Anglican use is such a small part of Catholicism that it doesn't have much effect - notice I didn't say "impact" - on the Latin Rite. Interesting that the "Latin Rite" is anything but. I would love to have an Anglican Use parish in my town and some behind-the-scenes plotting is going on to eventually get there. It will be a while yet, I'm afraid.
Yes. I have to chalk up the tendency of American Catholic musicians to treat the Anglican tradition as the most relevant benchmark as a function of the broader American tangle with British culture as well as a result of selection bias formed by the domination of taste via recordings. Tell people that there are other choral traditions, and ones that are even far older (measured in centuries) than the English collegiate choir tradition, and they will often be shocked. That's not to say the Anglican tradition is not wonderful. It simply should not be automatically viewed as normative.
Last midnight Christmas Mass I had the idea (and executed it) to put the Cimbelstern of a Hauptwerk-played Arp Schnitger to sound through the some of the first and last measures of an Eberlin Prelude for Entrance Procession, prolonging a bit the handbells calling for the procession. It worked beautifully. But I didn't know the discipline quoted by MadOrganist.
That was my only chimes-like experience, beyond the bells played through Gloria on Thursday Mass and Easter Vigil.
The videos did show use of Chimes but I still like them. Wish I had even a tiny bit of that skill level displayed. And that every parish could be Saint Sulpice.
I have chimes on my organ. I think I have purposely used it for exactly one piece (the end of Richard Purvis' "Greensleeves" during Christmas). I've pulled it a couple of times by accident, though - let's just say the results were far from pretty.
I've used chimes at the beginning of the Dupré Cortège et Litanie when playing it (on rare occasions) as a prelude. I have not used chimes during the liturgy, but grew up in a parish where they were used during the consecration (along with sanctus bells). It did not strike me as unseemly at the time.
The response of member from this group was not surprising. This group's answers were almost exclusively negative. This sort of reflects the same issue that people have had with the videos from France of ND. Here it is, in many cases, almost a crime for the organ in a Catholic church to be allowed to bring attention to itself.
Pipechat and the Facebook Organists group were surprisingly in favor, with a very few responding against the use of chimes. I am not sure how many participate in Pipechat, but it is nowhere near the size of Facebook Organists with 9,000+ members. I am guessing under 1,000 for Pipechat which has always been larger than Pip-org.
This was interesting because almost the exact same number of people responded from these two groups. And the Facebook Organist group also had few who did not like chimes. I am sure that many from the FB group play organs in Europe that did not have chimes so there was little reason of them to respond.
Very few people had much in the way of music for organ and chimes, many just used the chimes in place of an organ solo stop at times.
Few had to chime the hour...this used to be very common and a matter of contention about exactly when to chime the hour...at the hour or when the priest/preacher finally got ready to enter.
Thank you all, this is in preparation for releasing collections of playable music for organ & carillon, chimes or handbells...on two staves. Almost all the music for organ and chimes is written to include pedals, which makes it easier to write. It's a lot trickier I discovered to restrict the arrangements to just two hands. Having done two books of arrangements of hymns with two parts in the right hand and one in the left, this was exactly the opposite.
There are two books of Catholic hymns included in the series of 8 books, which include handbell parts for solo ringers or beginning choirs for each piece.
Responses to the survey have helped confirmed our promotion plans. Thank you!
Oh. I also forgot to mention that I discovered that there is an awfully good chance I designed and voiced an organ that someone here prefers not to use the chimes on. That brought a smile.
Chimes or carillon. I arranged a few hymn tunes for carillon and played a few of them on a 23-bell instrument before moving back to Wisconsin. Here are a couple of sound files (they are synthesized, as I wasn't able to make recordings of them). There are others (Salzburg, Salve Feste Dies, Ellacombe).
What happened to "dutifully prime your matins chimes?
I was once told in a former parish that I was required to play "O Lord I am Not Worthy" on the chimes once per year (on a particular Sunday) as it was a long standing local tradition.
I once had a run in with a skeptical handbell ringer who would never give up his increasingly soiled white gloves because he didn't believe in chime mitt change.
She was the same one who was pessimistic about fundraising for the bell choir. As she put it, "Chime doesn't pay".
Our repertoire was quite steady. Every feast day as we put the bells away it was "Same chime next year!".
For the feast of Transfiguration we always play Chime Every Mountain.
Our seder toast: L'Chime!
Our favorite mythical beast: Chimera, of course.
Our favorite wedding prelude: Get Me to the Church on Chimes
Our favorite math: Chimetables
Our favorite punch line for a nonexistent shaggy dog story: These are the chimes that try men's soles.
MBW said, "The Petit and Fritsen type are best as they imitate the change ringing tone which MJO refers to. The Schulmerich type are tuned for melody and harmony playing and are usually less musically satisfying, largely because of what one is tempted or coerced into playing on them."
As a change ringer of almost 40 years experience, including hand bells, this is exactly backwards. P&F handbells are tuned to simulate continental carillon bells, and have much too prominent overtones. While I'm not a fan of Mallmark or Schulmerich, their hand bells are tuned in the style of English bells, and are MUCH more pleasant to ring changes on. IOW, I would hope never to hear, MUCH LESS PERFORM changes on P&F bells!
As long as the accordion has been mentioned here, I would like to add that it was my first instrument. Back in the 1970s I was part of a "folk group" Mass (yes, I know!!!) and quite successfully used my accordion to help the congregational singing. There was also a piano, but it was so busy arpeggiating that no one could hear any melody to follow, and of course they only had the lyrics printed for them because of copyrights. Certainly, the guitarists were doing just fine strumming away! I didn't even need to do anything with the left hand (bass/chord) of the instrument - just pump out that melody. It at least doubled the congregation's singing. Then we had not one, but two Popes die in quick succession, and new Popes elected. "Long Live the Pope" was requested as the recessional hymn, and it was considered totally taboo to even go up into the organ loft during a Folk Mass, much less offend anyone's ears with the organ! So I led a congregation of 400+ with the accordion! It really works quite well!
In all honesty (and it might surprise many who know me to hear me say this) I have found a skilled accordion player to be a pretty good leader of congregational singing.
Certainly, there is almost no comparison to a competent organist, but (at a former post) there was a parishioner who could fill our 400-seat church with his accordion and lead singing much better than a mic-ed cantor and piano or guitarist.
In the proper hands, an accordion is essentially a reed organ - no zydeco at mass, please. LOL. Many of the smaller churches in pre-electronic days had reed organs. Those by certain builders were respectable instruments. Pipe instruments were not affordable for the average small church even then.
I have told you about the large-busted lady accordionist from my youth, haven't I? Her FFF passages were a glimpse of heaven on earth.
Our reason at Frog Music Press for posting the chimes question initially was to evaluate the interest in books that we were considering publishing.
Reviewing the books of chime music that we have, we discovered that many, if not most of the compositions, were of medium to hard difficulty. And all, without exception required that the organist play the pedals.
Easier music would seem to be attractive to make it possible for new-to-the-organ pianists to add the tone colors of chimes to registrations. Once they are up to speed at this easier music, then they can take on more difficult pieces.
All of this has the possibility of drawing more people’s attention to the organ. There are many organists playing the same stops every week after week…and wondering why people don’t think the organ is important.
The more variety we can bring to our registrations, the more we stop being just “elevator music “ at church.
Thank you to all who responded to the survey questions, you helped us immensely in the preparation of this music. In fact, the decision to add handbell parts came out of the survey. All the music in these books can be rung by a beginning choir or a solo ringer…and may come in handy when there are absent members on a Sunday morning when more difficult music is planned, but cannot be played.
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