Harmonic hints to improvisors have been part of music publishing as long as there's been published harmony. Musicians of all skill levels can and do make good use of them.

May St Cecilia and St Jean Vianney bless all hard working amateur musicians bringing what they can to small, poor parishes.

"Any hymnal with guitar chords is a direct indication that there is little interest in attracting trained musicians to lead music in the church."

Someone should tell this guy to knock it off, then.

Oh, and the sentence above is followed immediately by: "I would suggest that extremely basic organ accompaniments of two or at most three parts for manuals only would be a very welcome addition to any hymnal"

Do we want trained or untrained musicians? Or is it that we want untrained organists and trained guitarists? That's a recipe for making the organ an even less popular instrument.

I think that chords should be attached to all hymn type music, and even to a lot of chant as well. I am an organist, and I use chords which I improvise on all the time, the reason
being that I do not like a lot of the recently composed accompaniments to recently composed chant. They are all written by young men who have obviously been to college and learned there the art of impure and ugly composition. There is way too much discordant conflict in these pieces. These accompaniments sound as ugly as the stuff OCP puts out. I also question a walking bass being done all the time, especially to chant.
And if you are going to have a walking bass, why not do it in parallel fifths? That would create a more hollow, pure, churchy sound. Why make everything sound so blastedly contemporary?

When I mentioned chords I did not intent to promote the use of guitars in chant. I simply meant that it would be extremely useful for organists who have no other alternative, either due to lack of time or training, which I have found in my experience is most commonly the case; and that such a help would be better than nothing seeing that it would at least perform the essential function of supporting vocals. It would be rare, in my experience, that a struggling choir, upon seeing that there are no chords, would be spurred on to learn the full accompaniment; but on the contrary, would be forced to reject it as simply not possible due to factors (work, kids, etc.) beyond their control. Otherwise the project would only be feasible for the elite minority of parishes with a professionally trained organist.

Now I am very sorry for mentioning this topic, causing such a tangent in this discussion about Mr. Bartlett's very beautiful work. I apologize.

Gavin, read what I wrote, "additions" to any hymnal....not replacements for well-written accompaniments.

If there are no chord symbols, I often "think" of them as the harmonies occur ... but that may be due to my training.

What confuses me is the purist attitude ... as if playing an improvised organ accompaniment looking at chord symbols (or making one up without symbols at all!) is less worthy of the liturgy than playing the exact 4-part harmony.

When reading out of a book like Respond & Acclaim, I'm looking at everything ... I almost never play from the notation explicitly, but also look at the chord symbols, or sometimes make something else up entirely.


And what if I were to simply write roman numerals beneath a 4-line notation chant? I've often done that as well. Is that not the medieval "chord symbol" practice, and should we frown on that as well?


Whatever works, IMO. Music is sound. Make a beautiful sound.

Continuo musicians would often play off a melody line with Roman numerals underneath. Maybe not "medieval" ... baroque would be a more accurate time period.

In any case, the practice of creating accompaniments from a "shorthand" notation system is not a new concept. It goes back centuries. Whether you use Roman numerals or modern chord symbols doesn't matter (although numerals are often easier for transposition! ... as are square notes ... but I digress).

P.S. you can use Roman numerals for modal music. You just wont find a V7 in a minor mode, or a bVII anywhere. Who's to say, though, that we couldn't look at the SEP communion for Christ the King that I posted, and analyze it as:

I iii(64) IV(6) V(6) vi iii(64) IV I



But again, that's not the point I wanted to make. It's not a new thing to work from chord symbols or Roman numerals. Whatever works. Music is sound. Make a beautiful sound.

I'm not sure anyone denigrated (seriously) any form of chordal nomenclature as detrimental to accompanying singing. But like jazz, whether at the compositional stage to the performance stage, the musician has an obligation to accurately notate then realize harmonic construct. That, like continuo figuration, in no way inhibits improvisatory possibilities.


Points:
*My thrust simply states that SEP/LCM et al non metrical chant is basically incongruous with what FNJ rightly describes as maintaining the flow and intelligibility of the text. So, in that, I align with Chuck. OTOH, I'm graced to have an organist with perfect pitch and a brilliant improvisational mind, so as SEP is not bound to key, we have a happy and often quite poignant outcome of that providence.
*The realization obligation: I maintain a strong affection for the boldness of Todd Flowerday's assertions that "the problem" isn't so much repertoire-based, but performance based. This problem in modern RC composition has been with us since the SLJ watershed, when they "insisted" that guitarists/pianists learn and hone their skills to at least observe the bass inversions, or the so-called "walking bass." 38 years later, I'd wager that for every guitarist/bassist/keyboardist who reads lead sheets with precision, there are 1000 who are quite satisfied not to, and who could barely describe suspension, seventh or inversion symbols, if asked. That's why most modern stuff sounds boring. It's just the same six chords capo'd, rehashed, misplayed, etc.
*The insistence from the editors at major publishers to dumb down chordal assignments. I remember that even GIA's WORSHIP II guitar volume, the best of the lot between the others, still was deficient in that the editors assumed guitarists could not manage left hand shifts per beat as is the nature of hymnody. This is by far, save for mediocre Mass settings, OCP's worst editorial offense.
*The inability of guitarists and keyboardists to discern a variety of accompaniment styles as appropriate to specific styles and pieces. Strum strum diddily strum or quarter note pounding of double hand chords on a keyboard are incredibly destructive, in fact an assault (no matter how well intentioned) upon the congregation.

End of lecture.

Chuck, does that mean I have to stop bringing my serpent to Mass?

*wry smile* ... I purposely did not mention serpent, ophecleide, or sackbut - all instruments I happen to appreciate very much. On the other hand, I'm not used to these instruments being used for playing chant melody, but rather in accompanying certain kinds of polyphony and, following known practice in the case of the serpent and ophecleide, doubling lower parts (usually the bass) to guard against pitch drift.

Just the opposite, you're still in the spa end!
Name one poster on the forum besides Pedro D'quino who isn't "crazy"? (Oh, I forgot eft! Crazies do that.)
Have a great Advent.

Question about Litanies:

Should the litanies to the BVM (1037) and St. Joseph (1038) read "Pray for us" instead of "Have mercy on us" when referring to the saints?