Assuming they’re old enough to read, sit still, and be reliable: Put them in the choir. Let them learn real music, theory, good vocal production, and discipline along with the rest of the singers. Then they have the opportunity to bring their classmates and friends aboard.

Making them amplified soloists is cute and all, but all they’ll get to sing is hymns and gebrauchsmusik psalms and antiphons. They’ll learn more and stay interested longer if they’re singing polyphony.

Children need to work to become strong musicians, not be put on a pedestal/microphone as the finished product because they can sing a hymn. It’s not fair to them.

I have had some early teenage cantors and they did a good job. But they grow up and drift off to college. I don't have any now.

Yes, it is amazing how quickly children grow up, up and away. You finally get them to where you need them and the next moment they are gone. (Just me lamenting the loss of my two sons this fall.)

If by "becoming cantors" you mean "joining a Pueri Cantores choir", then by all means, you should!

The lack of cantors is a growing problem, mainly because there is this mistaken notion you have to have them. ... ... What were they thinking?

Well, perhaps, MS#21 (my emphases)

Especially where even a small choir is not possible, there must be at least one or more cantors, thoroughly trained ... . ... Even in churches having a choir ... celebrations a choir cannot attend ... some degree of solemnity, and thus with singing.

And then there is GIRM#104, which references MS#21,

It is fitting that there be a cantor or a choir director to direct and support the people’s singing. Indeed, when there is no choir, it is up to the cantor to direct the different chants, with the people taking the part proper to them.

It is presumably the responsibility of the pastor to fund the training, and the responsibilty of the bishop to ensure that suitable training is available.

I'm a 40 year choir member and cantor for about six years. I still sing in the choir and I'm the only tenor and there is another young man 40 years my younger who sings baritone. We're the men section. I think the reason for lack of choir members is the hymnody we sing, it's speaks of individualism, you, me and I. Or it speaks of things we don't believe in. For example, verses or refrains that say "Come eat bread and drink wine".

Every week seems like a mini concert. Personally I'm growing weary of it. So, if a veteran singer can recognize that the music being sung is bad can you blame young people for not wanting to join? We sing a lot of praise and worship stuff at adoration because young people are supposed to like that kind of stuff. Well let me tell you, I don't see a lot of young people at Mass let alone hear them singing.

I like Noel Jones advice. I think he hit nail on head.

We have a 14 yr old that sang a lesson at the Easter Vigil and he also sang another lesson for the Pentecost Vigil. EF so of course he sang in Latin to the Prophecy tone, he did very well and our Latin experts were impressed. He will be singing one of the longer prophecies next Easter Vigil!

He is normally part of the serving team, but as we are swamped with servers, I will try to grab him at least one a month to come and sing with the choir, and become one of the Cantors.

And wrong with 'stop singing ... the Gospel Alleluia', because in its familiar settings people sing it enthusiasticly. I would hope that a Catholic congregation could stretch to three English settings (plain, festal, and penitential) and at least two Latin Mass settings.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I am speaking of a priest who arrives at a parish to find no one to play the organ, no one to sing to lead singing alone or in a group. And a volunteer who really can't sing trying to lead them embarrassing them with her efforts.

At that point it is time to stop trying to sing anything that requires learning something new each week of the song leader/cantor. That's why it is best to not sing the psalm and alleluia.

This gives the priest time to figure out and find people to take musical leadership roles. Even if he has to hire a Seventh Day Adventist organist who is free to play for him on Sundays!

It's taking pressure off trying to do something in the liturgy that is beyond the ability of his current crowd.

SDA's do not pay their organists (in most circumstances) so in doing training sessions for to teach the organist about the new organ I've has as many as 10 organists for the church show up. So for the next year, as each one took a Saturday or two and played for the first time I would get calls for help - since they might only play 5 times a year. So it was a year of new organist's calls, though I didn't mind.

The Rev Percival Dearmer did say 'should not be expected to...', which isn't quite just plain 'shouldn't'. I'm sure that the repertory at Westminster Cathedral was not unique to the cathedral, neither in the Catholic nor the Anglo-Catholic worlds. Many CofE and Episcopalian congregations could at one time sing all eighteen of the Gregorian masses as put into English by a number of Anglican chant scholars.

At Walsingham we know only three ordinaries: Willan, Merbecke, and cum jubilo, all in Old Church English. I consider us to be rather lax in this regard and think that we should know at least two or three more - even though on some solemnities the cathedral choir do offer a choral setting.

As an ideal minimum I believe that a parish should have a setting for Advent and Lent, one for Christmas-Epiphanytide, one for Eastertide, one for the Sundays after Trinity, and one for solemnities. That would be a minimum of five. Unless chant is well represented throughout the year in a parish's musical repertory, the setting for penitential seasons should not be plainchant, lest people come to associate chant with sadness and penitence. (Plainchant is well represented in Walsingham's annual repertory and our people love it - they especially like the lesser propers a la Palmer-Burgess - and they are delighted when a solemnity happens, because they know that all three readings in the lectionary will be sung.)

Thanks, all! There have been times when I have sung a cappella hymns throughout Mass because there is no organist, and have omitted the Psalm and Alleluia because the congregation is better off if led with words instead of song. So I get that.

At the moment, our church has 2 cantors and no choir, and 1 Mass. We agreed to take turns so that we would not have to cantor each week. I have younger children than her, and her daughter is becoming interested in singing.

What I didn't mention is that I am a music teacher, and it does bug me when no music is sung or not sung well. So I'm one of those who is an advocate for teaching children (or any able person) to sing and to sing well for the Church.

Also: SC 113: "Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song, with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of the people."

The 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram reiterates that point, and expands on it, saying, among other things: "Pastors of souls will therefore do all they can to achieve this form of celebration." It calls the solemn Mass the "fuller form of liturgical celebration, in which everything that demands singing is in fact sung".

SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM

115. Great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in the novitiates and houses of study of religious of both sexes, and also in other Catholic institutions and schools. To impart this instruction, teachers are to be carefully trained and put in charge of the teaching of sacred music.
It is desirable also to found higher institutes of sacred music whenever this can be done.

Composers and singers, especially boys, must also be given a genuine liturgical training.

116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

117. The typical edition of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; and a more critical edition is to be prepared of those books already published since the restoration by St. Pius X.

It is desirable also that an edition be prepared containing simpler melodies, for use in small churches.

118. Religious singing by the people is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services, the voices of the faithful may ring out according to the norms and requirements of the rubrics.

119. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius, as indicated in Art. 39 and 40.

Therefore, when missionaries are being given training in music, every effort should be made to see that they become competent in promoting the traditional music of these peoples, both in schools and in sacred services, as far as may be practicable.

120. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man's mind to God and to higher things.

But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship, with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority, as laid down in Art. 22, 52, 37, and 40. This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful.

121. Composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures.

Let them produce compositions which have the qualities proper to genuine sacred music, not confining themselves to works which can be sung only by large choirs, but providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful.

The texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine; indeed they should be drawn chiefly from holy scripture and from liturgical sources.

Hawkins,

Surely "mission lands" doesn't mean the same thing in a technical legal sense as it does in the hands of wreckovators everywhere.


[purple] What is allowed in Africa must be allowed in every vernacular parish in America because the situations are absolutely identical, except that we really shouldn't take the Africans' lead on sexual morality or anything else we want to change. [purple off]

I believe that it was in the mid-1970s before the U.S. was no longer considered a mission country. And from the latest report from the Catholic Extension Society, there are still a large number of dioceses in the U.S. that qualify as a missionary diocese