(Ha! Aris best me to it!)

A footnote:
DM: Director of Music
is also often abbreviated as
MD: Music Director

If there are people in NPM who have the same intentions that we have - namely, restoring music to the liturgy that is sacred and reverent - we should work with them. They are not our enemies, regardless of what the umbrella organization does.

For what it's worth, I really did hear a lot said at the NPM conf. this year about reeling in the music that's gotten so far outside of "correctness." Especially with the so-called new text (didn't it used to be the old text?) so imminent, the call was made to re-evaluate what we do and strive for liturgical relevance and proper content. (Again, I'm speaking as a composer.) I found it amusing that any time during the prayer services we were required to sing chant, you could almost hear the "Ahhhhhhhhh!" of relief in the voices of participants. We want it. We do other things, but we love coming back to simple solemnity.

And hey, let me know if those hallway chant-alongs are going to be a reality next year. I'm in!

I think it also goes along with an observation of my own over time. Changes mandated top-down rarely work. Grass roots changes from the bottom up seem to have more success. We are the grass roots organization.

Priorstf, just a few comments on your suggestions-

1) A significant number of CMAAers attend the NPM conference and help boost the chant session participation

I don't know about anyone else's personal finances, but Wendy and I've absorbed every dollar's worth of travel, accomodation, event and incidental expenses for colloquiums, intensive, and tons of NPM and similar events over the decades. And we've had just two national events on the West Coast in those 36 years. Howabout CMAA offering interested NPMers who can day-trip to Pittsburgh gratis sessions or days, and put the financial onus upon those who, like us, have sought out "the chant?"

2) Arrange an evening Chant concert/presentation as part of the NPM conference

Gun to my head, asked what is the most compelling reason to participate in chant "sessions" at CMAA colloquiums (and by extension, the final liturgy at an intensive) is that such are not conducted for presentation in the vacuum of demonstration or inspiration. Would the convention leadership at a national NPM agree to a liturgical celebration in the manner of nightly Compline, without any other competing "events" and with encouragement evident from that leadership that the conventioneers make every effort to join in worship at said liturgy, that would be a sign of full faith and credit exchanged between our organizations.
Even Br. Ed Schaefer's Gonzaga Schola portion of the Los Angeles ACDA national worship music event, the most beautiful segment of the night, seemed incongruant within the larger mix and in the environs of Our Lady of the Angels.

4) Organize impromptu chant singalongs in the hallways

Organize v. impromptu? I get what you mean. Heck, when I left NPM in '99 there were hardly any impromptu anythings in hotel hallways or ballrooms left. The campfire mentality had already seen its day by the mid-80's, really.

5) Prepare a traditional Gregorian Chant Vespers and/or Mass

See comment for #2. But I stress, NPM ought to insure that there is no other competing event, if they want to pay more than lip service to the mandate of "Pride of Place." Now, were that to actually happen, everything within me sings it would be the most significant event in 21st century American liturgical catechesis advancement.

6) Get a booth at the NPM conference and sell PBC and other Chant-oriented materials
7) Volunteer in local and regional NPM meetings to conduct chant sessions

No problem with these two above.

8) Work with NPM committees to encourage the inclusion of Chant language into their materials
9) Develop standards for cantor/DM certification with traditional Church music to parallel NPM certification
and most importantly

I'm not sure what #8 actually means. And #9, in light of the "top-down" commentary above, with which I heartily agree, seems way too premature at this stage of TROTR evolution.

10) Stop badmouthing NPM and the various publishing companies who have chosen to partner with this largest organization of Catholic musicians.

I believe this is a personal mischaracterization of which I've not personally encountered at CMAA events. "Badmouthing" like beauty, must apparently be in the eye of the beholder, as the members I've come to know and love have yet to demonstrate less than charity towards all, and malice towards none. Concerns and debates over business and legal practices that are problematic within the realms inwhich we labor don't necessarily constitute "badmouthing."
If I report my verifiable account of a "conga-line" of costumed dancers winding around aisles in a Las Vegas parish during the singing of a Afro-Carribean-style Gospel Acclamation at a culminating "Celebration of the Eucharist" of one of these groups you cite, without any editorial critique, does that still and automatically qualify as "badmouthing?"

Back in '79 to those mid-80's, I was enthralled at what I then perceived as great advances musically leading us out of the folksy morass that was early FEL, NALR, WLP and charismatic-inspired repertoire that dominated the musical attributes of Masses. And they were to be found at the national NPM's, absolutely. But, the lustre of the light malignantly grew into crass commercialism TO MY TASTES, and by my own estimation, I left Pittsburgh '99 (with Wendy) and both of us wondering, outside of BFW and Michael Thompson's Kyriale, "wha' happened?' Nothing for us, apparently. I'm sure if you ask Fr. James Chepponis for his recollections, you'll get an entirely different perspective.
CMAA represents a personal credo for me that I take great pains to stealthily, inoffensively and charitably try to remind our parish leadership every time we have a staff retreat or session whose purpose is to manufacture some new "mission" statement; our organizations cannot, by definition, be "all things to all people." So, I applaud you, the CMAA "leadership" (in the whole sense) and others here in this forum for building from the grass line up.

Dear FNJ,
In the spirit of charity, could you clarify with me that the term "crass commercialism" is our personal characterizations, and not representative of the CMAA organization?
Really.

I'll drink to that, FNJ! Bushmills or Jameson?

Not atoll, m'fair Lass, ain't yet met its acquaintance, a thin' ye canna remedy, can ye not?
In the meantime, Absinthe makes my heart grow fonda.

Do you plan on having sessions the next morning? I mean, really. Found a bartender on the coast couple of weeks ago, did the whole ritual. Lucky the restaurant was directly across the street; and the duck was wonderful.

Just as long as it's not that green bilge that was cheerily touted by a certain, otherwise-tasteful member of our company in the LUC dining hall this summer ...

Yum on that amazing green kiwi juice that doth floweth from the juice machine - both beautiful and delicious.

However, for XX it must be XX.

Jeffrey was the sole advocate of that beverage. I tried it at his insistence and went right back to Diet Coke.

ps our final sung Ordinary this year was Rheinberger's Mass for double choir in E flat Op. 109. That's a kind of musical Absinthe, too.