fr Columba's Englished Gregorian masses (very often no. XII, Pater cuncta). All chant at these masses is voices only - the organ is used only for opening and closing voluntaries. I would never think of accompanying chant. Nor have I ever noticed that people had trouble singing a capella if it is a given that they will - in fact, they usually will 'step up to the plate' and honourably do what is expected of them.

'Choir' at St Basil's is a space near the altar defined by a low 4.5 foot wall. The organ is a Schoenstein of about 25 ranks. The chapel has the best acoustics of any sacred space in Houston, and the architect was Phillip Johnson.

Well, I don't know what would happen, but some have not done it before and it seems to be six in one half dozen in another - but who knows if that's because it was an easy psalm with a clear intonation, or what.

But either way I don't feel that strongly about it; it's not a "thing" for me, an issue either way.

Most do it on their own, and when they are new I mention doing it to them. After that point, I never bring it up again and neither does anyone else, nor do I even pay much attention to whether they do it faithfully or not.

I just think we have bigger battles to fight one way or the other ...

Yeah, but a Gelineau response after a two measure elaborate intro isn't "Happy Birthday."

And really, "traditional Catholics" making such a big, snarky thing out of this conventional and widely accepted practice just makes the whole "movement" look, well, rather silly.

Protestants nurtured....... Why can't we just do that?

1. Because all kinds of leadership people in an out of holy orders enjoy saying that Catholics can't do that; and large numbers of our people, poor souls, dutifully believe them. (This is what is known as institutionalised ignorance.)
2. They seem convinced of this even though Catholics, being as intelligent as their human Protestant kin, really can do that.
3. Most of our so-called 'cantors' would be out of a job.
Now, we just couldn't have that! Orcouldn't we!?

By the way: if it's not a thing with you, why are you making such a fuss of defending the practice?

This.

yew, armpits.

The whole conversation is straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Are there issues of cantors being overbearing and being a detriment to the Mass? Sure. A subtle gesture isn't wrecking the liturgy or taking anybody out unless you're already looking for it.

I think the "touchdown stance" is hamfisted and inelegant, but we have bigger problems than a small visual cue. Spilling this much ink over it, virtual or otherwise, is petty.

I don't think that discreet and unobtrusive decorum on the part of those who have leadership roles at holy mass is 'something so trivial'. One function of vesture is to subordinate personal expression to a liturgical demeanor. Purposeful posture and movement expresses the sacred 'otherness' of the act of which we are a part. Waving, uplifted arms, sometimes with a sort pirouette thrown in for good measure, are garish and absolutely inappropriate in liturgy. This is the opposite of triviality. Catholic liturgy knows no such thing as 'song leaders'. Cantors should know this. Their role is chanting psalmody, certain soloistic propers (if such are sung), and intoning any extended chants that the congregation might sing (such as parts of the ordinary). This is all. The people are not idiots. They do not need to be 'directed' (with or without a display of armpits). They know when to sing the responsory and the alleluya without a cue from a cantorial showman or show-woman. The leadership of the congregation is the role of the choir and the organ - not that of the cantor who gets a charge out of exceeding his or her proper role and calling attention to him or her self. Fondly and vainly thinking that 'the people' won't know to sing unless I do this or that is the height of vanity, which has no place in liturgy.

The cantor I most remember was the slightly pudgy one who wasn't wearing a bra. Those upraised arm motions took on a new dimension when she was cantor. Who knew a heavy lady could get into those positions? ;-)

the snide, caricature jokes that I routinely hear which I believe demean everything we are trying to accomplish.

Perhaps the people who engage in what you describe as "snide" are trying to end the practice by describing what they see, and the impression it makes on them?

What, precisely, do you think the clear use of gestures is trying to accomplish? (Several things come to mind: "audience" participation; a more reverent liturgy; calisthenics; the implementation of the spirit of Vatican II... other things).

Maybe I need to add another forum guideline. Something like:

# 15: Thou shalt not nag.

Love it! The most obnoxious cantors I have seen locally think they are Dusty Springfield - if you ever saw her hand motions when performing it will make sense.

Well, at least the 'Victor Borge' mode would be entertaining... but then, that's not a cantor's business, is it? At least not at mass... come to think of it.... some of their habits and antics would be entertaining or highly amusing (as opposed to disgusting and irritating) anywhere but at mass.