Trouble with Psalm Settings
  • Joseph_M
    Posts: 21
    Looking for suggestions and guidance. When I started at the parish, they had just switched from the Ignatius Pew Missal to ILP SAH with SttL psalms matching the lectionary in the hymnals. I believe there was some push back over all the chant and not being able to read square notes, so a "hymnal committee" came up with options and chose this. I think the previous DM and priests were more in favor of Credo, but went with SAH at the recommendation of the committee. We still sing the same hymns that were in the Pew Missal.

    I've learned since this change occurred two years ago, that nobody thought to look at the settings of the Psalms when the committee went through various hymnals. This has created multiple issues. We are a small/rural area with volunteers. They can't sing these modern melodies. Our biggest church in the parish abandoned these altogether and still sing the Ignatius Pew Missal settings. I heard complaints from a few people that they "don't have the music in their hymnals." I tried meshing the refrain and setting verses to Meinrad tones (is this legal?). It's been a mixed success. The Pew Missal settings are so simple and should be entrenched in memory by now that folks should simply be able to listen and repeat.

    At the end of the day, our cantors sing the Ignatius Pew Missal very well and knowing they have little time to practice it makes sense to stick with that. However, I'd like to find a better solution, if one exists, where we can have "chant" style Psalms that are more elaborate like the Source and Summit, and somehow maybe even provide the congregation with the music. I feel like we are just stuck with these SAH until at least 2028, which I may have to come to terms with.

    Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated

  • CatholicZ09
    Posts: 336
    The only thing I can think of is making a weekly worship aid printed with the psalm that you’re using. It means more work for you (assuming you don’t do a weekly worship aid), but it would provide the correct psalm setting.

    My parish has Gather 3 in the pews, but we often don’t use the Guimont psalms from its lectionary, so we just print the refrain of the psalm we’re using in the worship aid (often from OCP’s Respond & Acclaim).

    I would actually like to see us use the Guimont psalms more often, but I digress on that subject.
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 652
    If you’re happy with the ILP hymns, just buy the Source & Summit Companion Edition next year. https://www.sourceandsummit.com/missal/companion-edition This edition has no hymns, just the readings and propers, all chant-based, in modern notation. Have both in the pews. Maybe in 28 you switch to the S&S version which includes the hymns. Regardless you get the S&S software, which will permit you to print many more hymns in leaflets if you so desire.
  • davido
    Posts: 1,161
    Yes, printing the music of a better psalm in the worship aid is your best course. But like you said, the IPM psalms are so simple that they shouldn’t need the music. Plus the ILP psalms are so bad that having the music doesn’t make them much easier.
    See if you can get a page, or half a page, in the bulletin to put your psalm response and music list on. Then you are not adding a new piece of paper into parish life. Sell it as, “this will get the bulletin into the hands of every parishioner.”
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,195
    You could always just be honest with the parish and write a bulletin article explaining that, while the parish has embraced the new hymnals, the psalmody is a less-than-optimal fit, so you'll be substituting more appropriate settings (returning to the settings with which they are already familiar). They can follow along with the text in the pew missals / hymnals, however they will simply need to learn the psalm refrain the old fashioned way: by ear. Call and response. (As has been done around the world for 60 years.).

    Comprehensive worship aids are relatively novel for anything but special circumstances. It's really only with the proliferation of easy, cheap printing and consumer typesetting software that these have even become a 'thing'. I grew up at a parish where we did not have the music to the psalms in front of us; we simply sang back what the cantor intoned. It's not rocket science. You just have to explain that there will be a shift in approach, but that it's perfectly doable, so just try it (pretty please). And remind them that it is only one short refrain a week, and they will have the rest of the music in their books. That's not too much to ask. Have the pastor reiterate the message in a positive way, too, so you present a united front, and it's not just the music director being the 'bad guy'.
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  • Joseph_M
    Posts: 21
    I appreciate the feedback. Since we don’t print many bulletins now with online availability, it seems the best course is for the pastor and I to communicate things to the parish, and sing the IPM settings which we do very well.
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