Responsorial Psalms for School Masses?
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 117
    Would anyone have recommendations for collections or sources for Responsorial Psalms suitable for use at masses of a K-8 Catholic School? School masses tend to be on Thursdays quite often, and the pastoral preference is towards using the psalm in the lectionary proper to the day, and to sing as much as reasonably possible. That often ends up being one not in the collection of Sunday psalms we use in the parish on weekends. While the option of “just point the text and sing to a psalm tone” is a valid idea eventually, our school musician is new and comes from a low church Protestant background, so a ready to use resource would be better in these circumstances. Thanks for any suggestions you may have. Also any out of the box solutions that perhaps I am not thinking of are also welcome.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,110
    Perhaps Fr. Anthony Ruff's Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass might be what you need?

    https://litpress.org/Products/E3261/Responsorial-Psalms-for-Weekday-Mass

    It's arranged for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, and that's probably more than half of the school year right there. During Ordinary Time you might be able to use one of the settings from the other seasons if there is a match.

    I've attached the indices to help you decide whether the collection will work for you during Ordinary Time and one sample page so you can see how the psalms are formatted. Psalm verses are set to Meinrad tones.
    Indices.pdf
    1M
    sample.pdf
    2M
    Thanked by 2StephenMatthew Abbysmum
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 117
    I actually have a digital copy of that on our server somewhere now that you mention it. That will certainly cover much of the school year. I am not a huge fan of the antiphon melodies, but they are serviceable. The only difficult bit is how the verses are marked for accompaniment, but that can be learned.

    That does leave ordinary time to fill in for now. Hmm…
  • davido
    Posts: 1,150
    Source and Summit online program can supply a hymn for any weekday.
    But we switched to having the psalm read. There is not time to teach a psalm to kids weekly.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,181
    I took the psalm tone approach to psalmody last year. It worked reasonably well, although I did cantor, rather than the kids. I just made a simple meinrad-esque tone of my own, and then set the antiphon to loosely follow that contour, so each week sounded very similar, without being completely the same. It’s easy enough, and doesn’t take all that long to do.
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,183
    The Lectionary offers seasonal responses—one each for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter; six for Ordinary Time—to be used with the Responsorial Psalm verses of the day. Unfortunately, however, I cannot recommend any turnkey solutions to satisfy your particular situation.
  • lmassery
    Posts: 433
    I’m taking the liberty of setting all the daily Mass psalms to simple psalm tones and offering them for free at my site. The refrains are adapted to Gregorian tones, and the verses are meinrad. I’ll stay ahead of the collection by a few weeks. The engraving isn’t pristine but that’s because I’m doing them quickly. Gets the job done and they sound nice.

    https://www.antiphonrenewal.com/daily-mass-psalms
    Thanked by 4ServiamScores irishtenor Abbysmum Andrew_Malton
  • Mattspmusic0320
    Posts: 81
    Dr. Michael Accurso has a very comprehensive collection. I like the collection a lot, though at times the psalm tones used for the verses aren't always my favorite, but with a collection this comprehensive I can look the other way. But he has unique responses for nearly every occasion. If nothing else, it's a great collection to have simply because (my predecessor at my current position told me) "You can never have too many psalms"

    https://www.liturgicalmusicsource.com/products/psalms-for-the-sacred-liturgy
    Thanked by 2irishtenor CHGiffen
  • EpiphanySacredMusic
    Posts: 4
    Not aurally stimulating, but we use the school weekday masses as a chance to teach the students how to chant using the ICEL formula.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Bri
  • Mattspmusic0320
    Posts: 81
    @EpiphanySacredMusic Can you explain what the ICEL Formula is? I've heard of Meinrad Tones and a few other collections, but I have not heard of the ICEL Formula.
    Thanked by 1Andrew_Malton
  • hcmusicguy
    Posts: 66
    An option you could try is to just sing the refrain and have the verses read by a lector. We did this when I was in Catholic school in the 90s - choir sang the refrain of a setting that was of the typical HaugenHaas variety, and a student lector read the verses. Nothing new to have to teach every mass.
  • Bri
    Posts: 139
    @Mattspmusic0320

    This page has the ICEL chants:

    https://icelweb.org/musicfolder/openmusic.html

    Scroll to the middle of the page for the Ordinary.

    I'm not sure about a tone used for the Responsorial Psalm though.
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