Drum and Bugle Corps for Processions
  • NoahLovinsNoahLovins
    Posts: 11
    Has anyone ever had success organizing a drum and bugle corps to assist at processions? I’m aware that in most cases there are prescribed chants to be sung, but they should ideally be sung by all the faithful. The sad reality is that the faithful don’t know a lot of these songs. My idea is that in order to have the faithful hear these songs (and give the singers a break), a drum and bugle corps could help make the music heard across the entire procession.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,463
    We have had pipes and drums. Italians often have brass bands.

    Last year we didn’t get organized so we sang the chants on Corpus Christi, but we have no expectation that the faithful sing.
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 197
    This felt so true today on Palm Sunday, right? As I said to my schola in our rehearsal though, the liturgy stipulates that these chants are sung, not that these chants are heard by the faithful. We just use our voices on the palm Sunday processions.

    On extra-liturgical processions (we have such a thing on Good Friday), we do have a traditional brass band, but they play all their own stuff. It would be hard to imagine chant being accompanied or played that way.
  • NoahLovinsNoahLovins
    Posts: 11
    I know it’ll be controversial among the scholars, but the melodies could be easily arranged into marches that would be easily comprehensible. And those faithful who knew the words could sing along
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,463
    I would strongly discourage this. Either have them play their own music, or sing the chants.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 495
    I second the discouragement of arranging chant-based marches. There is nothing, however, to prevent singing Latin Eucharistic hymns to chorale melodies accompanied by brass. On the contrary, several such tunes (St. Thomas, Werner, Duguet, and Lambillotte Panis) are very well known by the faithful in this country. That doesn't help us much for Palm Sunday though. It is possible to use amplification with speakers at various intervals within the procession. At a previous position, I had decent success with putting half the choir at the back of the procession and coordinating the singing by means of a cell phone call between two cantors with earbuds—technology we all have at our disposal now.
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